News of “BLUE HEAVEN LOFT”
August 23rd 2013 : the temperature they announced of 27/28 degrees became reality.  A soft northern breeze makes the heat pleasant and nice.  All our pigeons are on their way to La Souterraine (576Km), the national race of the KBDB, which will be flew tomorrow. The announcements of the weather conditions aren’t very good. Variable wind but mostly coming out of the North East and that isn’t very good. Thundershower and a lot of rain are expected. The question remains : will they release the pigeons or not? But on Sunday, it won’t be better.  So they’ll have to make a hard and difficult choice and it will be a difficult task for the people responsible for the release of our birds. We gave all our old and yearlings a little grain youngster and it’s really pleasant to see, how they take care of this little one. After so many weeks of widowhood, they can take care of their family and it seems it’s giving them a boost. In the mean time, they already dropped a lot of feathers. It’s a process you can’t avoid, certainly because we gave them light from 6 in the morning till 22.00 hours in the evening. You can win about 10 days before they drop their pinions but than you’ll have to cut their pinions at the right moment. Several cocks already dropped their 5th pinion but they keep their covering feathers by feeding their youngsters and by their weekly races and training. We didn’t open their wings before basketing, which is a matter of not being biased and than let them stay at home, what they advised in the old days. The fact, that they already dropped 5 pinions at the end of August, points us at the result of stopping the darkening earlier than before and starting the lightening too soon.  But I still have my doubt about this because we still have hens that are at 8 pinions and they stay in the same environment as the cocks. They had the same system of darkening and lightning, so what’s the reason? Next season, if there still be a next one, we want to hold on to this system but we will change a little bit about the lightning system. Now, we put on the light from 6 in the morning till 22.00 hours in the evening but this will be changed to a time schedule from 6 till 10 am and from 16 till 22 pm.  Let’s wait and see what this will bring.

For a perfect breathing at the beginning of autumn

The end is near, the racing season of 2013 is almost finished. Never before in my life, I desired for this moment to come. It’s all becoming a bit too much to continue throughout the year, to remain at the top. It has always been my intention, to compete with the very best. But this means, you’ll have to work every day of the year within the pigeon sport. And this becomes more difficult.  To carry heavy baskets with 12 pigeons inside, this I can still handle but afterwards, I have several sleepless nights with pain in my shoulders and arms. Staying up late till 23.30 hours and in the morning back up at 05.30.  In fact that all goes rather well but to keep up with all of this mentally, demands a lot of effort and in a long term you’ll get tired. At the age of 78, other things show up.

I must tell that my health and feelings remained unchanged. As I always used to say: ”As long as the pipe smokes, nothing will happen”. Nevertheless, my wife experiences some natural body changes too.  All women around the age of 50 get to deal with it. It’s 30 years ago we met each other and it was love at first sight. And even she’s about 30 years younger than me, we understood very well. In the mean time, we have a daughter of 21. So you can calculate the age of my wife.  Higher age comes together with some inconveniences and it doesn’t become easier. And those that are addicted to sex, to those it’s not always evident and easy to accept these kinds of situations. To continue within the pigeon sport as a figurant, is not what I want. Let’s hope time will bring advice and reflection…

The K.B.D.B. Dope inspectors were here to do their job and they do it as if it’s routine control. Everything went well, with mutual respect and trust never got in danger. About 15 days later, the result of the control arrived by post. The verdict was: no forbidden products were found. It’s always a release when this arrives. You never know in advance (even if we’re used to it) what can happen. When you mix food supplies together by the food or the drinking water, you’ll never know how these products start to behave. Nevertheless, we trusted it and this letter of the KBDB was the prove…

August 30th 2013 : the whole team left for NEVERS (451Km), only one national race to go of the programme of the KBDB 2013. Tomorrow, August 31st they should be released and we are up to it. But this means, the last week of the season 2013, has started. Next week, when you’ll read this article, the pigeons of BLUE HEAVEN LOFT are already on their way to GUERET (573km), the last national race 2013. And if the last mile is the longest one, you’ll hear all about it around September 8th because then the season is over and out.

At the final moment : incredible news :
NEVERS brought a double to Blue Heaven Loft.  Our “LEONA” 2007381/11 wins the national victory from this race and I can say with success; only two pigeons did more than 1200m/m.  But “Leona” is the fastest against 14.487 pigeons. When we look at her pedigree and her prize-list, it’s beautiful. If we’re happy with it? Of course, we think this as an appreciation, a reward for all our hard work, all in function of our pigeon sport. This is our 20th national victory, included a few Semi-Nationals and a few victories in the zone C., and all this in 10 years time.  A prove to us that we did well. More news about “LEONA”, her father and mother, in our next edition. Till then, we’ll enjoy our double.

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In the mean time, Autumn has begun…soon, the leaves will be falling. Use the time coming, to choose your racers for 2014. It’s never too soon to let your youngsters choose their place on the racing loft. I’m sure that those fanciers that let their youngsters fly the nationals, won’t do a lot of selection. Those that come back from  Gueret in good condition, can be moved to the racing loft for the yearlings and old birds. We’ll talk more about it next time.

Stay well and healthy. See you soon

Your servant

THE LOST SON