Adventures In Metal

For the past few months, every now and then I'll pick up a bit of pipe, take it to my dad and wave it in his face chanting "jumps, jumps, jumps" until he gets up to help me with yet another prototype.

None have worked. Something about my dad being a perfectionist and the pipe being round and the jump cups not sticking...

Whatever.

The point is we're now looking at making some metal ones- the uprights, that is, with the bar a bit of the aforementioned pipe. Dad's a self taught welder so it should be interesting; once my fence is finished and he's recooped from the stress of it all, we'll be looking into getting started on some of my agility equipment. I'm hoping I can track down- or have dad "borrow" some from work- bits of metal to make the jumps out of that aren't going to break my bank account further than it already has been. He's also had a "brilliant idea" on how to make my proper set of weave poles with a metal base and pipe poles. He kind of had a heart attack when I requested a set of twelve, and the relief was evident when I reconsidered the future use of the weave poles and changed to two sets of three- handy for teaching channel weaves.

I've also located some rather conveniently shaped bits of metal under the boat that could be used as a starting base for either a dog walk or, with a bit of hacking, seesaw. I've got to get my creative hat on, my dad motivated, and some spare cash to devote to building it all.

And I've tracked down some pretty reasonably priced star pickets from the local farm supply store. $4.60 for a five foot picket- seven of those to add onto the five ones we found in the back garden along with the roll of dog wire should bring the basic fence to a fairly low total cost of just over $160. Not including the gate, but I'm sure dad can just knock one up with bits and pieces laying around here- and we're going to dismantle the Fence to Nowhere, the old bird house feeding thing that is never used and the weird log do-da that dad made ages ago to get the corner posts. With the left over concrete from cementing my cockatiel aviary, that's cutting back some costs as well.

It's all falling into place, but my puppy still hasn't been born yet; the breeder has said she'll email me as soon as there's any news, and today is day sixty three of the bitch's pregnancy, so surely I must hear something soon. Tension... It's killing me slowly.