Bug

I don't know about others, but I always wonder what dogs think of us, their caretakers. Do they know how we feel? Do they understand what they mean to us? Can they see how they change our lives? Can they anticipate the loss we feel when they are no longer with us? All of this was going through my head last week as I sat with Bug, knowing it was going to be our last time together.

After bringing her in the house a few weeks ago, Bug's health saw an improvement. She became more alert and more steady on her feet; she even ate regularly. But, it was a short-lived improvement. Her health dropped off sharply and there was nothing we could do except try to make her comfortable. The vet we took her to suspected it was a ruptured spleen or tumour and that her rapid decline more or less pointed to this.

Bug was a fun dog to know. We got her as an old leader, hoping to have her help us train puppies but she made it clear the first winter: she was done pulling a sled. Even still, she was as excited as the rest of the dogs when it came time to take them for a run. Bug enjoyed being Hudson's companion. The two of them were like an old couple: he'd mosey around on walks, poking here and nosing there, and Bug would encourage him, prod him, and make sure he wasn't left behind.

I don't want to dwell on what Bug was. Those who knew her understand and those who didn't should know she died an honest dog.

Bug

Never, under any circumstances, trust a dog with personality.

Lately, my time has been taken up almost entirely by my job. I have not had much time at all to get out with the dogs and even if I did, our four wheeler is in kind of sketchy condition with brakes that don't brake, a starter that doesn't start and an engine that needs more coddeling than a Hollywood starlet. This combined does not a happy musher make.

Today, however, was my day off. I had made arrangements the night before to borrow a friends four wheeler and to use his trails too, so I was up at the crack of dawn -- which, around here isn't at all as early as it may sound -- to feed the dogs so that they could digest their soupy meal before heading out on the trail. It was going to be a great training day, since my friend would be out on the trails with his dogs, too, and we'd get to practice passing head-on which is something our dogs haven't had much experience with.

Let me describe what a good team does when it meets another good team and has to pass: picture driving down the road. Any road. In a car. You see another car approaching and what happens? It just keeps on going. It doesn't swerve into your lane; it doesn't suddenly throw itself in reverse and cower on the shoulder, it doesn't honk it's horn at you and thereby distract you. It does none of these things. So, too, the well trained dog team passes without incident.

Now, let me describe MY team. Or, at least Ruby. Ruby was second from the front of the team ('swing' position, to those who know) and on the inside of the trail. She was doing wonderfully. She was working hard, she was keeping up the rest of the team, she was even refraining from checking out the side of the trail by sniffing or wandering. I was thinking to myself: 'why did Ruby stay home so much last winter? She's doing great.' And she was. Then, around the corner and onto the straight stretch we came and met my friends team head on. He was about twenty yards in front of us and closing and as he and his team neared us, I could see Ruby's thoughts, as though she had one of those cartoon thought-bubbles over her head:

"HEY! I didn't know there'd be other dogs out here! I can't believe it: other dogs! Out here! Did you know there'd be other dogs out here?" this last bit she says to her neighbour. Then, to the dogs as they pass: "Hi!MynameisRu..." then to the second one: "Hi!MynameisRub..." and the third one: "Hi!Myname's..." and so on, until my friend and his team had passed. That's right: I'm the car that swerved. I'm the one that went into oncoming traffic because I had the social butterfly of the canine world. The other dogs, who were trying hard to pass properly, who were behaving and trying to avoid a train-wreck (imagine the tangle that could have -- would have -- ensued, had we run into each other), strained to pull Ruby away and eventually succeeded. For the rest of the run, Ruby kept trying to find the dogs again.

"And now," to use an oft-quoted Monty Python line, "for something completely different."

Hunter at ballet class

Short and to the point.

The most difficult thing about having dogs is being with them while they face the end. Bug is not doing so well and she has been moved into the house to make what is left of her life a bit easier. She has gone downhill fast, but she is not ready to give up just yet. She sleeps a lot, but will still give small wags of her tail when she is alert and she can, most days, manage the outside steps on her own; both up and down. I'm not ready to eulogise her yet, but I don't expect a miracle, either. Here are a few pictures of her, since being moved into the house.

This is how Bug spends much of her day now; sleeping on the couch.

Hunter and Bug. They've been pretty good friends for a while and even moreso now that Hunter feeds her treats almost non-stop.

On a happier note, one of our two living room window replacements has been completed. We didn't take a lot of pictures of the job, but those that we did follow.

Our boring, non-sun-letting-in, 4 square foot window.

The preparations for the new window -- making the opening.

The new window. 7 feet by 4 feet, 10 inches. Lotsa light now!

Of midways, porchlights and the now famous Princess Ballerina

Once, in a land known as The Valley, there danced a Princess Ballerina. This valley was not the happy, fertile and verdant plain the that name may suggest; rather, it was a fanciful name given to a slash in the landscape where, centuries earlier, angry forces hurled a stone so large the land was ploughed into a giant furrow.

I'll not go further with that pseudo fairytale; no good will come of it, I can assure you. I finally have pictures of Hunter at her ballet class, though. I don't have many, though, because Jenn's camera ran out of battery.

To set the scene: picture the bumper car rides at a midway or moths and a light. In each case, there is a knot of activity that seems to be more or less following a prescribed path towards a common goal, but there is also a lot of individual activity going on at the fringes; activity that is similar to, but apart from, the common goal. Sometimes, there is the kid in the bumpercar; it's his first time driving and he just can't get the hang of it, and so he spends the duration of the ride driving into walls. Other times, it's the moths and their erratic circles; their inability to just focus on the light and maintain a steady direction. Instead, they fly close, spiral and spin away, and then fly close again, repeating this, it seems, forever and achieving nothing. So it is with a young girls ballet class. There are those who follow the instructor, those who don't and those who can't take their eyes off of their own reflection in the room-sized mirror. I'll let you guess which category Hunter falls into.

Moths and bumpercars aside, Hunter loves her dance class.

Still no ballerina pictures.

Another cold and bright morning materialized today out of the cloudless night. Frost, and lots of it, lay thick on the grass and the truck as the sun had not made it above the tree tops yet. I could hear the familiar squeak and clink of dogs doing laps in their areas: they were up and waiting to be fed. Jenn, who was doing her best to sleep off a cold, was buried deep under the comforter, so Hunter and I had our hot chocolate and a coffee while I waited for a respectful hour to feed the dogs.

These are just a few pictures of Hunter in the back of the truck when we loaded the dogs to go home. She climbed up there all by herself and was pretty proud of herself for doing so. She graciously posed for Jenn and the camera. It was difficult to convince her that the front of the truck, in her seat, was safer and more comfortable than the back of the truck. She wanted to ride home with the dogs.

I'm a bit afraid to call attention to the weather; we've been fairly lucky, in comparison to the past few years, in that we have had less rain so far. That, and the new load of gravel that I have been wheelbarrowing around the dog yard, has made for a much less sloppy kennel this fall. The dogs are in great spirits and they are enjoying the cooler weather, too. I am looking forward to giving them new straw this weekend since the first straw of the year is always met with great enthusiasm. Much digging and shoving, pawing and fretting is done in the dogs' house when they get the straw, wanting to get it 'just so'.

This past weekend I was able to 'treat' my parents to a dry-land ride with the dogs. My friend Lou has been exceptionally generous in letting me borrow his four wheeler and Mule (a glorified golf cart and machine that I *need*. Really.) while my four wheeler is out of commission. The best thing about the Mule is that it allows the passenger to sit beside the driver, as opposed to behind the driver as on a four wheeler. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of that weekend, as I neglected to bring the camera -- a happenstance that I am sure Dad is happy about: I don't think he has ever worn dirtier clothes than when I lent him more suitable boots, pants and a jacket.

Mouse and Blitzi, post run.

I thought that we were far enough into our run that I'd be able to get a good shot of Jenn, Hunter, the scenery and of course, a neatly lined up, patiently waiting team of dogs. As is obvious, we were not ready for a break. Moxy can be seen snapping at Hope for moving around too much. Poor Moxy, she was the only one willing to behave.

Back in from feeding the dogs, I was on my second coffee and sewing harnesses. Please, don't ask. It's a story I'd rather not relive, since Triangle chewed a brand new, $26 harness; one of the fancy collared x-backs for those who'd appreciate that. Jenn had, by now, felt her way around the corner and into the livingroom, not fully awake but up and out of bed nonetheless. She had some breakfast while I finished the sewing and then I went out to hook up the trailer and load some dogs while Jenn got Hunter ready and met me at the truck a few minutes later.

Once we arrived at Lou's place, I started to get the four wheeler ready while Jenn dropped the dogs and put on the harnesses. Hunter followed Jenn around for a while and then, when I started to sort out the gangline, she decided to help. It's funny to watch what kids learn by observation as Hunter did, as best she could, what I do: untangle, stretch out, and put each tug out straight to make hooking up easier.

Stretching out the leader section.

... and the team sections.

"I don't know why it's all tangled, Hunter. Mischievious little gnomes must come in at night and do that because I rolled it up neatly the last time I used it. I swear." Sheesh, even my kid gives me a hard time.

The hookup was good and incident-free; no chewed harnesses. Jenn and Hunter got on the back of the four wheeler -- it has an add-on 'two up seat' so they had a lot of room plus a certain amount of comfort. The run, too, was great although the last half is sort of boring because the trail does a series of concentric, ever tightening laps in towards an imaginary center until it reverses direction and we do it all over again. I will say this, though, there is a lot of distance in that swirl of trail; Lou has done a great job with a small-ish field.

Part of the trail. Sort of dull and muddy at this time of the year but, at the speeds we move, it's hard to see, anyway. (Those that know us and the team have already picked up on the sarcasm.)

Getting pulled up and over a rock outcropping. Good dogs!

Tomorrow, the other half of the yard is slated to go out, Baby and Triangle included. Baby, I don't doubt, will be another great dog. Triangle, however, hasn't shown the same ability and understanding of his brother but his enthusiasm to go might overcome this, soon I hope.

Back at the truck, getting nice, baited water.

Get used to seeing this brown and black dog, Dora, in the front of our team: she's already proving to be a natural leader.

Moxy, Chili and Hope, post run.

A whole month, compressed to a few paragraphs.

On my ride back from Montreal last weekend, I was lamenting to my friend the fact that my training 4-wheeler is broken. It's tires won't hold air and even if they did, the brakes are in pretty rough shape. Also, the new-to-us-but-in-reality-ancient 4-wheeler that we have just bought is in the shop getting fixed. It, too, has very little stopping power, but unlike our old one, this ATV has tires that hold air and an engine. The weather has been extremely cooperative of late; with the exception of some rain earlier on, it has been overcast to sunny and cool: perfect for running our dogs -- which brings me back to my trip to Montreal.

We had gone down to Montreal to pick up our winter's worth of meat for the dogs. Since it would cost about $1,000 to have it delivered in a refridgerated truck, we decided that we'd go down together and split the driving duties, that way, we'd only have to pay for gas. We took his truck, since it can hold more than mine, and a trailer, too. Jenn and I bought 1,400 lbs of meat while my friend bought 2,600 lbs. The trailer and truck were pretty heavily loaded on our return trip and in case you were wondering, 1,400 lbs of meat in 40 lb blocks fit into two full-sized chest freezers with only two cubic feet to spare between them.

My friend, also a musher, was talking about how his training has been going this year. He is a bit behind in milage from years past, but he has a handler helping him now, so he will catch up soon he thinks. When he asked about my training runs with the dogs, I told him that we were looking to start as soon as we got our new four wheeler running and that up to this point, I had been taking out a pair of dogs on my mountain bike. I also gave my rant about the need of job and how this job really cuts into training time. My friend was unable to do anything about my job, but he did offer the use of his working 4-wheeler until ours is fixed. I told him we'd be over the next day.

I probably woke Jenn up earlier than she would have liked, but she was excited to go when I told her what I had arranged the day before. We loaded up eight of our dogs, including our new one, Hope, and we drove the few minutes up the road to my friends place. When we pulled into the driveway, my friend and his new handler were already harnessing up a team. This handler had come from Montreal with us the night before: no time to rest and it will be all hands-on learning for him. I wonder if he knows what he's agreed to...

Jenn began to unload our dogs as I readied the 4-wheeler. What a joy it is to be able to lock the brakes and know that the ATV will not go anywhere. Once the dogs had been harnessed, I started to hook them up: the calm, reliable ones first and the nutty, exuberant ones last. Our new dog, Hope, is one of these nutballs. So is Baby, one of our two youngest dogs. Although Hope had been harnessed and run by another musher, we had only had a harness on Baby once before, so it was going to be interesting, we thought, to see how he did. Baby, it should be noted, falls on the ground as though he's been shot when anyone tries to lead him somewhere by the collar so to get him anywhere either takes a great deal of patience or a firm grip and enough resolve to get him to where he's supposed to go. Both methods produce the same result and Baby doesn't seem to care one way or the other, although I'd rather him just figure out on his own that the whole collar-as-a-handle thing is okay and to get over it, already.

I hooked up Baby last and, apart from one minor tangle, Baby took to the harness and tugline thing like he'd be run a thousand miles already. We were off! The first serious run of the year.

Going around a corner on my friend's trails. Baby is the black one at the back, on the right. Notice his focus, and then compare it to his partner, Horton, who is not paying attention at all.

All went well, the dogs came back a bit tired but happy. Hope was really good (stay tuned for more on her, once I get to know her better) and Baby surprised both Jenn and I with his focus and natural ability.

Our new dog, Hope, is the one standing. Lacey is laying on the ground

Baby, all proud of himself, after our run. He is really a sweet dog. He'd be a great addition to our team.

The Training Run Train-wreck

Imagine feeling the coolness of the air; seeing the leaves turning bright reds and yellows and hearing the tell tale cacophony of geese flying overhead. Imagine the pleading look in the eyes of the dogs, for they feel it too, and make no mistake, they know as well as I do that training season has arrived. Imagine having all the equipment ready to go, imagine the dogs keyed up and for once, imagine knowing where you will take them to run instead of hunting for trails like seasons past. If you are able to imagine this, then you will know the excitement that filled the dogyard Saturday morning as I loaded up the truck with my mountain bike and two dogs.

It was a tough decision to make; which two get to come today? Horton isn't really comfortable running out front, neither is Blizti and Dart is too gonzo to be given the responsibility of lead, even if that responsibility is shared; Dora and Olive had already gone out -- and we'd had a stellar run -- so of the dogs that were left, I chose Jinx and Lacey. I loaded them into the truck, along with my bike, and amid the chorus of howling at being left behind, we left.

Last year's fall training trail was a logging road and I think that it is being used currently to haul logs out, so we don't go there right now. Instead, we go to the trail head we used a lot last year, which is close by and ideal for dryland training.

I pulled into a widening of the road and parked the truck and began to unload. One of our goals this year is to have a team that doesn't loose its' mind while they are being harnessed and hooked up. We want calm dogs that don't chew lines, harnesses or rip off booties -- it's hard enough to put them on once, nevermind twice and while the dog is jumping like a maniac. So, I took out Jinx and Lacey, harnessed them and then proceeded to get the bike ready all the while taking my time and making sure my dogs were well behaved. Finally, everything was ready, so I took Jinx first and put her on the gangline. I told her to 'line out' and was mildly surprised that she did. I brought Lacey over, clipped them together with a neckline and went to my bike to release it from the truck. It is at this point that the wheels fell off. Not litertally, but since the run became a trainwreck, this was the start of it.

This is the view of the trail from where I start. I'm standing in front of the truck.

"OKAY! Let's go!" I said. Jinx started to move forward, but Lacey turned around and came over and jumped up on me. I got off the bike, repositioned the dogs and tried again to go. Same thing. Once more off of the bike; once more reposition the dogs and once more the bike is dragged a few feet through the dirt, riderless. Jinx kept wanting to go but with Lacey turning around all the time, she was getting her harness twisted with the neckline. After a few failed attempts at getting them pointed, together, in the same direction, I decided to take off the neckline altogether; afterall, once Jinx started to run, Lacey would have no choice but to follow because I was going, too.

I had just unclipped the neckline and was stepping away from the dogs when Lacey decided to remember how this whole 'harness and line' thing worked; she and Jinx were off like a scared rabbit, leaving me to run after my bike which was now skipping down the road. For a few strides, it was just beyond my reach and the more I thought about it as a I ran, the more I realised I had better do something fast or prepare watch my team careen around the corner and out of sight. So, I did what anybody in my situation would do, I expect: I dove, quite ungracefully, on top of my bike. The handlebars dug into the ground, the pedal too, and as I tried to right the bike I noticed the front wheel was facing the wrong way which locks my brakes. This sudden stop from the locked brakes tore the bike from my hands and sent it bouncing down the road again. Momentum propelled me forward and I managed to catch the bike by the seat post on it's second revolution. I turned the wheel the right way around, ran along beside it for a few strides and then hopped on the seat. Through all of this, Jinx and Lacey didn't miss a step.

Both of these pictures were shot with me holding onto the handlebars with one hand while the other held the camera; I had to guess what I was shooting and hope it turned out.

There were no other incidents other than me getting a chainring to the calf which resulted in a pretty nasty slash. We arrived back at the truck in more or less one piece; the dogs got a bowl of water each while I packed up everything again. We drove home; the dogs to lay in the now bright sunshine and me to assess the damage to both my bike and me.

Having water after the run.

Jinx -- a hot dog.

Lacey -- a bad dog.

Yarrr! So it's me treasure ye be after, is it?

One night, while sitting around a bon fire at the neighbour's house, I was introduced to the new game of Geocaching. It is exactly what it sounds like: little (or moderately sized) containers filled with all manner of trinkets and the like set in place by members of the global Geocaching community. This game is truly world-wide for there are caches from Oshawa to Austria and all points near and far and the object seems to be to get people out and exploring.

How it works is as follows: someone decides that they have a suitable place to hide a container, so they fill it with items and place it in a safe spot where it is not likely to be found by those not looking for it. A log book and information page is included, and the coordinates are recorded. These coordinates are then uploaded to the Geocaching website, where they are made available to all participants. To find a cache, the coordinates are entered into a GPS and it guides the user to the general area of the cache, where it is then up to them to search around for it. It is very much like a modern treasure hunt. If the cache is found, it is acceptible to either take the contents and replace them with something else or take nothing and leave nothing. There are collectable coins and dogtags and other Geocache related objects to be found, but for most, I think, the adventure is the real prize.

A quick look at the website shows that there are differing sizes of containers and different levels of difficulty: some caches can be driven to, whereas others may need a boat or ATV to get to. There are other caches that are much like the box within a box within a box trick played at birthdays and Christmas. The initial coordinates given only reveal a box with more coordinates in it, so that the seeker goes from cache to cache until they are eventually rewarded with the final one, several containers down the line.

Jenn and I had a house full of kids on Sunday so we thought it would be a great adventure for them to go on a search for treasure. We had them draw up treasure maps while I found a nearby cache. I realize that drawing maps to an as yet discovered trove is difficult, but the kids didn't seem to care about the incongruity of it so we didn't, either.

The Treasure Hunters, eating freshly picked apples from our tree.

Near us, on a road that is not extremely busy, is a tree that is for some reason covered in shoes. It's not a tall tree, it's nearing fifty feet, but there are shoes right to the top. I thought this would be sort of interesting for the kids, so we chose this as our destination. With the coordinates suitably entered into my GPS we set out on our treasure hunt amid talk of presumed bounty and the niggling fear of residual pirates and their ghosts.

The Shoe Tree.

See? Shoes on a tree.

Looking for the treasure around the tree. Nope, not there.

We stopped for some lunch and then continued on and when we were a few kilometers away, we gave the kids their first clue on the treasure map: look for a tree with shoes. Although most agreed that trees don't wear shoes, the kids couldn't stop looking out of the windows. We drove past the tree with no one noticing. Not even me, even though I was sure it was around here. Somewhere. A quick 180 degree turn and we were closing in on our target. Lauren was the first to spot the tree and it wasn't long before we were all out of the van and searching in the bush, under rocks and behind trees for a container.

My GPS was accurate to within 5 meters that day, so it should have been fairly easy to find the cache. It wasn't, though. A combination of me not synchronising my GPS to the format of the GPS used by the person who hid the container (I noticed later that the information was available, I had just missed it) and it being our first attempt at finding a Geocache container led to a longer than anticipated search. It was nearly going to remain unfound until Jenn, who was just about to give up, noticed a white lid tucked into a small cave of rocks. When the kids heard Jenn call out that she had found it, they all ran to be the first to retrieve it. We found some nice moss to sit on and we opened the small, plastic container. Inside it was a logbook, a note about Geocaching, some shoelaces, a pair of Barbie pants, a car which Owen claimed immediately, a Dora the Explorer key chain and a small bottle of bubbles. The loot was evenly distributed, shockingly without incident, and we replaced the contents with some items that we had brought along. We logged our find of the cache in the notebook and put the container back for someone else to find.

Finally! The loot!

Being the brave pirates that we were, we decided to reward ourselves with ice cream cones on the drive home.

The Hens get new digs

As I was perhaps a bit too wordy in my last post, I will keep my hands away from the keyboard this time, with the exception being to add a bit of explanation to the following photos. This lack of text has less to do with me apologising for a long post and more to do with the near-vacuum we have been living in lately: nothing noteworthy has happened. It is, as they say, a slow news week.

About the only thing to report is the completion of the chicken coop. I think it was done in record time, too, although in this case the record is for the longest time between anticipated completion date and actual completion date. We may also be in contention for notable mention in the largest cost over-run (chicken coop category) and most over built structure (chicken coop category). How over budget and over built, you ask? Let's just leave it at knowing there are two, full-sized paint cans worth of exterior porch and deck paint on the inside of the biddy barn.

The four phases of chicken coop painting, as demonstrated by Hunter:

Step one: Mix paint, even though it is, by all appearances, already thoroughly mixed.

Step Two: Rough in the large areas, using broad strokes to ensure maximum coverage. It's best if both hands are used for this step in order to increase productivity.

Step Three: Once the large areas are more or less covered, concentrate on the trim. A trained interior designer will always spot shoddy trim work and, if noticed, this lack of care will translate throughout the room.

Step Four: Stick your head out of the wee chicken door. This fulfills two criteria at once: the door size is deemed accurate and it allows the diligent painter a break from the fumes.

The over built chicken coop.

There it stands, in all it's completed glory. When I started this project in the spring, Jenn and I were planning on using an old, already existing structure. It was not nearly as sturdy as this and in hindsight, I'm glad we decided to go this route. The gate is the entrance for us into the one side of the chicken's outdoor yard. I don't know what the square footage of the area is, but it took nearly one hundred feet of fencing to enclose and one short side was already fenced from the rabbit run, as they adjoin each other.

Inside the coop. The roost was a design of Jenn's. The floor is pine shavings and the metal deal-y is a feeder, which came to us all the way from Elmvale because Jenn had to have it for her birds. It's a nice feeder, though, because it holds a lot of feed at one time yet it dispenses it in such a way that they chickens can't land on it or spread the seed everywhere and lose it in the shavings. Bet you thought a feeder was a feeder, hey? Me too.

The nesting boxes inside the coop. Even though chickens are supposed to roost at night, we have one that insists on sleeping in one of the boxes. Maybe she's just being efficient, wanting to be ready in the morning for egg laying without getting out of bed. I'm sure that's it. The roof has a fairly steep slope to prevent the chickens from standing on it for if they can stand on it they will and where they stand, they poop. Limiting their roosting areas helps keep the coop cleaner.

These are a few of Jenn's chickens. All of these ones lay the coloured eggs.

The chickens are at the far end of their 'pasture' where they like to dig in the woodchips for bugs. They love grasshoppers and will chase each other down should one of them boast too loudly over her catch. They are also pretty good at keeping the grass down; in the foreground is the area they inhabited prior to the move into the coop and beyond their fenced area, in the background, is an area that they have spent little time in.

One of Jenn's chickens, close up. Gaze into and feel the emotion in that eye; full of compassion and understanding. It's as though this hen is wise beyond her years. No? You don't see it? Me either.