Woofcicles, - Kin's take

Kin's take:

I love these lollies.

Cold and chewy, and my human has taken to giving me these on a fairly regular basis.

Just wished they lasted longer...




Nurhan's comment: Met (I think he's called) Morten, in the supermarket. He's a friendly chap who has a Scottish Deer Hound, and both Karma, & Kin have met them whilst we've been on local trips. Morten, was getting bags of frozen pork chops and we got to talking and he mentioned that he gave these to his dog frozen, and it was treated as a delicacy... Never had any problems with the bones, just so long as they weren't cooked. Now Kin is fussy when it comes to food, but thought it was worth a try. Kin loves them, frozen is no problem, I've never seen any remains after five minutes! And at 36 kr for a bag of five, they are way cheaper that 'conventional ice creams'. 

Loch Ness Monster, More SIV, Snakes, Volley ball, ski jumping, tents - Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Could this be an answer for the Loch Ness Monster? Bit of bluring... low light conditions?

This last week should have been the beach volley ball in Stavanger:

This was a great week in Stavanger. We've had the volley ball for ~eight years (incidentally, I'm told that if you look really closely, you can see a ball in this picture... yet to spot it...). The whole of the harbour area was converted into volley ball courts with all the sand shipped in (to start off we had this one week and then they moved the sand around the corner and had beach football). Sadly this is no more...

Although some smart person came up with this fantastic idea:

Complete with bubble machine at landing to break the surface tension, so it didn't matter how you landed.

Now Kin hasn't been good in crowd situations before, so this was a perfect opportunity to expose him to crowds and folk wanting to meet him, and he did very well, lots of folk stopped him to get a picture with him and he was fine :-) Although whilst I was watching this he did climb up on the bench next to me and gave the man sitting next to him a friendly lick, which I only discovered as he had a bit of an adverse reaction to this traditional Newfoundland greeting. Still there were so many folk around laughing he did see the funny side of it (and you get very used to appologising  for Newfoundland dogs if you live with one!). 

Got a whole heap of new pics of the SIV kurs from Pawel and Mel. Here you can see Kin going around checking on all the pilots before we head for the start.

 Kin watching me as I head off to go and do stuff I don't really want to do, so have the condemned man look about me.

 Kin resigned to a long wait.

 One of the best pics of me flying, which is ironic as I really wanted to be on the ground on this flight. Very strange conditions at take off, and with paragliders we don't have huge safety margins... therefore if the air is being funny (and we know about it) we don't fly.

 At landing which was in between the tents :-) Here Frode is giving feedback on SIV exercises. Note the life jacket that I'm wearing SIV courses are done over the water as if you do get into trouble you have less chance of being injured if you land in water than on the land (we have a rescue boat in the water as well, which one pilot made use of, and I have on a previous course).

 Stavanger Aftenblad seems to like having pictures of three family generations, does this count, Mum, Kin, and I?!

Not really sure what's going on here but it's a good pic and one of the few that has both Kin & I in it.

 Mel had kindly offered to drive the buss up to the take off for us, she also kept an eye on Kin, and unbeknownst to me, took the little chap for a walk, whilst we were up top engaged in the age old art of para-venting (para-waiting for conditions to improve so we can fly... even if you didn't take a dip in the sea, you got very wet this weekend!)

Now Mel has known Kin from when he was a puppy, and she's Canadian, but she still made an elemental error when close to water with a Newfie, and I have no idea how she didn't let go of the lead when he did what comes so naturally for a Newfie and ran in the water, bearing in mind that Kin has quite a few kilos on Mel... good effort Mel.

 Main time that I Newfie is really 'dangerous'... 

He had to have a run in the snow on the way home (and on the way to the SIV kurs). Although he was a bit tired and had to be helped up into the car.

Thanks to Pawel and Mel for the above sequences of pics.

 He was pretty tired, here he is sleeping after opening my bedroom door, he's sleeping with his head on the door sill as then he has full control of what's going on.

Top of the stairs is another Favorite, where he has 'full' control...

Here he is behind the car waiting for the trip that he knows will come when we finish flying.

Unlike when he's walking. I'm beginning to think that he's got some kind of internal radar, as I've noticed that I've never seen him stand on a slug... One walk we were on he stepped right over an Adder (poisonous snake), I don't think he noticed it, BUT he stepped over it, not on it (have snake venom in glove compartment of car, problem would be to get him back to the car). Didn't manage to get a pic of it, but it hissed at me. I've met a big one while climbing before and he was on the ledge I wanted to get onto... this one was maybe 300 mm long and about 10 mm wide, but you should have seen the speed with which it moved off the path and disappeared into the undergrowth. On the same walk he stepped over a toad, and I don't think he noticed this one either!

 Think this pic is from 2005. This is Karma, with his head in the tent, while we are on a trip up into the mountains. At this time I had two tents, this small, light weight one hoop tent which is excellent, and a South Col of Everest (this is not an exaggeration) 3 man dome tent. One wild night on the island of Skye, in a climbers campsite, when we went to bed there were about 30 tents in the morning there were two that survived the night, both Terra Novas (a North Face Expedition tent had the poles broken in the early morning by some of the more savage gusts). Couldn't find a TN tent but the dome tent I have is the same design as (Father Stomping Ted) Kennedy's Terra Nova Hilton (came from Mountain Equipment Co-Op in Canada) - great tent, as is the above Coleman's tent, which was cheap and is fantastic, based on the good experience I've had with that tent, and the experience from the SIV kurs, I had a brainwave (okay, sometimes I can be quite slow), why not find a tent that Kin can sleep in as well... A search for Coleman tents led me to:


http://solvkroken.no/


Norwegian supplier of Coleman's products (incidentally Coleman's many years ago used to be the importers of Hobie Cats to Europe - and I sailed Hobies at the time). 

This tent isn't sold as such, but it's a two man (or preferably one man, one woman), and one dog tent - and Kin can sleep inside :-) Ideal for car camping.

 Now you can't get a Gortex jacket for 2000 NOK, but you can get this tent!


And the service from the above website was excellent, tent was at the post office within two days of ordering it.

 Here we are trying it in the garden, rather than in the dark, rain, wind,... which is the more normal way that folk learn how to erect their tents and find out what's missing (in this case nothing).

 Think Kin approved.

Although he didn't seem convinced that he couldn't sleep in the inner part!

And finally the search for cabins goes on. Here's David with us as we go and have a look at two cabins that are/were for sale. Still looking.

SIV Kurs in Lysefjord - how not to deploy a reserve: Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Still plenty of snow in the mountains, this is from the reservoir road that heads in towards Langevatn STF cabin. Plenty enough to make a continuous ski trip above 900 m elevation - however it started to rain on the Friday evening when we arrived, and rained on and off the entire weekend. This was unfortunate as the reason for being in Lysebotn was to partake in a misleadingly called paragliding 'safety course', this is a course where you do most things that you never want to do with a paraglider, it's done over water with a rescue boat below, so if you screw up you should manage to throw your reserve parachute, land in the water and be picked up by the rescue boat.

Not the best picture but my mother was with us, course really wasn't her 'cup of tea' although I did ask her if she'd like to do the course as a passenger for a tandem pilot - surprisingly she declined (picture was taken on the way back on the Sunday when heavy rain had caused considerable meltage).

Above picture gives a pretty good idea of how the weekend was. We were staying in 'tentsville' with Per (who's previously looked after the little chap) doing a sterling job with organising a  kitchen tent. Kin slept in the boot of the car or on the grass, small tent below is mine, and I failed to get a picture of Kin standing (wet) inside my tent.

Landing was at the campsite which was cool. Sadly given the conditions most of us didn't manage much air time, plenty of paraventing.

For the other pilots who were wondering why I landed with a reserve parachute jamed between my thighs, I said if I had footage I'd post it. Things went pear shaped for me on exiting the full stall. On releasing the breaks, one arm whipped up and off we went. Now last safety course I should have thrown my reserve, this one I was way too early throwing as I had plenty of height to recover, but believing I was going to go into an unrecoverable spiral dive owning to twisted risers, I tried to throw my reserve, for the pilots amongst you spot the obvious error:

Please see link for how you should throw the reserve:

http://kin-newfie.blogspot.no/2011/03/reserve-packing-nurhan.html

See this is dead easy in the gym, with a whole 100 mm of air between your feet and the ground. SIV course was worth doing purely and simply that if I need my reserve I won't make this mistake again... still it saved me getting wet (well wet from salt water, anyway).

{Post script note, Arvid posted this: http://vimeo.com/44721634   which a link of everyone's flights on the SIV kurs from the ground}.

As stated, way more meltage on the way home:

Rotten snow, crap for skiing, but Kin loved it, complained when we drove by so had to stop and let him have a play.

Water Rescue Course - Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Last week was spent at a water rescue course in Bergen. Bergen has an environment for this which isn't just Newfies. Above picture is taken ten minutes walk from cabin that my mother and I were staying at, and sadly Kin wasn't allowed in...

This was as far as the scope of his lead let him get. He was fine outside but I'm used to having him about and was a bit worried having him sleeping outside in a new place, that said he was fine the two evenings that he slept outside, although on returning home he didn't want to go in the back garden if the door wasn't going to be open.

He was a bit skeptical on the ferry, which is a surprise as we've been on plenty. On the way back to Stavanger the little chap wouldn't get out of the car, but think this was more to do with the fact that he was tired. Lots of new experiences for him.

Sadly I don't have very many pics of him on the actual course, mainly owing to the fact that I was in the water training with him. Here I'm in the water trying to convince him to join me directly off the pontoon. Diving is something that he's never done before. Karma (my old Newfie) 'managed' it once, he was about four months at the time and was on a jetty and he was leaning out to inspect ducks (Karma inspected everything, he even once swallowed a stinging jelly fish...) and being only four months old he was a bit clumsy and over balanced and managed to land on his back in the water with all four legs in the air!

Shortly after the above picture was taken, Kin decided to join me:

If you look carefully you can see some black fur just above the water's surface, this was Kin's first ever dive!

Then I had to sprint, as Kin doesn't believe that I should be in the water and his response verges on panic until I am out of the water. Try to distract him as much as you like, but it makes no difference, he's totally focused on me and swims straight to me, claws and all, when he arrives he doesn't know what to do, so keeps pawing me, which as his paws are bigger than my hands and his nails are considerably longer, isn't the most pleasant of experiences.

What he should do is this:

This is another Newfie, Odin, towing Unni in.

Not sure which dog the above is.

 Above is a Newfie.

 This and the next three pics are the same Leon Berger

 The above and the below pictures are a Spanish Water Dog, had a Portuguese WD as well on the course.

 Never seen a German Shepherd, doing this but he was good.

 Next three are a Newfie.

 Below is another Leon Berger.

Amazingly enough did manage to get Kin to pass his SoR (Swimming and Rescue Test), amazing because part of the test is to rescue the owner; some creative thinking from the instructors, Inger-Anne, and Hanne actually managed to get Kin (reluctantly) to tow me in. Kin & I now have some things to work on.

Now despite the sun, it wasn't hugely hot, which can amply be seen by the choice of summer garment Unni is wearing:

My wardrobe is definitely missing one of these fine garments! Says he typing this up in the evening when it's a sweltering 6 deg C outside (not including windchill...).

Now all Newfies are cute, but I really wanted to bring this little lady home:

Nina, I think is four months old - this colour of Newfie is known as a Landseer, after a British painter of the same name who had this coloured Newfie's and was good at getting them in his paintings (as opposed to most Newfies who are good at being painted - wooden houses in Norway need regular painting on the outside, and  Newfies being naturally curious isn't always the best combination!

I'd like to say a big 'thank-you' to the instructors and the participants (two & four legged) who made this so much fun.

This is Kin relaxing after a hard day of trying to keep me out of the water!