A Visit To Cristom Winery

I met up with a friend on Thursday at Cristom Winery. She wanted to get some pictures of her dogs, and of her with her dogs, and asked if I would take some pictures of them in exchange for wine tasting and a bottle of wine. SOLD.



Cristom has both beautiful vineyards and a beautiful garden. Their garden was in full flare, green, bright pops of color from the flowers, wonderful winding brick paths leading through it, and a pair of awesome metal benches.



Since we were at such an amazing location, I needed to get pictures of my own dogs as well, of course. And Nancy volunteered to take some pictures of me with my dogs, since that is a rare occurrence for me to get.



Despite my head being partially cut off, I love this picture she got of the dogs coming down the stairs into the garden area. Of course, a person sitting on the ground at the bottom of the stairs was a great motivator for my dogs to CHARGE.



Even the tasting room was amazing. They have an entire outdoor area with tables of various sizes, and these gorgeous French doors. Indoors is all wood, barrels, and wine.



And of course, I did get some pictures in the vineyard. I pulled out the blue chair again, and I still am loving the color it provides.



Each of the dogs got their turn on the chair. It was blaringly hot, since the only time that really worked for both of us was meeting at 11. With full sun, it didn't provide the best lighting for portraits, but we worked with it.



And then I had to shove both of my dogs onto the chair. The chair, by the way, has a rather teeny tiny seat area. The good part about having a corgi as one of my dogs is that he, in fact, fits underneath Koira's belly.



I'm going to share some of the photos of my friend's dogs later. If I pulled out all my favorite pictures and put them all in one blog post, it would be HUGE.

After finishing up at the winery, I went to PetSmart to kill some time and then we headed to flyball practice. Both dogs did relatively good. I did run Pallo. I am now wondering if something just scared him at some point, if it is the heat, or if it is my injury over the past two months that has him freaked out, because he just seems reluctant, not like he is actually in pain. Also, the pain medication we had him on for a week did not seem to change his behavior at all.

Koira did her normal inconsistent thing. She had some really good turns. She had some really bad ones too. It seems like, by putting the front of the box up on a box jump prop, then doing "hit its" with no ball. When she does a few good ones, I have a ball put in the box. Then we do a few of those. Then switch back to hit its with no ball. I'm not sure how much forward progress we are making... (Her foot, by the way, was fine. She is still limping a little with it, but I think it is more an irritation or slight tenderness more than actual pain. It is healing really well.)