Cheer up, Sunshine, it ain't all bad.

This is what my kid looks like when she is ready to go out with the me and the dogs.



She is wearing a helmet that we bought for her when we go on a snowmachine; we chose a hockey helmet over an actual snowmobile helmet becasue we were advised that snowmobile helmets are heavy and can cause neck injuries in kids. Hunter is wearing the helmet because Jenn was going to follow me on the other sled with a team of her own and wouldn't be in the sled to hold Hunter like normal. She looks pretty comfortable, don't you think, eating her salami and all bundled up in her sleeping bag and snow suit? I thought she was, too. So did Jenn. Hunter, however, decided that she didn't want to go out. After we had spent half an hour preparing her a snack, dressing her up and making her little area in the sled warm and cozy. Not only that, but she decided to have a screaming fit after all the dogs were harnessed. I had to take the harnesses off the dogs, who were pretty disappointed and a little confused, while Jenn took Hunter into the house. If ever I give the impression that my runs with the dogs are flawless and the image of perfection, just refer back to this post. There is more to come.

Let me start with harnesses. We own some pretty well used harnesses. We have nine of them and another dozen on order. I have had to repair the harnesses because we have some dogs who don't have an outlet for their excitement when they are harnessed but not yet on the gangline. Today was a stellar example of harness chewing. This is a good harness.



This one is not so good.



The other one is in better but still chewed condition. So, now an evening that I had hoped to get some reading done will be taken up by sewing my harnesses back together. When they said that I should have paid more attention to HomeEc in highschool, never would I have forsaw this as being the reason.

I took two teams of dogs out today, and for the first time this year, I was able to run from the yard because the river has finally frozen. My first hook up was pretty good. I had Risk in single lead, Blitzi and Lacey in swing and Horton and Dart in wheel. I only took five dogs because the first part of the run would be around our property and we have some pretty tight corners. Any more than five and I was taking my life in my hands, or less dramatically, risking a pretty decent wipe-out. This is us on the river.



The first run went really smoothly even though some of the commands were difficult for Risk to take: how do you tell a dog to take the middle of the three braided snowmobile tracks when they are all going the same way, anyhow? Better still, why would I give a command to follow a specific trail when they all led to the same destination? One of the trails had bare ice on it and I wanted to keep the dogs on the snow as much as possible. I thought it made sense. We came back to the yard and I put everyone back at their places and proceeded to ready the sled for the second run and then I harnessed the next six. This is where things sort of fell apart. Olive and Mouse were my two leaders and they were too interested in sniffing each other and everything else to hold the line out. One of the lead dogs biggest responsibilities, as far as I am concerned, is to always keep the gangline tight. It's okay, I thought, I can deal with this. I went up front and told the dogs to 'line out' -- my command for holding the line tight -- and Mouse more or less got it. I went for my third dog, Dora, and by the time I had her hooked up, I noticed that Jinx, one of our yearlings, had chewed her harness, so I ran over to her and scolded her and took the harness off of her. "You can stay right here!" I said. I went to get my fourth dog and found that Olive, Mouse and Dora were behind my sled in a big tangled ball, happily sniffing each other. I guess I should point out that of the eighteen dogs we have, thirteen of them are female and they are all either in, or just coming out of, heat. I finally sorted out the tangle, brought them all up to where I wanted them and told them to line out again. I went for my fourth dog again and saw that she had demolished her harness. Hers is the one in the photo above; and it isn't the good one, either. She got the same scolding that Jinx did and she was told that she was staying right there, too. So, my fifth dog became my fourth. I hooked Moxy up to the line and was left with either Ruby, who would have been too slow; Valley who tends to get growl-y when she's in season; or a repeat, I decided I would take Horton again, since he was closest and I had a harness that would fit him. Once we got underway things were relatively good. I refrained from giving any but the necessary commands this time and pretty much let the dogs choose what trail they wanted to run on the river.

Today was also chicken cutting day. This is a pretty boring but necessary chore but it is made a lot easier since I aquired this.



This comes from Jenn's grandmother. It is a pretty good meat saw and the only reason I include it is to show dogsled_stacie in the hopes that she is just a little bit jealous; after all, she gets to run her dogs in the Yukon, so she can brag ten times to what I can. I hope she hasn't got a better one. I used an old Black and Decker circular saw for this task prior to my aquisition, but it was horribly messy and I ended up wasting a lot of food.

Our two little puppies, born in the end of September, are getting pretty big. They were a litter of four, but we sold two of them and these two, which I don't have a picture of, were named by Hunter. "Baby" and "Triangle". Yep. I can't wait to go to races and tell my lead-dog "line out, Triangle." Speaking of puppies, if you were a follower of the my blog prior to us moving, you may remember we had a puppy-naming contest. This is the puppy, two years later.




Tomorrow Jenn and I are supposed to leave Hunter with my brother in law's girlfriend for a few hours while we try to take two teams out again. I hope that it goes better than last time. I also hope I can repair the harnesses in time. Maybe if I quit writing this thing...

I can't believe it! There actually exists an anorak that is exactly what I have been looking for! Here it is, with apologies to Northern Garments of Dawson City, Yukon for 'borrowing' their picture:



I am currently taking donations. They can be mailed to the address on the sidebar. If you work for Northern Garments and think that you would like to sponsor me, I'd like the blue one. If you are all out of those, then I'll take the tan one. I'm size Large or Extra Large, whatever you happen to have around.