Ginny Entertaining Herself

I took Ginny Across the Road a couple of days ago. I did not take the ball thrower thing but she knows how to entertain herself with the ball. She drops it over the edge of the canal into the water and then goes after it. There is a video here. I wasn’t thinking in terms of a blog post at the beginning of this little story so I didn’t take photos to explain this. The photo below shows what this canal (more of a a cement lined ditch) looks like at a different point in our walk.

Most of the time it is fine for Ginny to purposely put the ball in the canal because she gets it out herself but this time she put it in a part of the canal where the water is backed up be a dam and then flows through in a kind of waterfall. That is what is shown at the end of the video.

At that point there is a drop off of a four or five feet and the water flows quickly and swirls in continuous eddies. Ginny is too smart (or too timid) to go in after the ball at that location. That’s a good thing because I think it would be dangerous for her. However I couldn’t get to the ball either. This is the tail end of the “rapids” but doesn’t really catch the swirling action of the water. And the angle of the cement wall is such that I couldn’t keep my feet under me and try to reach. There is are wood planks over the ditch but they are too high from the water for me to reach. I was sitting or kneeling here at the edge of the ditch to try and get to the ball but couldn’t reach it. Ginny doesn’t understand why I don’t just get it for her.

I found a stick and could reach the ball some of the time when it appeared but the water was swirling too much to be able to make any progress getting the ball closer to me with the stick. I found a forked stick thinking I would maybe have better luck. That still didn’t help. I needed a net. I had a leash with me.

I made enough of a net with the leash that I was finally able to drag the ball close enough to the edge where I could get it.

Then we continued our walk. I was proud of my newly made tool.

Here is the next obstacle. There isn’t a steep drop off here but there is a culvert where the two roads connect. Notice where Ginny is.

She dropped her ball there and it didn’t take long for it to disappear into the culvert.

You’d think it would be a simple enough thing to get it at the other end.

We waited. ..

…and tried the other end again. I dropped a few sticks in to see when they would come out. The sticks and the ball never appeared. That’s the second ball we’ve lost to this part of the canal. I don’t know if there is a whole cache of balls there but they are stuck in there somehow, along with the sticks that I dropped..

We continued the walk.

I found this a ways down the road. They had just disked the filed and I wonder if this turned up and someone threw it out of the field onto the road. Between my dogs and C&M’s dogs we have lost plenty of balls out in those fields.

This ball has seen better days.

This was the next place that Ginny rolled the ball over the edge. This time it didn’t go very far—just to the rocks a few feet down.

Ginny took the newly found ball down into the big canal where she got a drink of water and the ball didn’t make it back. I think that one probably sank.

Most of you have seen this view before. That’s our barn on the right and the house is hidden by the trees. What is remarkable about this photo is the view of the hills. and the blue sky—such a refreshing change after what seemed like months of smoke-filled skies that completely hid those hills.