This weekend next I’m again in Denver doing a dog agility handler’s seminar. There might be an open working spot and certainly always room for auditors. If you’re interested you should contact Zona Tooke at Zona@RMAgility.com. I know I’m not giving you much notice…

I tend to write two or three weblog entries every time I get to while away my days in airports. So maybe I’ll be a more frequent presenter over the next week or so. On Sunday past I did a semi-private lesson for three ladies from the Pittsburgh area. One who has trained with me here and there over the years commented that something that I was teaching them was different than what I taught a few years ago. Yep, that’s true. I got thinking on the phenomenon a bit later. And you know, I am not who I was three years ago. I’m not who I was five years ago. And, I’m certainly not who I was ten years ago.

From time to time I’ll set up from a lesson plan that I wrote six or seven years ago or ten. And always I’ll read with interest what I wrote then, being fairly sure what my take would be today. Surely there is a certain persistence of vision. It occurs to me that changes to fundamental belief systems are seldom huge leaps or drastic changes. Mostly change is slight and slow with all the subtle craft of evolution.

Romweber's Two-Headed cow

A fellow down in Watertown is tearing down a couple of old houses. I offered to buy as much of the 1″ lumber as he can salvage at four boards for a dollar. Next thing you know he’s dropping loads of this old lumber at my house 100 planks at a time. To his point of view it’s probably a pretty good deal. Mostly he would just shove all the old lumber into a pile and burn it all in preference to paying any hauling fee to the dump.

And so I’ve found myself involved in an amazing reclamation project. This wood is well over a hundred years old. It is a mix of oak and pine and cherry and cedar. The first thing I need to do with this old wood is get all the nails out of it. I’ve filled up a 3 lb coffee can already from the nails I’ve pulled.

And then I have to cut the wood for various projects. Mostly I’m interested in the wainscot in the training building. But I also have a couple dog-fences to build around the two cottages and a perimeter fence for the whole property. The perimeter fence will be mostly woven wire. However at every drive gate and man gate I’ll put up a wooden fence on either side before fading away to wire.

Working with the wood is a bit of an archeological study. For example, on some of the wood under a layer of old sheetrock I’ll find wall-paper four or five layers thick; and under all of that three or four layers of paint directly on the wood.

Some of the oldest nails are square things. I try to imagine the hands of some carpenter back in the first few years of the 20^th Century pounding down heavy oak planks with these nails. Much of the wood is tongue and groove. Though mostly I’ll wind up ripping away both tongue and groove sides on my table saw because somewhere along the length of the plank these more fragile bits are damaged. I get a kick out of cutting down to wood that shows firm white. And I’ll have projects for this wood that was milled when my grandma was a baby. And it is old heavy solid stuff that will last a hundred years wherever I put it.

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I have too many projects. I found myself the other night sketching out the back-yard garden and plotting square foot by square foot what vegetables I will grow. I worked up a spread-sheet that gives me dates for seeding and dates for transplants.  

Questions comments & impassioned speeches to Bud Houston: dogwoodbud1@earthlink.net. And Checkout my new publication the Idea Book – Agility Training for a Small Universe available at www.dogagility.org/store.