Looking at the weather it appears to be overcast and rainy at our next race station with a break in the weather next Wednesday. We will keep all of you up to date on if the next 250 M race will be earlier.
In the meantime the birds will continue to be trained and on days they are not road trained they will loft fly. This way they will stay sharp and when we do have a break in the weather they will be properly prepared.
Rick & Olga
Hello again Apple Cup breeders!
Yesterday we had our second race for the series from La Pine, OR which is 210 miles. It was a sunny day with light variable winds all along the course. The winning bird from Arlen Team had a winning speed of 1288 YPM, so not terribly slow and not too fast, a good working race.
A few stats on the race yesterday.
74% within the first 30 minutes
86% within a hour
95% returned thus far.
The birds were in shape and ready for the task. We are looking for a decent weather day for the next race from Chiloquin, OR at 250 miles. We would prefer to have the next race 7 days from yesterday, but at the current time the forecast is for rain and heavy overcast at the time in Chiloquin we should have the next race. Forecast is showing for good weather a few days after the rainy weather passes so we may have to wait for the weather to change which means the next race may not be exactly 6 days from today. We will keep everyone up to date as we get in to next week, possibly the weather will change down there in OR and we can have the next race 7 days from yesterday's race.
We have a few of you who we owe entry fee refunds to, we have not forgotten you and please be patient.
Thanks everyone for the pats on the back yesterday, sure feels rewarding when everything comes together.
Tomorrow we will have our second race from La Pine, OR at 210 miles, this is an AVG speed race only. The birds trained well this week and are ready!
Below is the much anticipated payout based upon 519 birds activated which is the same number that made it back from the Activation Race. We will pay out 50 positions on the final 350, the first 20 positions on the 250, and the top 5 birds in AVG speed. There are 75 Total Prizes!
350 M Final Race
1. 15,000
2. 13,000
3. 11,000
4. 9,000
5. 7,000
6. 6,000
7. 5,000
8. 4,000
9. 3,000
10. 2,000
11-50 1,000 EA
250 M
1st 20 birds 500.00 EA
AVG Speed
1. 5,000
2. 4,000
3. 3,000
4. 2,000
5. 1,000
All prizes are based upon clocking order.
Good luck to everyone tomorrow and in the upcomming races!
As most of you know we had to briefly drop everything for a few days and head to Utah for the birth of our first grandchild. Momma and baby were both being stubborn so the doc had to perform a C Section. Everything came out great, no pun intended. Now our daughter and son in law have their first child, a beautiful healthy little girl named Brooklyn, and Olga and I are beaming ear to ear being grandparents for the first time. Thank you so much to all of you who sent your prayers and best wishes.
We rolled back in to the pigeon farm at about 1 AM this morning. Yours truly hardly got any sleep at all, finally drug myself out of bed at 6 AM and met my helpers out at the loft at 6:30 AM and started loading up birds for a toss this morning from Goldendale. The weather was perfect today and the birds had very little trouble, at the time of writing this just a handful still out messing around.
Game plan is to have the next race Thursday, as this appears to be the best day this week. I will either train the next two days in a row giving the birds 3 tosses from 65 miles in a row, my favorite way to set birds up for a race by the way, or they will loft fly tomorrow, train Tuesday, rest and basket Wednesday evening right before dark. Whether to train tomorrow or just loft fly solely depends upon the weather, so we shall see.
Before we headed to UT we only had 5 individuals who still owed us entry fees. We had intentions on depositing the rest of the checks Thursday but when we got the call that our daughter was going to be induced in to labor, which later turned in to a C Section, we decided the checks could wait until Monday. So this afternoon we will drop by the post office and pick up any remaining checks, check Paypal again, and deposit all checks received tomorrow afternoon after I get done taking care of the birds, loft flying or another toss.
It is a little early to talk about shipping, but might as well bring it up while it is on my mind. Seems my brain works best when I am sleep deprived, must of been those 20 years of military training!
As most of you know, shipping costs have nearly doubled. Whereas the USPS used to charge us solely upon weight, now they are taking the dimensions of the box in to consideration. I for example had to ship 16 birds to CA to a exporter for my friend Arnold Swain (Top long distance loft in the AU a few years back and several top placings mainly in long distance over the years) who recently moved to the Phillipines. Arnold is now in a 50+ member club and a combine with I believe he said 500 just north of Manilla, dream come true for Arnold. Anyway, on the scale it came up to about $150 for one of those 16 bird double decker shipping boxes, but when they measured it the price jumped to $325! None of the boxes that were shipped to us this year with your birds meet the dimensional restrictions now imposed by the USPS so we will be purchasing the new boxes that do fall within dimensional guidlines from our friend Rex Urbany with the Sooner Challenge. This means that shipping will go up about $10 per customer per box we have to use to ship your birds back and I believe the box will hold 4-5 birds comfortably. If we need more than one box to return your birds after the race is completed, then it will be $10 more per box which will still be cheaper than sending all of your birds in a big box which does not meet the new restrictions. This is a good thing because it means that all of you will get a brand new box. I never liked using old boxes, some which look like they have been reused for 20 years, because there is always the chance of disease spread. When we figure out how much shipping will be using these new boxes we will let all of you know and yes there will be a option via our Paypal link to pay for shipping right under our new option to pay for entry fees like many of you took advantage of, perch fee payments will be available for next year as well.
Again, thanks to all of you who were understanding that we had to take Friday and Saturday off to attend to personal matters and thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
"Proud Grandparents"
Our daughter was due today with the birth of her first child. Complications have arisen so we are headed to UT to support her while they induce the labor, or perform a C section tomorrow. We should be headed home Saturday and will resume training Sunday, weather permitting with the next race early next week.
Keep our daughter Sasha and her husband Josh in your thoughts and prayers.
All birds have been activated, no need to call.
We still have 3 birds available. All three did well on the last race, so if interested let us know as soon as possible.
Esmeralda Loft
3027 HRPC SOLD
3112 HRPC SOLD
3028 Available
Thormod/Blakenship
0201 VIP Available
0228 VIP Available
Deposited the rest of the checks today so please check your account if you are wondering if it has arrived. Still waiting on 5 checks to arrive. Once they do and all clear, we will post the payout.
Contact us if you are interested in activating one or more of the birds listed above that are still available.
254-247-9504
wcspinner@aol.com
Congratulations to Dave Clausing for having the first bird through the trap in yesterday's first race of the series from Redmond, OR which was 165 miles, and congratulations to all of you who had birds arrive in good time.
At release it was cloudy along the horizon but the sky was clear above, had to wait another 15 minutes for the sun to clear above the clouds down low and at release the birds headed directly north out of both sides of the trailer. We released the birds from the Walmart parking lot in Redmond, OR and Ken Dunagan from Lamonta Loft who is also in the race was there to help with the release of the birds.
We had 73% of the birds within a hour, and at the time of writing this we have 89% of the birds returned. Training consistently lately has been difficult to say the least due to rain and wind with heavy overcast skies. We are not afraid of a little wind or overcast along the course, but they must be able to see the sun at release to get a good start toward home.
The birds loft flew today and acted as if they had not even raced yesterday, they are loft flown every day by the way. We will start up training again tomorrow, weather permitting of course.
We are looking for the next day for the next race from La Pine, OR which will be 210 miles. Last we checked it was supposed to be overcast and rainy next week, but sunny this Sunday. We prefer to wait until next Tuesday to race as this will be 7 days from the last race yesterday, but if it looks rainy all next week instead of letting them sit and get stagnant we may take advantage of the mild weather this weekend, we will keep everyone posted.
We did video the activation race as well as the race release yesterday. Those videos are on my personal Facebook page for those of you who I am friends with on Facebook. I will get these two videos uploaded to Youtube and post the links for the rest of you to see, sorry for the lateness on that.
Still waiting on some checks to come in which we have verified have been sent. Once we get all of the checks to clear we will post a updated payout.
Thanks for the kind words from all of you on yesterday's results, we sure are trying our best to pull off a great race the best we can!
We have had a watchful eye on the weather for this week trying to find a good day with enough sunshine for us to feel comfortable and no rain forecasted. The only days that look good are tomorrow which is Tuesday, 1 October, or Sunday. Sunday has been ruled out because a tail wind is forecasted and it will be 13 days from the Activation Race which was last Monday. Tomorrow the birds will start off with a slight 7 MPH head wind, then along the course the wind direction will change to west in some areas and east in others, but nothing over 7 MPH that we can see and no rain forecasted along the route.
The birds had a 45 mile toss today from Satus Pass under overcast skies with just a bit of sun showing through. On top of the pass it was fogged in so we released just this side of the pass. The birds have been to this spot several times and fly right through there on every toss, unless they get blown east due to a west wind. In other words, they know that last 45 miles like the back of their hand so today's toss was good for building their confidence in spite of little sun. They all arrived fairly close together according to Olga who stays home to make sure nothing goes wrong wiht the clock, but they really took their sweet time trapping. It got windy and rainy at home so the birds just splashed on top of the loft laughing at me whistling to them. As distance increases, believe me, they will be more than ready to go in for a drink and food. These little 45 and 65 mile tosses are not a challenge for them anymore, but they do keep their heads screwed on straight so when it is time to race they are in condition and know what is expected of them.
EVERYONE has either paid, or we have confirmed you have paid but your check is late getting here, with the exception of two breeders. Some of you, like us, live in a very rural area and the USPS can sometimes be a real challenge so we understand.
The two breeders who we have not been able to contact via email, countless phone calls leaving messages, and leaving texts, are the following with their birds listed.
3027 HRPC
3017 HRPC
3112 HRPC
3028 HRPC
0201 VIP
0228 VIP
So this is how it will work if you want to activate these birds.
Call me, do not Text. I am out in the loft waiting for my helpers so we can load the birds up for tomorrow's race and I have my phone with me. Let me know which birds you want to activate and I will let you know if they are still available. Once I have confirmed that they are, you need to IMMEDIATELY go to our site at applecupyc.com, go to the Home page, then click on Payments. Once Olga has confirmed that the birds you wish to move to your team are paid for I will scratch them from my list and the next caller will get second pick.
DO NOT PAY FOR ABOVE LISTED BIRDS ON PAYPAL BEFORE CALLING ME. If you go to Paypal and pay for birds before calling me, then someone else may be paying for the same birds at the same time. This is why you MUST call me before going to Paypal.
Please hold the phone calls tonight folks unless you are calling to activate some of or all of the birds listed above that are available. We need to get these birds loaded up for the race tomorrow so they can rest, then yours truly has to get a few hours of sleep before getting up at 1 AM to drive down to Redomond, OR and get there few hours before release so the birds have a chance to relax before release.
Rick
Hi everyone, raining cats and dogs here with lots of wind and it is forecasted to be the same down in Redmond, OR most of next week. If it is clear from our 65 and 45 mile spots we will train and get the birds tuned up so when we do have a good day in Redmond the birds will be ready, hopefully next week.
Most everyone has paid, there are a few breeders we can not reach and hope you can help us with contacting them if you know them.
Brooklyn Loft, NY Yi Tao Zhao
C & K Loft, FL, no email address, Kenny Chen
Esmeralda Loft, FL Yosdany Gonzalez
Thormod/Blakenship, NV Steven/Bill Thormod/Blakenship
If you know any of the aforementioned, please let them know that we need to know if they have sent their checks immediately. They can also pay by Paypal by going to our Home page, clicking on Payments, and following the directions.
If you are not on the list it means we have received your payment via USPS, Paypal, or we have spoken to you on the phone and you have verified that you have sent your payment.
