have sled dogs, will travel

2008-02-28T00:56:00.006-05:00

Since my blog has started to become more about our life in general, with a decent helping of dogsledding still, I have moved it to:

Full Life, Empty Pockets.

I hope the new format will give me more freedom and a cleaner layout. Bear with me while I figure it out.

Short race, long post.

2008-02-10T21:55:00.004-05:00

The second week of Feburary will always be, for me, one of the most important weeks of the year because that is the week that the Yukon Quest starts. I have a link to that particular race in that I handled for a Quest musher several years ago. I spent many, many hours on training carts and dogsleds, conditioning the team and preparing them for the toughest race in the dogsledding world. When it came time to leave for Fairbanks, Alaska and the start of the race, I was not able to go because - and this is the main reason why the second week in February is particularly important - Jenn was in labour with our daughter, Hunter.

Our race bibs

Hunter was born as teams from across the continent, and some from another continent entirely, gathered in Fairbanks. Her first day at our cabin saw her arrive at our door by dogsled and her first trip to town a week later was to see the winning Quest team cross the finish line. How, then, do we as parents mark the birth of our daughter? How do we celebrate her four years on this planet? Why, we give her a kid-sized dogsled, pack her up in the truck and drag her to a dogsled race.

Hunter's sled

Jenn and I, along with Jenn's mother and our kid, of course, spent the weekend in Kearney, Ontario at their fantastic race. Although my real desire is to be in the mid-distance circuit, I simply don't have enough conditioning on the dogs this year to ask them to do a 40-mile race so we spent the weekend running the sprints instead.

Friday was Hunter's actual birthday and we had a small party for her where she opened up her gifts, among them the gift-wrapped sled I and a friend had made a week previous. Sled-giving just may become a family tradition with me since my mom and dad gave me one for Christmas a few years ago. It was a busy day Friday: I had the race to get ready for, which included fine-tuning the sled tie downs on the truck to accomodate our wider-stance sled, and the race to pack for, which included the food and all the dog gear. By the time my preparations were made, it was way past dark and we still had to clean the house for the dog- and house sitter we had coming to stay the weekend. We were a tired bunch when we finally fell into bed, five hours before we were to leave.

Our intentions were to leave no later than 05h00 to make the morning musher's meeting and to register for the weekend before the late registration closed at 08h00. As it was, we rolled out of the driveway at the somewhat tardy time of 05h25. Kearney is almost exactly two and a half hours away. I won't say we flew down the road - how could we? We had eleven dogs, five sleds (yes, five), three adults and a kid plus all related gear for the dogs, sleds and people. No, we didn't fly, but we somehow managed to make it with two minutes to spare and that includes the time spent looking for the friggin' turn off to Kearney. I have only been to Kearney once before and that was before they re-routed Hwy. 11 so the road up to the town proved a bit elusive to us. It didn't help that I managed to leave the map on the kitchen table.

The first race to leave the start chute was the mid distance mushers and I was able to see the first few teams leave, but since Jenn's race was to immediately follow, we both had to get back to the truck to get the dogs and the sled ready. While I arranged the gangline and sorted out the sled bag, Jenn dropped and harnessed her four-dog team. Since she was to leave third, we had to keep a close eye on the mushers around us so that we'd be able to get to the starting area on time. We managed to do just that and, as the Race Marshal counted down the last five seconds, I let go of the leaders and Jenn took off. I helped a few other mushers to the line: you wouldn't think that a team of four needs a lot of help - afterall, it's just a four-dog team - but once those dogs know they're going, they get pretty wound up.

It wasn't long after leaving that Jenn was back and when I asked her about the trail and her run, she could only give me a disgusted look and say "What a joke! I was passed by about fifty snowmobiles and nearly hit by some." In the musher's meeting earlier that day we had been warned of certain trail hazards, like trees, steep hills, trail sweepers and possible moose, but the amount of snowmobilers to be encountered was sort of glossed over. Jenn's was not a lone complaint either and by the time it came for my race, I was filled with more pre-race jitters than normal. The six-mile racers had been warned of a few other trail hazards, two notable ones were the public road we had to travel down which was "not heavily used" and a very steep and icy hill with a ninety degree turn at the bottom followed by a six foot drop in the trail as you make the turn.

So, now a word on the 'jitter's' thing: I have always, no matter the competition or sport, had these to some degree. Part of them derive from the inevitable excitment of the nearing contest but the other part of them are due to my imagination: I visualize all the bad things that can happen; all the missed turns or awful passes or overly-shy leaders folding when they see the crowd. I can deal with missed turns or spooky dogs, but I dread an unclean head-on pass. "Have confidence in your dogs." Jenn told me and I thought to myself: "I am confident they will work hard. I am confident that they won't miss any turns. I am confident that they will see another team and want to visit." Bouyed up by such thoughts, I stood with both feet on my brake as Jenn and another lady helped me to the start line, my dogs barking and lunging at the line the whole way there.

As my two-minute countdown neared the end, a team was spotted coming in to the finish line, which was the same line I was standing on: my first head-on pass was about to happen. "Let him come in." I said to the volunteer sled holders. As we watched the team near the end of its' race, I was aware that the two minute countdown for the team behind me had started so as soon as the incoming team was past me, the sled holders let go of the sled and I shot out of the chute and straight at the second inbound team and one that I hadn't heard about or seen. "Gee side! Gee side, Mouse! Okay, on by... on by... that's it! Good dogs!" and, just like that, we were past. It was as flawless as I'd ever hoped with nary a sideways glance from my team to the other. The trail led away from Main Street, past the liquor store and into the bush and all of a sudden, we were on beautiful, snowy trails with nobody in front, beside or (close) behind me.

We wove through trees, went up hills and down hills and then exited the bush onto a road. The "not heavily travelled" road. For about a mile we ran along with no problems and then came a hill that curved off to the left, and then began to rise again around the corner. Fortunately, I could see through the trees. There was a truck coming and I know he didn't see me. It was precisely this point that my dogs decided to cheat the corner, cutting over to the left instead of following the far right of the road, as we had been doing all race long. My brake was completely ineffective on the icey road: it made lots of noise as it shaved ice from the road's surface but that was all it did. I put down my drag mat - a one-foot square piece of snowmachine track - and stood on it, hoping the increased friction would slow the team down sufficiently so that the driver would see me in time. As I was doing this, I also told the dogs to get back over to the right side of the trail, which they did almost immediately. The problem with their quick response was that it swung my sled sideways so that I was now fishtailing towards the truck, both feet on the drag mat and no idea if the truck had any intention of stopping because there was no way I had gone unnoticed by this point.

I was only about five feet off the driver's side corner and preparing to dump my sled on it's side, away from the truck, and drag along with it until we passed, at which point, I'd figure out a way to right the sled and continue on. Sled dogs, by and large, don't "whoa!" very well. It was a last-ditch plan, and one I nearly used, but at that critical time I managed to give the sled a little shift to the right, like I was stopping with a pair of skates, and we swung wide and past the truck. Just past. The driver and I exchanged a glance: mine, relief, and his a likely mixture of stunned incredulity at what nearly happened and what I took to be an apology. With my heart still hammering, I managed a "Good dogs!" as I picked up my drag mat and continued on.

Barely had my heart calmed down when I crested a hill, saw a trail volunteer on the side of the road and heard him say "Steep hill, hard left at the bottom! Steep hill, hard left at the bottom!" I could see a gang of people gathered behind a section of snowfence, no doubt happy to volunteer at this point to watch the wipeouts. They guy at the top wasn't kidding: it was a steep hill. And it was a hard left at the bottom. Just as we had successfully negotiated the turn and I was feeling good, I felt the trail disappear beneath me. It just fell away and, of the twenty one feet of dogs in front of me, I could only see the front half of my leaders, so steep was the road bank. I didn't even realize I was airborne until I hit the trail with a soft thump and felt the gangline tighten. Above me, I could hear the gathered people congratulate me on making the corner, but I'm sure there was a hint of disappointement in their voices because I managed to stay upright.

With what turned out to be two miles left in the run, nothing else of note happened. I was passed twice and when I arrived back on Main Street, my dogs did a great job of passing by the noisy and active crowd.

My team, coming down Main Street, Kearney.

My wheel dogs getting a post-race scratch.

A snowy Olive

I had barely watered and put away the dogs after my race when Jenn came to tell me that the Kid and Mutt races were starting. We got Hunter ready, Ruby ready and Hunter's new sled ready; she'd been sleeping in it only moments before. Jenn's mom was already down at the start chute awaiting the race. With Ruby harnessed and Hunter astride her sled, we gathered with the fifteen or twenty other kids at the far end of Main Street.

Hunter and her dog Ruby

We've been asked in the past how we make things work with a kid and the dogs. Or even WHY we make things work with the kid and dogs. We just do. Some days the successes are great, and others they are not so great, but when I see Hunter in the video below, or in some of the pictures in this blog, those are the days of the greatest successess, the biggest rewards and all the justification I need for having a kid and the dogs.

Hunter's first Kid and Mutt race.

During the wait for her turn, Hunter decided that she wanted only Jenn to run with Ruby and her, so I was sent down to the finish line to catch kid, dog and sled or dog and sled, dog and kid or whatever might make it that far. The timer said 'GO!' and Jenn, Hunter and Ruby were off like a herd of turtles; Hunter, aware of the audience, started to wave to everybody as though she was in a parade. She did really well, though. She hung onto the sled and managed to not fall once and I think that her overall race time, if handicapped to match mine or Jenn's, was faster. We let her drive Ruby back to the truck and help us give Ruby water and take off Ruby's harness and put Ruby away, just like we did for our races. Hunter was quiet about it, but secretly, just below the surface, she was proud of herself. We were proud, too.

Our little racer.

We visited with some friends and ate an early dinner in the auditorium and then dropped our dogs once more before driving to Sundridge and our cabin for the night. Since it was a vacation of sorts, Jenn had found a nice little cabin to stay in. The hotel it was associated with was at the road side but we were behind the hotel and in front of the lake. We could drive right up to our door which was perfect. I looked after the dogs while Jenn and her mom and Hunter went into the hotel to use it's pool. When they came back, it was only around 18h30, but all three of them went to sleep.

I woke Jenn up a few hours later when I went out to drop the dogs one last time before turning in myself. Jenn said she'd help me, so we went outside and let everyone out for a pee. Then, since we were up, we decided to go to the bar in the hotel for a beer. We didn't stay all that long because we had to be up early the next morning to make it back to Kearney for the Driver's Meeting.

It had snowed overnight. When I awoke at 05h30, there was about fifteen centimeters of new snow on the ground. At first, the morning was calm: I fed the dogs, got packed and went back outside to load the truck and practically had to tie a rope to the cabin door so I would be able to find my way back in. A squall had whipped up that hid everything behind white curtains of blowing snow. Driving was pretty interesting: there were no lines on the road to follow, and no light to navigate by so we drove somewhat parallel to the snowbanks - and likely on much of the sidewalk - on our way out of Sundridge. It was early in the morning and anybody who'd've cared wasn't out yet, anyway.

Day two of the race was not much different from Day One. We dropped dogs, loaded dogs, went to the driver's meeting, ate breakfast, dropped dogs again, watered dogs, loaded dogs, wandered around, dropped dogs, harnessed dogs, raced dogs, watered dogs, loaded dogs, wandered around, dropped dogs, harnessed dogs, raced dogs, watered dogs, loaded dogs, wandered around, visited, sat through an awards ceremony in which Jenn and I both won a bag of dogfood, ate dinner, said goodbye, dropped dogs and loaded dogs, and drove down the road, out of Kearney and towards Sudbury.

When racing, it is expected that you conceede the trail when somebody who wants to pass calls "TRAIL!" While driving home, we came upon one of our friends, who was also at the race. Suddenly, Jenn is searching around the truck for something, rummaging through Hunter's bag, in the center console and under the seats until she found what she was looking for. She quickly scribbles something on a piece of paper and holds it up to the window as we drive past our friend's truck. She had written the word 'trail' on the paper. Maybe we were tired, I'm not sure, but it was the funniest thing in the world for the next forty kilometers. "Ha ha ha! You held up a sign that said 'trail'!"

We made it home in one piece and put the dogs away. I fed them, Jenn gave them all new straw for their houses and then we came inside and went to sleep. We both had to work the following day.

Some shots of our team

Ruby

Chili

Mouse

Moxy, Dora, Hope, Risk, Ruby, Chili, Olive, Mouse, Baby

Some race shots

Our friend, Claude

Richard 'Baz' Bazinette

Lou's handler, Thomas

Someone's team

This guy passed me just after the 'crazy' hill. He was racing; I wasn't.

A mid-distance team coming in off a 40-mile run.

Mark, Baz's son.

Damian (I think) of the Jamaican Dogsled Team.

And, lastly, a tired little musher indeed.

Bonfires and picket lines: it's either dogsledding or a union meeting.

2008-02-03T23:16:00.000-05:00

I had planned on posting this on Sunday, after the run, but I was awaiting some photos from a friend. I have finally had some time to upload them, and so here, a few days late, is the Sunday Post. (sounds more lofty and important when I say it that way.)

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It occurred to me today - too late, as always - that I don't have enough gangline. I have spent the past few weeks making stuff for the dogs: sled, drop- and picket lines, and new bars for the truck. I can now tie out eleven dogs on each side of my truck at the same time, and I can go camping with eighteen dogs at a time with my new picket lines, but I have no way of getting that many to the site, since I don't have enough gangline. So, I guess that will be my next job: make more gangline.

Despite my lack of gangline, however, we managed to go for a fun run and campfire near a lake north of here today. James, his girlfriend Monique and her daughter Emilie came over and since we have two toboggan (no matter how I spell it, it looks wrong) sleds still, I drove one and he the other; each sled loaded with partner and kid, gear and food.

James, Monique and Emilie, set to return to the truck.

James has been a handler for a friend's dogteam for a while and this winter he has been focusing on other things, so he hasn't had an opportunity to get out with a dog team. I have every confidence in his ability to drive a team, so it was no problem to hook up the team and leave ahead of him. At least, that is what we should have done. Instead, we hooked up beside each other, and I had his dogs over top of my team, and my dogs over top of his team and it was a big mess. Next time we hook up together, it will be with more between us than three feet.

We managed to get everything sorted out and I left just ahead of James since he wasn't familiar with the trail. I'd look back now and then to make sure he wasn't too far behind and I have to say, it's a unique thing to see your dogs being driven by someone else and gaining on you.

Although fun, the ride up to the lake was uneventful and once we arrived, I tied down our sled and strung out the picket lines for my team and James's. Once the dogs were off the gangline and working on digging beds in the snow, James, Jenn and I set about making a fire, getting the food ready and collecting wood; Monique was stuck with the uneviable job of entertaining hungry kids. James may have been a bit overzealous: he was hauling back birch logs that had been felled by beaver this summer. I'm not sure how long he was planning on staying, but I'll bet he hauled almost a cord of wood to the campfire.

Some of the wood James found.

Pretty soon the fire was going and the kids were roasting hotdogs by the fire. By 'roasting' I mean they'd ram a weiner on a stick, point it near the fire for a second or so and then eat it off the stick, cold and raw. Us adults were not much better, though, since we'd put our hotdogs on a stick and set it by the fire to roast and then forget to turn it, so it'd be black and nearly inedible on one side and, as you may guess, cold and raw on the other. We managed to nearly finish off a pack of them this way, however, so it wasn't all bad. Next was the highlight of the meal: s'mores. I've never much liked graham crackers, so I just ate the chocolate. We finished off the meal with a nice mug of hot chocolate and packed up, making sure to dump our extra water and a few pots of snow on the fire.

The family shot.

We returned the way we had come although James went out first this time. I think everybody had a good time in the fresh air and mild temperatures.

Below are some more photos of the day.

Lined up and waiting. These are the new and improved drop bars I have had made for the truck. I STILL can't weld, so I had to appeal to a friends talents. I also have just finished making the drop lines that run front to back. They seem to be working here.

Another angle of the truck and maybe a better view of the drop lines. I don't think Hope will be one of our more photogenic dogs.

See? 100% goof.

The above three shots are not very good, but I included them just for the lake and the nice open area we were able to find.

Chili noticing the hotdogs being pulled out of the wrapper.

Dora, too.

Jenn and Hunter poking the fire with a hotdog flavoured, marshmallow encrusted stick.

Jenn displaying her fine sense of bush-craft.

And, finally, the toughest crowd in the house: Hunter and Emilie.

Ahhh... At last.

2008-01-25T21:36:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you can sense my good mood, or maybe you heard my dogs barking and howling way over there where you are.

Our cool temperatures have moderated somewhat. Our week last week was lows in the -30's and highs that never made it much above -18 Celcius. It was awesome, too, because it was about the only nice clear, calm and sunny days we have had all winter. The sun was bright, the sky was blue and the air was crisp... and I was stuck at work thinking about how nice it would be to be running back to the truck with a happy and strong team of dogs, my new sled and an anorak that dares to be challenged. As it was, we warmed up considerably last night: by seven this morning it was -11C and it continued to climb to a high of -3 today.

Taiga

I wasn't about to let this warming up deter me from my perpetual daydream, so I loaded the strong, happy dogs, the new sled and yes, the anorak, too into the dogtruck. Jenn and Hunter were not long following me out of the house. They were also eager to get out and enjoy the day.

Once we were set up, we started hooking up the dogs. We took ten this time and man! they howled and barked and screamed their excitement non-stop until I finally pulled the hook and we were off.

Before I get into how our take off went, let me first say that the new sled is two inches wider than I am used to, and the runners are only an inch and three eighths wide and are equipped with brand new, super slick plastic. Also, let me add that the foot grips are experimental and the handle bow is slippery plastic. So, with all of this as a disclaimer, how'd the take-off go? I just - and I mean JUST - managed to grab the handle as the sled shot out from under me. I pulled the hook and stepped to where I am accustomed to finding a runner but this time, I found only snow. A frantic, reactionary flail with my one hand managed to find the handle bow and latch on and before I could even take stock of the situation, I was being dragged on my upper knees down the trail.

Jenn, not aware of what was going on behind her because she and Hunter were in the basket, asks: "How's the new sled, hon?" What was I to tell her? We were a hundred or so yards down the trail and I hadn't yet driven the thing. Finally, my composure reestablished and control firmly back in my hands, I stood on the runners of the new sled and marvelled at how different, how responsive and how ours the sled is. It handled great; it is effortless to steer, the wider stance is more comfortable and is it ever sturdy. We managed to bash it over a few open creek crossings and a couple of frozen ones, too. I'll have to let my friend know how great it is.

Moxy

We ran on a trail that I used extensively last year. It was nice to be back in the bush again, but it was also a reminder at how behind I am in conditioning the dogs. We ran to a lake that parallels the trail for a while; this lake was just part of the scenery last year as we zoomed past it on our way to distant trails and longer runs. It was easy to see that the dogs were getting tired as we neared the truck today. It was a lot of new work for the dogs because this trail is rather hilly, but also because the trail surface was like beach sand and anyone who knows what loose beach sand is like to run in can symapthise with the dogs.

All of the dogs were great, and Baby continues to impress me. Jenn wanted to put him in lead for the last half kilometer or so, just to see how he'd do, so I switched him with Chili and after a few false starts and a couple of looks back, Baby was as focused a leader as you'd expect for an 18 month old puppy; maybe even moreso.

Baby (l) and Horton (r)

I decided to wear the anorak because I have been dying to do so since I got it. It will be great in the cold weather. It was a bit much for minus three, though. I really like how easy it is to put on; I managed to pull it over my head as we were on the move. Originally, I had stopped the team to get the anorak from the sled, but they wanted to keep going and even though I had my foot on the brake, which was as deep into the snow as it could go, that's what we did: we went. With my anorak over my head and my arms half-way into the sleeves.

Lastly, if you notice a difference in the quality of the pictures, it's because Jenn has a new camera. It's hard to get it out of her hands and she is forever taking pictures or videos with it. It's a Canon A650 IS and it takes great, high quality, high resolution photos. Our old camera, a Nikon Coolpix 2500, also takes great pictures, but the resolution is comparitively lower. I say all of this because we have decided to make the Nikon the DangerCam and by this we mean that we'd rather use the Nikon around potentially damaging or misplacing situations. At least, until we figure out how to comfortably chain the new camera to our wrists.

I love how the dogs stick their noses out of their box-holes, so here are some photos Jenn got today:

Chili

Dora

Hope

Indulge me, a little: these are some more photos of the sled, now that there is daylight to shoot them in. These will likely be the last sled-only photos, so bear with me as I wean myself off the newness of it all. It just about has a new-car smell.

Still waiting.

2008-01-20T19:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I wrote about how nice the night was and how much I wanted to get out and run the dogs in such a beautiful night. I'm still waiting.

This wouldn't have been a big deal last winter, since I was employed in a seasonal-work situation, but this winter, I have a full time, year round job and it kind of sucks. I can hardly wait until I have enough seniority or vacation time saved that I can start taking winters off again. Mostly December, January and February. That's not too much to ask, is it?

That aside, however, I decided to write a new post so that I could put on the video of Hunter in our chicken coop. She's chasing chickens around, trying to catch them while Jenn's mother's new Poodle (or, if you are Hunter "Ploodle") puppy, "Jack Frost" looks on. Hunter named him, too, and I have to say I'm a bit jealous. Afterall, when she named our puppies, we got 'Baby' and 'Triangle' but 'Jack Frost' would fit nicely in our yard. The name, not the dog.

There is also a video of Jack Frost meeting some of our dogs. It's a two-part video, but it takes forever to upload these longer files, so I will have to save it for later, if at all.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

2008-01-19T23:35:00.000-05:00

Tonight it is absolutely cloudless, the moon is almost as bright as the sun, it seems, and is casting shadows over nearly ten inches of newly fallen snow. There isn't a hint of wind and the night, although cold -- it's 33 degrees below zero -- is completely still. I am so sorely tempted to break this stillness with the sound of excited dogs as I load them into the truck to go for a night run. I've got the clothing (look for my dorky picture in the previous post), and now, I've got the sled.

When we moved back to Ontario from the Yukon, almost all of our winter gear and equipment was left in our cabin just north of Carcross because we had expected to return. When we didn't, we faced a winter without a sled and proper clothing. We begged or borrowed the clothing that we needed from family but it was pretty difficult to find a sled, so I phoned our one contact here in Ontario who runs dogs like we do: over marginal trails for long distances. Surely he'd know of someone with a sled to borrow or buy. As it turned out, he didn't; but, he offered us one of his training sleds. That was three years ago.

The following spring, I went back to our cabin and collected all of our remaining belongings, including a sprint sled. Now, we had two sleds; one, we used on long runs where we could either pack people or gear; and the other, the sprint sled, we used to whip around our property or to give visitors the thrill of driving a small dog team

I was supposed to build a sled for us the following summer, but for one reason or another, it never happened. So, winter number two was spent on the back of our friends loaner sled. I have to admit, I was getting pretty comfortable on it, too. This past summer, I ran into a mutual friend and since I was having a difficult time contacting the lender of the sled, I mentioned to our mutual friend that I'd like to buy the sled and could he pass along the message.

A few weeks later, the phone rang and it was the sled lender. "I'm really sorry," he began, "I can't part with that sled. I wish I could sell it to you, but it's more valuable to me than the money I'd get for it." He felt bad for not being able to sell it to us and I felt bad for having borrowed it for so long, so we set about arranging how we'd return the sled to him. In the meantime, I spoke to another friend who used to build sleds for a living and owned a successful sled and harness shop in Southern Ontario. He promised to build me a sled as long as I was there to provide input.

Today was that day.

Sitting out by the dogyard now is our new sled. I know it was dark when I pulled in the driveway, and it didn't get any lighter as I fed the dogs, however, when I was done feeding, I just had to take pictures of the sled. Here it is, and believe me, more photos will follow.

How I spent my winter vacation.

2008-01-07T21:50:00.000-05:00

Even though everybody claims to enjoy the holiday season, when it comes right down to it, they are all stress cases with a short fuse and a list of things to do that is longer than the paper it's written on. That is why, when we found out that we wouldn't be having everybody come to our house for the holidays, Jenn and I decided to pack up a few dogs and go on a dogsled/visit-her-family trip. Originally, we were just going to take a dozen dogs, our sleds and gifts and such and make Lindsay our anchor point for the week. Originally. Try to find a dogsitter who is willing to stay at your house over the holidays. In the end, we just said what the hell -- we'll take 'em all. As the day of departure drew ever closer, I finished putting the sides on the trailer, packing the necessary gear and food. Jenn had emailed the Haliburton Forest to see if we'd be able to run our teams there since it was not too far from where we planned to stay. The nice people at Winterdance Dogsled adventures or whatever the heck it's called summoned up all their holiday spirit and said "no." The reason given was because they had 'problems with other dogteams in the past'. I can understand how this would happen, too, because the Haliburton Forest encompasses a paltry several thousand square hectares: far too little a space to run dog teams in. Thanks, Winterdance. I hope we can return the favour.

It was a week before Christmas, a Tuesday, and it was the day that we were to have our truck looked at and the brakes done when I got a phone call at work from Jenn. As she was pulling out of the driveway to go to the truck appointment, our engine blew a sparkplug out of the block. Normal? Not unless you drive a Ford with the Triton V-8 made between 2001 and 2004 - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jenn asked me if I thought it was safe to drive the truck the 40-some kilometers to town. "Go slow, I guess." I said. Jenn limped the truck in to the dealership and received the first bit of bad news: this happens to this engine all the time (same plug, even) and the repair isn't cheap. The repair involves removing the head, re-machining the threads for the plug, inserting a spacer because in re-machining the threads, the hole is too big now, putting the head back on (complete with new gasket and oil) and then putting the plug back in. Jenn was understandably shocked at this news since the very same thing happened to us last year and we were helped out by a local mechanic in Verner who took twenty minutes and used only a new plug. We were on the road with change from thirty dollars. This time, however, we were looking at about $2,500 worth of work, just to re-install the plug; the brakes hadn't even been done yet. The worst part about it all though was that the head mechanic didn't think the truck would be ready for Friday, the day we were supposed to leave. And if it wasn't ready Friday, chances were good that no mechanics would be working on it Saturday, Sunday, Christmas eve day and certainly not Christmas. Our plans to spend the holidays dogsledding around the Kawarthas and taking our nieces and nephew out for rides were over.

Understandably, Jenn was crushed. She went to work that night with eyes red from crying and when it was discovered the reason for this, her friends got together and rented us a truck, which made Jenn cry even more. It was such an incredibly generous thing to do and Jenn kept saying "they don't know what they've done; they think that they've just rented us a truck." But it was more than that; it wasn't just a rental of a truck. They had given us the ability to spend the holidays with family and our dogs -- the two things that Jenn most wanted.

It turned out that we didn't need the rental of a truck. The mechanics at Ford stayed late and worked overtime to get our truck ready by late Friday evening. We were packed on the road by 10h30 Saturday morning.

When all of our travelling was done for Saturday, we were in Lindsay for 0h30 Saturday night/Sunday morning. We'd visited a friend and made an appearance at a family dinner, but for the most part, we were on the road that day. It's an odd feeling, driving through downtown Brampton with a truck and trailer load of dogs and dogsleds strapped to the roof. You certainly don't have to look hard for your truck in a parking lot.

We spent the next two days running the dogs around a farm field on a trail we put in ourselves, with the help of our lead dog, Risk. We ran in the rain because it seemed sort of foolish to have brought our entire kennel down only to be sidelined by poor weather. Perfect conditions does not a hardy musher make. Risk was flawless: she was faced with an open farm field about forty acres in size and she took directions well enough to put in a figure eight trail that used two different fields.

Then, as if downtown Brampton wasn't enough, we loaded all the dogs up and drove down to Oshawa for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We parked the dogs on a subdivision street and, when we dropped them to feed them or pee, took up a lane and a half. Yep, we certainly turned some heads in Oshawa. We even had the across the street neighbour taking pictures of us and a cop stopped by 'just to chat'.

On Christmas day, after all the presents had been opened, we set up in the small park across the street from Jenn's sister's house and let the neighbourhood kids take turns on the dogsled with Dora and the ever-tolerant Ruby.

We packed up early that night and headed back to Sudbury at around 21h30, arriving at our house in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

It certainly was a busy trip, and one that nearly didn't happen but for the thoughtfulness and hard work of some people.

I'd like to tell you that I have lots of pictures of the whole thing, but I don't. Jenn was given an awesome new digital camera for a gift and she was so excited that she had the memory card full within the hour. We couldn't download the pictures (and make room for more pictures) until we got home.

Triangle and Baby, our two 'puppies' running around the back yard in Oshawa

Hunter, skating on our driveway. It rained enough to make it a literal skating rink.

The obligatory pose for the camera in my new Skookum Brand Anorak. (!)

Bug

2007-12-05T21:32:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-11-25T23:51:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-11-14T21:34:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-06T22:07:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-11-02T22:49:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-10-16T20:57:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-15T22:56:00.000-04:00

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?

2007-09-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-26T22:37:00.000-04:00

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.

This is long and it's about my job, so you may want to just skip over it and come back later.

2007-08-10T21:45:00.000-04:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my previous job was as an arborist; specifically, a 'climber' for a local arborist company. It was outdoor work, hot and often uncomfortable, strenuous most of the time; often it involved working at heights and it required a heavy harness/belt on which not only hung my tools of the trade but my life as well.

I have now been at my new job since the beginning of April. This job, an apprentice glazier, is quite different from my last one: it's outside work which is usually hot and uncomfortable (see below,) it involves heavy lifting and I often have to work at heights with a heavy tool belt and a harness that keeps me from falling.

When I started with this company, we were working at a school, ripping out the old frames and glass and replacing these with new glass and frames. Since then, I have had the opportunity to remove and reinstall new curtain wall systems. Curtain wall is the glass fronting that covers some large buildings, as well as making up the entrance ways to most malls, office buildings and the like. I have also worked on a skylight at the Sudbury Cancer Treatment Center. That was interesting, both for us and the folks below who, when they looked up at our bodies laying prostrate on the angled skylight, seemed to have the startled look of someone who realizes almost too late that something is about to fall on them. We were only replacing the outside trim, so there was no danger, but still, it was funny.

Lately, however, I have been working at Xstrata, or the old Falconbridge (the other nickel company) to those who don't follow mining company mergers and take-overs -- I have to: I live in Sudbury. They are putting in a new smelter and calciner plant. Before it starts to sound like I know what these are, let me just say that I don't. I have no idea, except that the new plant involves miles and miles of piping, from the small, quarter inch lines that feed the controls, dials and moniters, to the huge, 10-foot diameter pipes that must feed (or be fed by) the monstrous hoppers and vats inside the building. It is industry at its' finest.

It is this building that houses the hoppers, vats and such, that we were working on. All week, at our other job site, the talk was of how we were going to install the massive windows. The smallest unit was ten feet by six feet, so when I say they were big, I'm not exaggerating; in fact, I know people with smaller decks. So far, the style of glass that we had been installing is one sheet of quarter-inch tempered glass with a half-inch rubberized band in the middle to seal in the argon, and then another sheet of quarter inch glass on the other side of the band, making a unit thickness of one inch in total. For an estimate on weight, this is the formula: quarter-inch, tempered glass (two sides) plus a half-inch rubberized band weighs 7.1 pounds per square foot. Go ahead and do the math, or take my word for it: glass is heavy.

As I was saying, the topic of how to move these units of glass into the openings at Xstrata was quite thoroughly discussed. The more experienced glaziers decided that the best way would be to use a boom truck with this electric suction cup device that our company has. Normally, to fit the unit of glass into an opening, we use a suction cup with a handle on it so that we can lift the glass easily and safely. The electric one that was going to be used is just like our little ones, only a lot bigger and instead of one cup, it has four, which are able to be extended on movable arms for extra large glass.

What you can't see in this picture is how the wind is making this unit spin. It was spinning so fast that the swivel on the boom trucks' ball couldn't keep up and it ended up twisting the sling that held the electric cups on. We were close to the unit and if it had nicked us in the basket or the corner of the building, there would be glass everywhere.

I finally managed to get the glass under control. The round disks on the bottom corners are our suction cups, to which we have tied a small rope to help in controlling the unit until we can reach the cups.

Installation day came and the electric cups were taken out, fully charged and hooked onto the boom trucks' ball with a sling. The day previous, when we went to size up the situation and plan how we would work things, Rob, one of the glaziers, noticed that the glass was not the quarter-inch, tempered style that we had been installing, but rather a much weaker, eighth-inch plate glass with a half inch rubberized banding. Immediately, he was concerned that the glass was not strong enough to be lifted by the boom truck and electric cups. He decided to chance it, anyway, since we had no other way of getting the glass to where it needed to be.

Normally, when we install the glass from the outside, we use our snorkle-lift machine (like the blue one in the pictures) to lift the person in the bucket and the unit of glass on specially designed skis on the outside of the basket, even though it may be over the recommended weight capacity of the machine. At Xstrata, however, they are so safety conscious that they employ a person to oversee all the trades people who are working on the site. In fact, he is the one who these pictures are from. He makes sure that we are wearing our gloves and long sleeves (even in +33 degree heat), that we are harnessed and tied in to our machine and that we are following site-specific indoctrination rules. He takes his job seriously and kicked off one worker while we were there. My point in all of this is that with our tools and myself and Don, the other glazier I'd be working in the basket with, we were almost at the machine's capacity, and we still had a 300+ pound unit of glass to consider, if we were going to forego the boom truck route. The safety guy would never accept that. So, boom truck it was.

This is one side of the building. The Genie Lift (or Snorkle lift) has a 65 foot reach, and when it is fully extended, there is about two, maybe three feet of vertical play because of the flex in the boom. It doesn't sound like much, but when you're at the machine's maximum reach, it feels as though the whole thing is going to tip over.

I can say that the glass went in smoothly and the boom truck worked extremely well, as did the electric cups. No glass was broken, we violated no Xstrata safety concerns, except perhaps, rolling up our sleeves and taking off our gloves but if we were noticed, nothing was said.

Don and I guiding another unit into place.

So there it is: my new job.

"When the chicken comes home to roost."

2007-07-22T21:54:00.000-04:00

With a brain the size of a pea, or to be generous, a Lima bean, you wouldn't necessarily expect chickens to be all that bright; and they're not, really, but they do manage to prove the old adage right by showing up at the coop in the evening ready to roost for the night.

Free Range Biddies

Jenn lets the chickens out to roam around and forage during the day where they typically wander all over the yard eating weeds, bugs and grasses. Although we usually herd them into the coop in the evening, if we are home late, the chickens will have done it themselves. I have wondered, too, what this must look like, this self-imposed curfew: does each chicken decide when it is time to head home, like a good party guest, or; do they participate in a mini-migration, en masse, to the coop? And if it is a migration, who instigates it? What if the instigator is lazy and is just looking for an excuse to sleep? Would all the chickens follow if it were mid-afternoon?

One day, Jenn let the chickens out and thought she saw her favourite chicken, called "Fuzzy-Head", take off toward our lower field. Since the strawberries were out, Jenn thought that the chicken was off eating them and paid no attention to her day long absence. It was only when the chickens were to be corralled and put in the coop for the night that Jenn noticed she was short a chicken. Her favourite one, too. And so began "The Lament for Fuzzy-Head: a tragedy in two parts." (Part One was Jenn losing her favourite chicken; Part Two was having to tell Hunter, who also claimed Fuzzy-Head as her favourite.)

Fuzzy-Head

Jenn waited for Fuzzy-Head to come to roost that night and we looked for Fuzzy-Head the next day. I expect Jenn was looking for the bird; I was, however, looking for a pile of feathers since we have foxes and weasles, not to mention hawks around. Neither of us found any sign of the chicken. It was probably day three or four that Jenn finally gave up on ever seeing Fuzzy-Head again however, if you ask her, she'll tell you that she didn't expect to see the bird from the night it didn't come home.

It was this past Friday that I found the bird, though, a whole twelve days later. Intact, even. She was sitting on a nest of eleven eggs, under a hawthorn shrub not ten feet from the back of the chicken area fenceline. I guess I should cut the grass more often. She was well disguised and I don't understand how she'd been able to go unseen for so long. It was only because I was out gathering the chickens to put them away for the night that I found her; and even then, it was only because there were a few chickens in her vicinity clucking away. She was thirsty and she went straight for the feed trough after (do chickens bloat, I wonder?) but other than that, she was fine. She had gone 'broody' on us and I guess she was looking for a quiet place to hatch her eggs, even though they were unfertilized, and I expect she'd have been there a long time if I hadn't found her.

The next day, Jenn let the chickens out as usual and Fuzzy-Head made for the same nesting spot where I had found her the day before. Jenn put one of Fuzzy-Head's eggs in a nesting box in the chicken coop and that seemed to keep her around for the day. Now she is roaming with the rest of them again, so I guess it's all back to normal around here.

Here are the variety of colours of eggs we get from the chickens. I would have a white one, too, but Fuzzy-Head was not around to donate for the photo.

New blog title being considered: The Biddy Blog, on account of us having almost as many chickens as dogs now.

2007-07-08T22:15:00.000-04:00

Since we are new to the world of chicken raising and egg production, it should come as no surpise that we are learning new things just about daily. I mean, I knew there were 'fancy' chickens out there; I've gone to a few agricultural fairs in my day, but I didn't know that there were a group of fancy chickens that are called 'easter-eggers' as a result of their laying coloured eggs. Although they are called 'easter-eggers' however, they don't lay the eggs with stripes and zig-zags. They do, however, lay mottled eggs and so far with us at least, eggs that are blue and eggs that are pink. Neither of these colours are vibrant, being more muted and pastelle-like, but still, a pink egg from a chicken? I didn't know it was possible. It would seem like a good spot to post a picture of the eggs but I haven't taken any yet. Maybe next post.

At first, we thought the colour of the eggs was a result of them free ranging around our property and eating all the grass, clover and insects. Jenn did some research, though, and discovered this whole sub-culture of chicken folks and immediately decided that we needed to get our own flock of easter-eggers and so, Saturday we went to a local chicken raising guy (what do you call them, anyway?) to buy five more birds. These ones are extremely fancy: two have feathered feet, like a ptarmigan, some are mottled and most look more pheasant like than chicken like. I think that they have been crossed with some sort of game bird becasue their eggs are smaller, considerably so, and they can really fly. This new batch is fairly shy and skittish, though, so it was hard to get a picture of them. Below is the only good one I managed to get.

The new biddies.

Today was the go-get-fish day and since Jenn was not scheduled to work, the three of us went down to Killarney. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, having stopped to get a coffee, we noticed this one-of-a-kind motorcycle/car thingy. I said to Jenn that she had to get a picture of it so over she went. I could see in the mirror that she was talking to the driver, then I saw her taking a picture and heading back to the truck. "I sat on it!" she said before she was even in the truck. She was excited enough to have managed to forget to ask the name of the driver, who, she found out, built the thing himself.

The cool rig.

Jenn sitting on the cool rig.

Just to finish off: a few people have asked me what sort of fish we get when we go to Killarney. It's the pin bone fillet that comes off the regular fillet. Even though it is considered 'bone' it is still mostly meat, just annoying enough for people to eat so it's discarded. Herbert Fisheries gives it to us and our dog love it. We pick up two packers at a time, since I don't have enough freezer space to freeze more. This is what it looks like:

Fish in Packer.

Then, I transfer it to the cut-off bottom of a Rubbermaid container, freeze it and then cut it into dog-sized chunks.

Fish in the Rubbermaid flats.

Little, tiny work gloves.

2007-06-23T22:17:00.000-04:00

When I woke up this morning, it looked a lot like rain. Even the weather from Environment Canada seemed to be calling for some showers. Nevertheless, I sped into town to get my roofing screws; I ran out yesterday and being so close to finishing the roof, I was not going to have the rain slow my progress today. I made the mistake of buying inch-and-a-half screws, instead of the two inch that I would need later, when it came time to put on the ridge cap. Of course, I didn't realize this until it was time to put the cap on, by which time I had used nearly half of the box of the shorter screws, so it was back into town -- half an hour each way -- for a ten dollar box of screws.

With the last screw in the ridge cap, the major construction phase of the chicken coop came to an end. The door is on, the window is in, which now leaves the insulating; the interior finishing: panelling, nesting boxes, electrical and a roost; the fence and related gates. Not much, really.

The chicken coop, minus the door:

I can't leave Jenn alone for a second. The other day, I turned my back for an instant and when I turned back, we were the owners of a new bunny. I had made the mistake of agreeing to let Hunter go to PetsMart to play with the kittens through the glass; sometimes, if we are close by and Hunter has been good, this is her treat. She pulls out the long feather-duster-looking toys from the display and waves them at the cats in the store. They bat at the air, follow the toy with their jerky head movements and generally entertain her. This day, Hunter was the distraction while Jenn went and adopted a bunny. I think the pair of them had it planned for a while because it was pulled off with such ease and subtlety. However, the two bunnies seem to be getting along, once the chasing, stamping and kicking fits ended.

The new bunny: ('Peter' to any who need to know it's name.)

Lately, Hunter has been helping me feed the dogs. She really likes to come out and put on her little work gloves, which I didn't even know existed. They are hilarious: wee little work gloves. Anyway, since we feed fish to the dogs, it is nice to have a pair of gloves so that we are not going through a tube of toothpaste every week. Yes, I said toothpaste. I have found out that it is the only thing that gets the smell of fish off your hands. One of the employees at Herbert Fisheries told me this, and I guess he'd know.

When Hunter helps me feed the dogs, I don't have to do a thing, except carry the fish bucket and feed Dart and Horton; even Horton could be fed by her. Hunter likes to root around in the bucket and then make sure she has the perfect piece for each dog, which she'll double check with me. Then, she'll walk through the dogs' area and put the chunk of fish on their house. I find the whole thing rather funny and I am really happy that she likes to do this.

Rooting around for that 'perfect' piece:

Feeding

Proud of herself and happy to have helped.

2007-06-16T21:29:00.000-04:00

It seems that we have a bear around our property. We had a mother and a cub last year and I think that this is the same pair this year. I have already seen them together earlier this spring and then last week the yearling cub was in the lower dog run; the one we don't use anymore, thankfully.

The local Ministry of Natural Resources has published a guide to being 'Bear Aware' and I think that we violate almost all of their recommendations. We have dog food stored outside, we have two freezers full of fish and we have so many fruiting trees around the property that it would be impossible to pick up the fruit. So far, the bears have stayed away from anything important.

The bear.

As it would happen, the photos are rather dark, so really, all there is to see is a black blob. It's a bear. I swear.

Progress has been made on the chicken coop, althought I haven't taken any pictures lately. We picked up our roofing metal the other day and I should be able to get it installed tomorrow if things go well; I have fish to cut, a trip to Killarney again, for more fish, and the other half of the roof to strap before the metal can go on.

Another week has passed and what have I done?

2007-06-03T21:27:00.000-04:00

Another twenty-eight degree day has come and gone and I find myself a little afraid of what the summer -- the actual summer -- has in store if the end of May and early part of June are any indication. Already, we have June bugs flying around and berries on the Hawthorns; perhaps at this accelerated rate, we'll get snow in September, although I somehow doubt it.

The stray dog that was around our place for the past few weeks has been successfully adopted. After a week of posting his picture with a 'found dog' label on the internet and looking around for 'lost dog' posters we decided it was time to put him up for adoption. We have been quite busy taking calls and emails and it looks as though he has found a new home. A couple came by on Friday to try him out for the weekend and I have just heard from them that they would like to keep him.

This past week has more or less been taken up by my construction of the chicken coop; the Chateau Frontenac of the chicken world as it is slowly becoming. Day one saw me leveling the floor with the help of a string line. Once that was done, I built the frame for the floor of the thing: 12 feet by 8 feet. Jenn has read that chickens need a certain amount of square footage, so these are her dimensions. In fact, the whole design is Jenn's basically: I am just the contractor. I managed to get the floor sheathing on on day one, also.

Day 1

Once I had re-laid the floor sheathing -- I realised that I had it on sideways: basically, the longitudinal strength was running horizontally -- I started to frame the sides. Jenn does not want any windows on the West or North side, so I was able to complete those for day two. I suppose I could have managed to get one, if not both of the remaining walls done, but we didn't have the door and window yet so I couldn't make the openings in the framing. Instead, I took the last bit of the day off for a (self described) well deserved beer.

Day 2

The coop stayed as it looked in day two for a few days while we waited for Uncle Rick, this crazy pack rat of a man who collects junk and then sells it to people at slightly elevated prices to open. He's only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and if people look hard enough, they can find something worthwhile. We knew he had a bunch of windows and we were dreading how much he'd try to charge for them; he's not above haggling, but he approaches it as a cat does a mouse: eventually, the mouse loses. It is almost as though he doesn't want to sell the stuff. However, he is going out of business at the end of the year and we were able to get our windows for a great price. He even threw in the matching one (with a broken pane) for free. Not something he is known to do. The window that we are going to use is rather large for a chicken coop. It measures 47.5 inches by 41.5 inches which is large for a bunch of chickens, I think. The picture below is of the window; a 4-pane plus screen unit, all of which slides and I have left it in the back of the truck to show the dimensions of it.

The window.

Now with a window and a door to measure, I set to making the remaining two walls. Once they were up, I checked everything for square and was only an inch out on the diagonals, so I was happy with that. A few taps with the hammer and I was able to get the whole thing one eighth of an inch out of square. I can live with that; let's hope the chickens can.

Day 3

After getting the walls up, I realized that a half-dozen nails were likely not going to be enough to finish the job, so I compiled a materials list for the next phase, making sure nails were on it, and Jenn and I headed into town. Let me say here that, with the exception of Chapters, I don't like big box stores. Even Chapters manages to not carry what I am looking for, so it would be fair to say that I don't like big box stores, which is why we found ourselves in the parking lot of Home Depot. Materials list in hand, Jenn and I go in to find, buy and load what we need as fast as possible and get home. Home Depot was not only a nuthouse of activity, being a Saturday, but it was full of helpfull staff who were no help at all. How someone can be that stunned at work and still retain a job is beyond me. On top of everything else, Home Depot, 'the contractors choice' didn't have what we were looking for, namely: lumber. We decided instead to go to a local lumberyard and buy what we needed there and it is a good thing we did because they were .30 cents cheaper per board and the lumber was nicer than any of the stock Home Depot normally carries, which just goes to confirm my dislike of big box, small brain stores.

Today was roof day. I spliced together two eight foot two by sixes to make a sixteen foot ridge board. Once I had it in place and secured, I measured the angle for my rafters and proceeded to cut them all, then I nailed them all in place. I expect that I would have had more done today, but it was go get fish day, so the three of us drove down to Killarney again, ate lunch and picked up our fish. The chicken coop sits as below, awaiting eave ladders and roof strapping. The rafters will be cut shorter as soon as I find out the measurements of our roofing metal.

Day 4

A short post with sub-par pictures.

2007-05-28T23:52:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was a busy one. I helped shingle a roof, which seemed simple enough at the outset: there were supposed to be many hands to make light work, it was a small roof comparitively speaking and, it wasn't supposed to rain. However, some of the volunteers didn't show, the roof stayed small, but there were -- wait for it -- FOUR(!) layers of shingles to be stripped and the previous owner had cheated with his fascia flashing, so I had to cut off the little lip he'd fashioned, which went all the way around the eaves, and then put on a new edge. Add to this the unexpected removal of an old, brick chimney and you have a long day of roofing in store.

It actually took two days to complete the roof. All of Saturday and most of Sunday, even though we started at five thirty in the morning to try and beat the rain, which didn't happen.

Aside from all of this, Jenn and I bought most of the materials for the chicken coop, we went out to a fantastic dinner at the home of some friends and I went to Killarney again to get some fish on Sunday.

Yes. The stray is still here. And getting a little to comfortable, at that.

Where there was once a shed, now there is nothing. I tried to move it because we had wanted to use it for a chicken coop, but it fell over twenty feet into the move, so I guess it wasn't as sturdy as it should have been. I salvaged what lumber I could and carted the rest off to the dump.

Before:

After:

Here is what I have managed to get done as far as my own chores go. Note the string layout in the foreground. It is the outline of the chicken coop. The patch of dirt at the front corner is where I had started to level out the ground for the blocks we will use to set the coop on.

Hunter is standing inside for a size comparison.

Bunnies, Chicken and Fish oh my!

2007-05-20T22:44:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, when Jenn and I were actually home together and preparing to have dinner, there was a knock at our door. We knew it wouldn't be our neighbours as they call before they come over, or at the very least, they ride over, very slowly, on their 4-wheeler as a means of announcing their arrival. I highly doubted it would be any of our friends stopping in, and besides, it didn't sound like a knock my friends would make: it was tentative, as though the knocker were unsure at the last second if this was such a good idea, after all. I went to the door and there was a lady standing there, very apologetic looking, and before I could say anything, she said "You have dogs, right?" The humour of her question was not apparent to her, but to me, looking out over her shoulder and into my dog yard, not a hundred yards beyond our house, I couldn't help but smile. I thought to myself that she was either here to ask about buying a dog or to complain and although we don't sell dogs routinely, I would have rather dealt with that question than a complaint. However, she had driven into the yard in an unfamiliar car and had walked, in plain view of the dogs, to the house and yet, not one dog barked. I don't even think that she saw the dog yard. So I doubted she was here to complain.

"Is one of your dogs missing?" she asked. I had, minutes before, just come in from feeding the dogs and I knew that they were all there, so I said that no, we were not missing a dog but thanks for asking. Jenn, by this point, had come to the door and she and the lady, Diane, as we later were introduced, began to discuss this loose dog that had been dropped off at her place. She was pretty sure that someone had come out and dumped their dog; "it happens all the time." she claimed. Before I could wish her luck finding the owners of the dog or suggesting that she call the shelter, Jenn had offered for us to go over and pick up the dog because we have the room for him. So, now we have eighteen dogs and a stray who has made it pretty clear that he has no intention of leaving. He has more than ingratiated himself to Hunter and Jenn; he has a tendancy to come when called, even though we haven't a clue as to his name and he is by far the 'lickiest' dog I have ever encountered. Non-stop, in fact. The only thing that goes more than his tounge is his tail which can sweep a mug of coffee off the table, a bowl of soup, and pots with plants in them off the windowsill. I think that his tounge and tail are somehow connected for they seem to work in concert: the harder the tail wagging, the more furious the tounge licking. If you are somehow missing a dog, or know who this guy belongs to, please, come and get him! I don't think I can take much more slurping. Here he is, just in case you might recognize him.

The stray dog we have somehow adopted.

This weekend, I managed to complete the bunny pen. It was more than past due. Certainly the rabbit must be happy. When we got him, he was in a rabbit cage that was pretty small and he stayed there until Jenn started leaving the door open so he could have the run of the back hall and bathroom. The rabbit patrolled this area faithfully and would chase Molly, the cat; a cat, I might add, that not only will not back down from a dog, but who also killed a weasle a few winters ago with a single, well placed bite on the neck.

It was while I was in the midst of putting up the fence that my friend dropped by. He was in to show me his new truck, but when he saw the fence going up he wandered over, curious as to what I was doing. "It's a bunny pen." I said by way of explanation. He asked how big the bunny was. I guess the pen is a bit large: it is 24 feet by 24 feet in dimension. There is only one bunny in it right now.

The Bunny and the Bunny Pen:

I told my friend that it could also hold a goat, should Jenn see a kid that she wanted. Maybe even chickens, I continued. At this, my friend mentioned that his brother was selling a few of his chickens and he asked if I wanted any. I said that I wasn't really ready for them as I have no place to house them yet but I'd ask Jenn and get back to him. I really ought to know by now that to ask Jenn about getting animals is useless. Of course we have room. And, so, this morning found me barely finished my coffee, still bleary-eyed from a short nights sleep, ripping two by fours into two by twos and building a chicken tractor.

A bit about chicken tractors, which, unlike the name suggests, is not a wee piece of farm machinery suitable for a chicken. It is, rather, a portable chicken coop with no floor. It is a great idea, actually, and allows one to move the chickens from spot to spot so they have a clean area as well as fresh grass and weeds to eat. This chicken tractor is only a temporary measure until the larger area is built. Mine, which is a fine example of carpentry, was cobbled together quickly out of scrap lumber, an old tarp and just about every screw I could find. I was even reduced to using roofing screws for part of it. I shouldn't complain: it cost me absolutely nothing to build it. It measures 8' long by 4' wide by 3' high.

Chicken Tractor and Chickens:

Chicken Tractor and the Bunny Run - for size comparison.

Not only did I build the chicken tractor today, but I was in a rush because it was our first run of the season down to Killarney for fish. I had hoped that we could all go, the three of us, and have lunch at the fish and chip stand but I took a lot longer to finish my little construction project and Jenn had to leave for work so it was just Hunter and I who went down. Hunter likes going to Killarney to see the big boats that come in. There have been, in the past, some fairly impressive yachts, catamarans and sailboats in the harbour but there were none today. The fisheries people had saved us two and half packers of fish though so as far as I was concerned, the trip was worth it. Hunter was a little disappointed at not seeing the big boats: she had dreamt of them last night, even, but she got over it. I had the camera with me in case we saw moose or bear or other wildlife, but there was nothing other than the palest, slinkiest, skittish-est fox I have ever seen. It was the color of tea with milk in it, not the usual red and it ran in such a manner that it looked like a weasle. I did get a good look at it on the side of the road where it stopped, so I knew it was a fox but it didn't hang around for a picture.

Even though we were in a rush today and there were no boats to look at, apart from a locals twelve footer with a kicker on it, Hunter and I got out for a bit of a walk down to the water.

Blackflies. I had forgotten about them.

2007-05-12T22:04:00.000-04:00

It was inevitable that with the warming days and flushing buds would come the blackfly. One day, there were none, the next there were several million of the tiny little vampires buzzing around our heads and the heads of the dogs. The dog run has started to dry up nicely, but there are still a few wet spots here and there.

The title of this entry could well have been "Yep. Still too wet, Part 2" or "The Tractor and I: How I managed to bury it, yet again, to the axles." I was trying to bring some sand and gravel in to Horton, the last dog who has a wet area, and I was using the tractor because it sure beats pushing a wheelbarrow. Because Horton's area is still spongey and wet, I had to more or less pirouette the tractor into position to dump the bucket in Horton's area. I had successfully managed to bring, deposit and leave three times, but on the fourth, as I was reversing, the tractor began to roll down the slightest of inclines and in doing so, sink in sloppy, soupy muck. I tried to go forward, I tried to go backward; I put the tractor in high range and low range. I piled logs (yes, actual logs. In a pile, as in several layers of logs, so deep was I stuck) under the tires but none of this gained me any ground whatsoever. It was so bad that I contemplated cutting down a few trees, cutting the fence of the dogrun and pushing myself out with the bucket, like last time. Fortunately, only one tree had to come down and no fence. I finally got out, parked the tractor and went about my day doing other non-tractor things.

For the first part of the week, Taiga was in the house for a few days. She noticed herself in the window one night, so Jenn went and brought her the mirror. That was entertainment, pure and simple, for all of us. We need to get out more, perhaps.

Much of my time this week has been spent constructing some sort of contraption that allows me to more easily remove the dogbox from the truck. I made it from timbers and wood that I milled last week and the week before. It is fairly large; the four timbers that make up the 'A' part of the frame are 14 foot long 4x4's. I have a pulley at the mid-point on the horizontal beam which allows me to use a wire cable and my come-along to lift the box off the truck. Once off, the box sits on a frame, also constructed from my own lumber.

While I was out building this thing, Hunter snuck out of the house while Jenn was napping. I heard the door close and out came Hunter, wearing only her pink camo boots. It wasn't long before she was in the mud and water and it wasn't long after that that the boots came off, too. I was watching her, but I was also working and as long as she didn't come near my tools or the wood, she was okay I said. I suppose I should have watched her more because she paraded into the house to show Jenn the worm she had found. I guess Jenn wasn't too upset; at least she managed to get a few photos of the kid.

Yep. Still too wet for the tractor.

2007-05-05T21:56:00.000-04:00

If I have to live with no snow for part of the year, I'd like to put my request in now for all the days to be like today: mild temperatures that are around 14 degrees, brilliant sunshine and a slight breeze. It is the perfect kind of day, as far as I am concerned, because it is a great temperature to work in, but it is also the sort of day that begs for a coffee, a comfortable chair and area to enjoy both that preferably faces southeast. Unfortunately for me, I was only able to work today; the coffee will have to wait.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have been planning on hauling and milling some of the blow-down and wind-thrown trees that are around the property. Today was that day. A chainsaw in one hand and the keys to the tractor in the other, I set out to salvage some wood.

Things looked promising as I bolted the radiator shroud back on to the tractor: I actually had bolts that fit. My good luck continued as I tried to turn over the tractor. The battery hadn't drained itself of its charge in a week or so of disuse. Imagine my delight as the tractor coughed and wheezed itself to life (with an encouraging spritz or two of ether) like an old man arising from a deep sleep. I was off and trotting.

The tractor:

My first tree was one that was on the edge of an open field. It had blown over and the roots had pulled themselves out of the ground. I put the chain around the soon-to-be log and cut it free. Then I went to the top of the tree and cut it free of the crown. I now had a 42-foot log to drag out of the bush. My original plan was to haul the log whole to the area where I do my milling, but it was soon pretty obvious that I was going to have to revise my plan. I couldn't get the log high enough off the ground using the 3-point hitch on the back of the tractor. Although the tractor is more than capable of hauling such a log, it would have hauled it down our gravel road and I don't want dirt, much less gravel, sticking to the logs because it will dull my chain on the chainsaw and sharpening a chain every two or three cuts is really, really tedious. Instead, I decided to cut the log into three 14-foot sections and chain them to the bucket on the front so that I could carry them to my log pile. Once I had decided to do this, things went rather smoothly. I cut down a second tree that had had its top snapped off about 35 feet up. I dragged this out of the bush and carried it to the log pile, as well.

It was at this point in my day, when things were going so well, that the level of production ground to a halt, or, more truthfully, became bogged down. To a standstill, in fact. There was a monster tree that I have had my eye on for months now. It was rotten for about ten feet up and when the winds came, it just collapsed. It fell across a gully and was easily two feet in diameter. Learning from my previous experience that cutting it into sections before trying to drag it out was easier, I proceeded to do so. Once I had it cut into what I thought were manageable sections, it took me about half an hour to drag the butt-section out of the gully. I had cut this particular section extra long because I noticed it was hollow through the middle for a ways up. I measured fourteen feet from the top of the log and cut off the hollow, rotten part. It was still hollow. I measured twelve feet from the top: still rotten. Ten feet: rotten. Eight feet: worse, if you can believe it. Six: the same and I gave up after that. If I ever need a four foot log, I know where I can get one.

Running adjacent to the gully is one of our trails. It looked as though it would be much easier if I dragged out the remaining two sections of the tree from the trail, so I drove down it, hooked on to the first section and slowly worked it up the bank. That is as far as I managed to get. Jenn, if you are reading this, please don't go any further. Really. Stop reading now. Please. For the rest of you, this is where I buried the tractor. In the middle of the trail and on a slight downhill slope: so slight it is barely noticeable, but it was enough. The ground being wet, soaked really, and the weight of the tractor had me making huge ruts in the trail. I tried to reverse back the way I had come, but I just spun the tires. Then, I made the mistake of deciding I should go ahead, find an opening and turn around and drive out. I had planned on using the lowest gear since it would be less likely to spin: reverse is a faster gear than the tractors low gear. This was a bad idea. I sank the tractor about a foot and a half into the soft, mucky ground and all I could do, both in forward and reverse, was spin the tires. My only option at this point was to use my bucket to push myself backwards, which I did, for roughly three hundred feet, gaining a foot to two feet at a time. I made a huge mess of the trail (see, Jenn, I told you to stop reading) and I never did managed to get the rest of the tree out.

I think I'll wait until the ground dries out and hardens up until I drive back there again.

This is what I managed to get hauled to the log pile:

Don't do a musher any favours.

2007-04-28T23:30:00.000-04:00

First of all: if you are ever thinking about offering a favour to a musher, or anyone that has a few dogs, be careful. Us mushers are a tied-to-the-house lot and when an opportunity arises to spend some time away from the house and have our dogs taken care of, we tend to take it. Secondly: be careful what you volunteer to do for said musher or dog owner, because we don't generally ask our friends to help us move or to help build a shed or even help cut our firewood. We ask them to scoop poop.

A while ago, during the winter, a musher friend of mine offered to look after my dogs for the weekend, while Jenn, Hunter and I went down south to visit my parents. So when he asked me if I would be able to help him out while he went on a vacation, I was happy to return the favour. Since my friend already had somebody arranged to feed his dogs, and this is someone who has been looking after these dogs for many years so the feeding method doesn't have to be explained to me (we are also a fussy lot) I get to make sure they all have water and a poop-free area. It's nice though, to be able to see someone elses dogs in their yard and compare similarities and contrast the differences. It is also a good way to get another perspective on things, like better tie outs (more on this later) or ground cover and things that probably don't interest anybody but the mushers I know. In fact, I have discussed at length about water pails/cans/buckets and the merits of each with my dogsledding friends. "At length" read: over an hour. Most people would perhaps tend to think "It's a container. With water in it. End of discussion... what's for lunch?" but there are many nuances that escape the non-doggie set and so, to finally conclude my thought, it is nice to see how other people do things.

Lou's Dog yard:

It is also nice to spy. My friend has a dog (Boris) in his yard that is a pretty much a 'who's-who' of sled dogs. He has both Pluto and Burner in his pedigree, which, trust me, are great dogs. There are many, successful mushers who agree that any winning teams in either sprint or mid- to long distance have these two dogs in their bloodlines. I am keeping my eye on him because he is going to be the father of our next one, possibly two litters. The spying comes into play because my friend already has two litters of puppies from Boris and a female of great athleticism and intelligence and I want to more or less gauge their growth and development. This way, Jenn and I can choose who best to breed Boris to when next spring rolls around. We have a few dogs in mind, but with my new position on the inside, perhaps we will be able to control the results more. Boris is a larger dog than I like to have in the yard, but all his offspring seem to be fairly small, due to the size of the mother. If this is the case and his pups stay small, then we will for sure choose one of our better, smaller females to breed.

Boris

Boris, again.

Some of Boris' pups

I guess that is enough of the future plans for the kennel: any further writing and I'll start talking about coat, feet and genetics, so it's best left where it is, for the sake of any readers who are still here and for the sake of brevity.

Jenn and Hunter came with me to my friends place this morning. I will be doing this for a week and since I start work in the afternoons, I wanted to make sure I left myself enough time to get to work. In all, it takes me about an hour and half to do the rounds. This includes watering the dogs, as well. Hunter was pretty excited to see all the new dogs; my friend has about forty currently, having sold a few after the racing season was over. This friend is a very good racer and his dogs are sought internationally. How sought after? He sold a lead dog for $10, 000 (!) Once Hunter and Jenn had said hello to all the dogs, they went to look for frogs down the trail while I finished.

Looking for Frogs

I mentioned earlier in this post that I would expand on tie-outs and a better system. Here goes: I finish work at around 23h00 and get home half an hour later. Since I am away in the evening, but Jenn isn't, she feeds the dogs their evening meal. This particular night, she was expecting to be late and so when I arrived home and saw the truck parked all funny, with the lights facing the dog run, I just figured that she had arrived home later than expected and wanted the lights of the truck to shine so she could go to the run and feed the dogs. Odd, though, I thought, because I have lights in the dog yard for just this reason and I know Jenn knows this. Oh well. I went in the house and Jenn met me with the whole story. Dart (is it ever anyone else?) got loose that afternoon and was running around the yard until Jenn came home. He had actually pulled his post out of the ground (I buried them three feet deep) and was dragging it all over the place: in the dog yard and out. She wasn't sure what to do with him, so for lack of any better ideas, she put him in the free run for the night. That held him until about 01h30 in the morning when I heard the dogs barking and went outside to find Dart, loose again. This time, I untied one of our pensioners, Bug, and put Dart at her spot and brought Bug in the house for the night. It was now 02h00. Hunter woke up at 06h00 so I had a short night. I went outside to feed the dogs and to fix Darts area by driving a six foot long, 2 5/8" around, nearly solid steel section of drill-rod in to the ground and hooking his chain in a loop around the base. In just over four hours, Dart had nearly pulled Bugs post out of the ground as well, and he might have succeeded had it not been for his misfortune of wrapping himself around a tree. He has been at his newly improved tie out for almost a week now and it seems to be holding. For now.

Jenn and I finished off the day by worming our dogs. That was a chore and a half to be sure. Our wormer is a liquid and has to be fed to the dogs directly; it can't go on their food, so imagine holding a dog with one hand, trying to put a syringe in it's mouth with the other and all the while the dog is squirming like a stoker with a hot coal in his pants. The dogs don't get much of the liquid, either, so it is important to make sure they get it all. We were covered in mud at the end of it, but it was more or less a success.

I drove the new to me, old to the world tractor for the first time today, but since there are no pictures I think I'll leave that for another post.

One last shot of Hunter, looking around the corner of the dog barn:

Mill your own lumber! It's free! It's easy! (well, kind of)

2007-04-21T23:43:00.000-04:00

There is a certain satisfaction that comes with being able to mill your own lumber. Last summer, we had a pretty wicked windstorm that brought down a lot of trees in the Sudbury and surrounding area. I was still with the tree company then and we were extremely busy with the cleanup. A friend of ours was able to salvage a lot of his wood and he sold it to a mill in Ottawa: they removed a double-bunk truck load and there is still more to be cut up.

Although we didn't suffer any great losses around here, we did get some blowdown and some windthrown tops; all of which I would like to get cleaned up at some point. Because so much of the damage is to good trees (those with large canopies were the hardest hit due to their sail effect) it would be a real shame to see them all go to firewood. Plus, I have a few projects to accomplish this summer, all of which require lumber and so it was this afternoon, I set up my Alaskan Mill to start milling some of my lumber.

In the course of two hours, I was able to get both these 9-foot six-by-six inch beams milled. It may sound like a lot of time spent milling these beams, but really, I was talking with my neighbour during the milling process and I also had to switch between my mill and my 'beam machine' rig because I don't have my guide rails set up yet. Without a long explanation, these guide rails provide a surface to make my first cut straight and even and although it is a bit of a pain to constantly switch between two different sets of chainsaw attachements, things seemed to go rather smoothly anyway.

I used the mill in Whitehorse to mill a bunch of poplar logs into trim for our kitchen in the cabin I built. The mill itself is fairly accurate and I expect that it is the most efficient way of making lumber until one moves up into the portable bandsaw mills... oh, to dream.

Below is one of the kitchen cabinet doors that I made out of the wood I am milling above. I treated the wood on the door with steel wool soaked in vinegar to age the wood and I added the patina on the copper insert using peroxide, vinegar and lemon juice. They are really nothing that spectacular, but since everything was an experiment, I think they turned out okay.

I don't have doors to build this time, though; instead, I have a drive shed to build and a frame for the dogbox so that I can take it off the truck. I'd better get milling.

Free-run-a-polooza

2007-04-18T00:26:00.000-04:00

There is not much time for relaxing around here. Since the camera battery was more or less dead when Jenn tried to take pictures yesterday -- she was not happy -- Jenn plugged in the charger and bided her time until the battery was at full charge. Then, camera in hand, Jenn went out today and spent her afternoon and evening with the dogs, engaged in various activities. First, she and Hunter took some dogs for a walk down to the beaver pond, then it was free run time for those dogs that didn't go for a walk. Everybody was exercised today. I think that instead of rambling on, I'll just post the pictures in some semblance of order:

The walk:

The senior tour...

Triangle and Baby (Triangle in front)

Hunter, mid-stampede

The free run area:

How to win friends and influence people -- or in this case, dogs:

Step one: Grab a cookie from the bucket,

Step two: Give the cookie to a dog,

Step three: verify cookie freshness,

Step four: repeat step two as necessary,

Step five: smile, secure in the knowledge that you have made two new friends

When an Unstoppable Force meets an Immovable Object

2007-04-17T01:19:00.000-04:00

It is rare that Jenn and I are home together, without one of us having to be somewhere, in the mornings; and it is even more rare that we should find ourselves in this situation without the kid. Yet, this morning, that is exactly where we found ourselves.

Hunter stayed the night at her grandparents house, and while we did sort of miss the little kidlet in the morning, Jenn and I were able to have a coffee in peace. Normally, I feed the dogs in the morning, after my first cup of coffee, while Hunter stays in the house and Jenn sleeps. Even though I tell Hunter not to wake Jenn up, the minute I am out of the house, Hunter runs into the bedroom and jumps on the bed, all the while shouting "Mommy, Mommy it's happy time! It's happy time! The coffee is ready!" And so it is almost every morning: Jenn is awoken in such a manner. Today, however, Jenn was able to rise at her own pace and we fed the dogs together. Jenn was anxious to see the newly completed free run area, so we weren't long having our first coffee before we were out of the house. I had been working on the run all week, which is the nice thing about going into work in the afternoons: I'm able to work a bit around the house before I have to go to my job. I mean, I'm up anyway...

Before I was able to grab the camera, Jenn had it in her hands and was trying to take pictures of us. Here is one of us:

Then, there is me in my 'feeding-the-dogs-and-whatever-other-chores-involve-obscene-amounts-of-mud' clothes. Yes, I am aware that the spring melt has been cruel and has not only created a mudhole that would rival the LeBrea Tar Pits, but it has also managed to put on display all the junk that was lost 'neath the snow. There is only so much photo cropping I can do. Anyway, I wear this outfit when I feed the dogs and go to church.

Once we were done feeding the dogs, Jenn let Horton go in the new free run. He lost his mind. He was running so fast that his back end was overtaking his front. You haven't seen funny 'til you've seen this. It was at this point that the battery on the camera died, so we only have the one picture of Horton, which in itself is impressive because I expected to find merely a blur. Jinx joined Horton and the two of them raced around the run for ten minutes or so, and then it was Darts turn.

I don't know how many of the readers of this blog have read the "Our Dogs" page, so forgive me if it sounds like I'm repeating myself. Dart is a goof. There are only a few adjectives to describe this guy. Lovable idiot comes to mind, as does brain-dead. He spends so much time running circles in his area that I think he is permanently dizzy. That said, though, I think I should take responsibility for what happened next. I really should have made the fence more visable. Perhaps I should have hung flagging tape around it at dog eye level. Maybe a warning track, like they have in the outfield of baseball diamonds. Something. Anyway, Jenn let go of Darts collar, and the dog, who only has two settings: "off" and "hyper-drive" and I've never seen him in 'off' mode, goes running full-tilt into the fence at the far end of the run. Never in my life have I ever (or will ever, again) seen a dog roll up a fence. But, Dart, once his feet touched the ground again, just kept on going. Sort of like a Weeble. Maybe that'll be his new name.

All in all, though, it seems like the free run is a hit. One project down, many to go.

Gurus and asanas

2007-04-13T20:36:00.000-04:00

Here's a neat thing: I get Fridays off at work. The company that I work for lets us work what they call 'four tens' which is pretty self-explanitory; we work four days a week at ten hours a day. That way, we get our forty hours a week in, and we get a long weekend every weekend, too. I have tried to find something in this to complain about, but, try as I might, I can't. Another bonus for me is that I am currently working the afternoon shift, which is a rather euphemistic way of saying 'nights'. We are working at night because the company that I work for does commercial and industrial siding and glass work. We are currently replacing the windows in a school and have to work around their schedule.

The fact that I start at two in the afternoon and finish at eleven at night isn't the bonus, the bonus is that because we are on the 'afternoon' shift, we get an extra hour added to our time. Plus, because the group of people that I work with are unionized they don't miss a break. Ever. I'm going to get soft, I just know it. All that aside, however, the job is still pretty physically demanding: glass is heavy. Plus, it's not the sort of material that can be tossed around. And, too, there have been a few times already where I've taken out a window frame ten or so feet long and eight or so feet high and found myself standing on a ledge a few stories up.

I ordered some wormer for the dogs on Wednesday and it came today. Two litres of liquid Ivermectin.

I guess the one of the signs that you have enough dogs is that you are ordering wormer by the litre. Although, there is a lead dog that we are looking at right now and we have it on good authority that he is fast, responsive and inexpensive. I'm making room in the dogyard already.

Speaking of the dogs, I was out feeding them tonight and Hunter didn't want to help. She wanted to stay inside because it was kind of a miserable day with cool temperatures and misty/rainy/flurries. So, I left her in the house to play with her dolls and went out to feed everybody. I came back to her doing yoga, nearly naked, and watching herself in the reflection of the television screen. She and Jenn do yoga in the mornings sometimes and Hunter really likes it. She had gone and pulled out her yoga mat, undressed and was doing all the poses when I came back, so I had to take pictures of her. Here are some of her poses:

The Excite-o-meter reads "ZERO"

2007-04-08T08:23:00.000-04:00

I have been wanting to post a new blog entry for a while now, but two factors have sort of stood in my way. First, I fired my boss last Monday and started a new job on Tuesday. I am not climbing trees anymore; instead, I'm an Apprentice Glazer. I don't really know what a glazer does, but it seems that an apprentice glazer does whatever the glazer says. I know it involves removing and installing windows in industrial and commercial settings and I also know that it doesn't involve climbing trees, so really, it can't be that bad. Plus, I get to hit stuff with a hammer and I get to, no, I have to, break the glass we remove. Secondly, I live a pretty boring life. I have not really had much of anything to write about lately, and you'll notice that this entry is suspiciously light on the pictures which means that anything I have done recently didn't even warrant bringing a camera. Step aside, everyone, Mister Excitement is comin' through!

If I were smart, I might have had some photos to post of my chainsaw mill in action but maybe it's best I don't; how exciting is that, anyway? I was supposed to be milling the timbers and lumber for the new shed/garage-thingy that I'm going to be working on but I managed to leave all my equipment in the truck, which Jenn took for the weekend. This also was supposed to be the weekend that I got the free run area for the dogs finished. It was also supposed to be the weekend that I cleared the area for the drive-shed and started on an addition to the feed shed so that I could store our sleds out of the weather. Last summer, I just stuck the sleds in the attached-to-the-house car port along with all of our other belongings that I brought back from Whitehorse. This year, however, that car port is slated to come off so that we actually get some sun in the house and I want to keep it as free of clutter as possible: which, if you know me, will be nearly impossible.

Instead, however, I spent the weekend moving the belongings of a friend half an hour down the road. I won't go into any details other than this friend has had a lot happen to him in a very short time and most of it has not been good. I figured that the dog run can wait. So can the car port.

When I do start building the drive shed though, it should look like this:

I'd love to say that I had the time to draw this out, all architectural-like, but I didn't. I have an idea of what I want and this is pretty close, except where the windows are is actually where the doors for the vehicles will be. In this drawing, the doors are shown on the side of the building, which is kind of silly: I mean, who puts doors under the slope of a roof? As if I need more snow to shovel!

And, hey! Look what landed in my yard today!

Three, ten-foot basket sleds. They are from my friends place (he builds sleds, but not these. His are better. Much better). He has been doing some repair work for an outfitter near us. These are the sleds the guests get to drive. I wonder, with sleds like that, if he gets any repeat business? Anyway, my friend has no room for them and they are mostly rotten, anyway, which is why there is a fridge piled on top of them. They are supposed to go to the dump or get burned or something, but I'm going to try and talk my friend into selling me or giving me these sleds. There is one decent set of runners on them and I'm hoping that I can salvage enough to modify one, maybe two, into a long freighting and training sled. A sled that size, with all my gear in it, plus a passenger and I'd be able to take all the dogs at once. Whoo boy! That'd be fun. Now that I think about it, it may be a bit dangerous. Most of the trails around here are designed for snowmachines which have a much tighter turning radius than does a team of 18 dogs. I'd be hitting trees all over the place. In case you were wondering, 18 dogs on a gangline is about seventy feet long, not including the sled.

The seasonal shift is underway

2007-04-01T23:08:00.000-04:00

So, what do a pair of mushers do when the season finally melts away? Why, they go to a dog show in the morning and then have their musher friends over for dinner so they can talk about dogs. We manage.

The Coniston dog show was on this weekend and although I am not a really a fan of dog shows per se, I will go to gawk at the parallel universe. I say parallel universe because although dogs figure largely in the lives of these people, these lives are so far removed from ours. I have a whole tirade about dog shows and the Canadian and American Kennel Clubs and how their are ruining certain dog breeds by what they are selecting as Best in Class and Best in Show, but I'll not say more for now, except: you would be hard pressed to see a dog with any appreciable muscling on it at (this particular) dog show. Oh! to have the decadent life of a show dog. The primping and preening rivals the backstage of the Paris runways, I bet. We have a friend who raises Siberian Huskies for show and sale and he was supposed to be at the show but we missed the Working Group as the judging was held on Friday. I understand that there were only two Siberian kennels there, anyway, so I guess his chances of winning Best in Class were good; 50/50 odds aren't bad.

Jenn, Hunter and I wandered around the floor (it was held in the Coniston Arean) to get a better look at some of the dogs. A few folks were kind enough to let us take pictures of their dogs and others were too serious to stop to chat. We didn't stay for very long; there is only so much dog-and-handler prancing I can take. What a funny world.

Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I'm not trying to bad mouth the show circut. My issues lie with the Kennel Clubs and their setting of 'breed standards' but the show kennels themselves display a lot of committment to their dogs; I mean, some people drove for hours to sit in a dimly lit arena bathing, blow-drying and brushing their dogs. I don't do that at home.

Here are some of the dogs we saw at the show:

Hunter waiting patiently in the truck while a librarian that rivals a slug in speed 'helps' me find a book.

We had James and his girlfriend over for dinner. James had been Lou Serre's handler this winter and I met him while working on the race. He is an American who has wanted to move to Canada for quite a while and after meeting Monique, his girlfriend, this winter he has finally started to climb the mountain of paperwork involved in immigrating.

Monique and James brought Emily, Moniques three year old daughter to dinner. Hunter was excited all day at the prospect of having a new friend to play with. The two of them were immediate friends and happily played away together until 23h00 when James and Monique decided it was time to go.

James and Monique

Hunter and Emily around the fruit tray

Hunter and Emily, in serious pre-dinner conversation

Playing with bubbles

Until the frost comes out of the ground and we get our projects in line, I think our lives will be a bit on the boring side. Jenn is looking at different breeders of goats, however; who knows, maybe we'll have another kid around here soon.

Motorcycles in March

2007-03-28T20:16:00.000-04:00

Once, I used to gauge the onset of spring by when I would start seeing the kids in the neighbourhood out on their new bikes. Now, since I don't live in a neighbourhood and haven't for a while, I can't see the new bikes and kids so I have started assessing springs' progress by when I see motorcycles on the road. This is week number two. Astonishing, really, when I think about it. I mean, motorcycles. In March. Normally we get about a third of our annual snowfall between mid-February and the end of March. We are, with the exception of snowbanks, completely snow free. Where once, a month ago, there was this:

There is now this:

This is by far the fastest snow melt I have ever seen, which unfortunately coincides with the the least amount of snow in this part of Northern Ontario I have ever seen. If this five-weeks-of-winter thing keeps up, I'm moving. Again.

Jenn had a hard time taking the dogs for a walk yesterday evening. Since the snow has disappeared so quickly and so soon, the snowshoe hares are at a severe disadvantage right now. Everything is mud or leaf coloured. Except them. When you have two puppies and six adult dogs running around loose it doesn't take one of them, and shortly the rest, long to see a blaze of white against the dark background.

It was Valley's turn to be in the house for a visit last night. Next to Hudson, Valley has the biggest feet and she sure can track in a lot of mud at one time. She's a pretty big dog, especially when she is in the house, but she is scared of the floor -- too slippery -- so that slows the wreckage down a bit: almost like watching a car wreck on slow motion film. You know the damage is going to be bad it just takes a while to happen.

It didn't take Valley long to find the bunny, either.

Seen here, Valley is using her wits to tackle the complicated barricade we had set up to discourage her and the rabbit meeting.

It didn't work. Here are the two of them, sitting down to a serious discussion. I imagine the dialogue was along these lines:

V: Good evening, my long-eared chum. I haven't seen you for quite some time!
B: Why, good evening, Valley! Fancy you in here! You've caught me rather unaware; I have nothing to offer you. Unless you'd enjoy a carrot top, perhaps?
V: Not to worry, my good rabbit. I'm only here to pass the time.
B: Well, then, what shall our topic of discourse be this evening?

I am now at the point in this post where I have to devote some time to the arts. It is always dogs, dogs, dogs on this site, but there are some out there that appreciated the higher forms of entertainment, some culture I guess, and I don't want to alienate them. Today, we will focus on a young artist who normally works in the body art medium but has lately switched to marker and paper. I feel this is a wise move as the art pieces will better lend themselves to display and will also have more permanence. She is currently going through her "Spuds" phase; so called because her character studies are rather potato-like. Here she is, with her piece simply titled Mommy:

And following that, the eagerly anticipated and highly debated Self-Portrait of the Artist:

There was much debate around the release of this piece because it lacked the customary straight lines at odd angles that normally account for appendages in this style. When I was able to interview the artist, I took a moment to ask why this particular portrait had a noticeable lack of arms or legs. "They are happy." she said, simply. They are happy. A lesson for all, perhaps. I was also fortunate enough to capture the enigmatic artist in a moment of playful coyness, where she threatened to shoot this reporter with an elastic. Her aim is pretty good, so that is all I have to report at this time.

Imagine my joy.

2007-03-23T21:14:00.000-04:00

Imagine my joy last Wednesday when my boss called me to tell me that we were returning to work after having the winter off. I had been expecting this day would come in the near future, but I was really surprised at how near that future was. In case you missed it, "joy" was written with the utmost sarcasm. To be honest, I am a little sick of people and their trees. I think it is great (and here comes more sarcasm) that people decide to build sheds and store boats, snowmachines, cars that haven't moved in decades (but watch out: don't scratch the paint) under trees that should have come down years ago. I mean, why do today what can be put of until tomorrow? Instead of letting the tree get to a point where it is a menace to anything within it's reach, why not deal with it (or let us deal with it) when it is manageable? Its a tree. It will grow bigger. It won't get better. Go ahead, though; build a beautiful shed right underneath it and store your most prized toys in it. I enjoy a challenge. And if you really want to make me happy, after I have spent all day taking apart a tree that you couldn't deal with; that was over top of your $50,000 garage that houses two rare, modified muscle cars worth over $100,000 each, and you notice how hard the crew worked, all day, say to me: "Don't you wish you had stayed in school?" This really happened. Exactly as I have written it. I went to school, thank you. I notice that this comment came after I had come out of the tree; otherwise, the $100,000 car might have had a log as a co-pilot. So, imagine my joy.

Here is one of the trees we had to deal with today. A nice, over-mature poplar that had a big limb tear (almost) off in a wind storm last summer.

Notice the big cavity half way up it. That always cheers me up, when I climb past the dead, hollow part of the tree. Luckily for me, that is Rob, the other climber, up there today. I did the tree in the front of the house, the one that was over the deck and twenty feet away from the eaves. You can't really see Rob because he had a bunch of dead branches hanging in his way, plus the tops of the smaller trees to deal with as he climbed.

This is me near the end. Yahoo. I get to come down soon.

Is it too early to start looking forward to next winter?

What would YOU do with a purple marker?

2007-03-22T22:17:00.000-04:00

Well, if you are my kid, you use it as eye shadow.

Notice the care with which the so-called make-up is applied. We wouldn't want it to look too garrish.

Actually, Hunter had a fistfull of markers and I guess she has been watching Jenn get ready for work. Hopefully, Jenn doesn't leave the house looking like Hunter.

I know that the majority of blogs out there, swirling around in cyberspace, are devoted to the children of over enthusiastic parents and while I am certainly not trying to join with them, this was too funny to let pass. Maybe it was just funny to me, I don't know. Oh well, too bad, it's my blog.

We have had some rather large temperature differences over the past few days. On Tuesday, it was -21 and today it was +11 with rain all last night. Almost all of our snow is gone, which may sound like a fast melt (and it was) but is made less impressive by the fact that I think we only had 8 to 10 inches of snow to start with. Right now there is not enough snow for the sled anymore, but there is still too much for the 4-wheeler with no motor. As well, the ice in some places is quite bad, so the dogs are just being free run around our place right now.

Jenn and I have been discussing the projects we want to try and complete this summer. Boy, there sure are a lot of them, not the least of which are pens (proper pens if you recall the tragic goat incident) for the goats and the chickens (which we have yet to get. Pens first.) Also, a timber frame/pole barn style garage, storage- and woodshed. I am planning on milling all the wood for this myself from trees harvested from the property. We have an abundance of dying poplar and I'd like to make use of them instead of supplying homes for further damaging insects and diseases.

Here is one final shot of my goofy kid.

This chair was given to Hunter when she was not yet a year old by our friends Paul and Josee from Whitehorse. It just fit her then, but she will still drag it over to her spot, get it set just so, and wedge herself into it to watch a movie. Notice the nice, big, comfy chair beside her. Realize that there is an inviting, soft chesterfield behind her. Know that we don't make her sit in this chair. This is all her doing. Hands folded in front of her, sitting up straight, she looks as if she is waiting for the Queen to arrive.

More from the race

2007-03-15T23:10:00.000-04:00

It has been brought to my attention that perhaps my last post was a bit tedious: text heavy and picture light. In an attempt to appease my readers (both of them) I have some video posted below.

Jenn and her 4-dog bib:

Jenn, starting the 4-dog race, Day 1:

You will have to pay attention because the video is pretty quick. This has nothing to do with our dogs but rather how close the camera person was to the start line. Anybody familiar with Chatmac Dogsled Equipment may recognise the voice of the announcer as none other than Doug McNeill, Chatmac's one-time owner. He did a fantastic job of emcee-ing; so great in fact that he was approached to do other gigs for other organizations.

Jenn and her 4-dog finish, Day 1:

Our dogs, because of how and where we train, have limited to no passing experience. Check out Jenn's pass near the finish line. Claude Aumont, the other musher in the video, left the start line two minutes ahead of Jenn. A pretty exciting finish, especially when our dogs did such a good job of passing.

Jenn, starting the 6-dog race, Day 1:

This was not the best start Jenn had all weekend. Olive, the same dog that dragged the rest of the team off the trail a little further on, decided at the last second to jump over, crawl under or go behind Dora, the other leader. This made for a less-than-great start and as the team goes by, you can see the two front dogs are not as they should be. Just before the video ends, the dogs get themselves sorted out.

Jenn, finishing the 6-dog race, Day 1:

The farm fields allowed everyone at the finish line a good view of the mushers coming in. They were able to see them for a long time. As Jenn comes in, the object in the back is a snowmachine and is likely the trail groomer. This was the run that Jenn had a hard time with, both at the start and with Olive diving off the trail so she was out on the trail for fifteen minutes longer than would be normal. The dogs look pretty strong coming back even though the temperature was fairly warm for them.

Jenn's (first) race day

2007-03-12T23:55:00.000-04:00

I have added a page about our dogs. It is on the sidebar at the right-hand side of the page.

Day One:

Early Saturday morning came in the form of freezing rain. It was race day. I have been on the committee that has been planning and organising this race since early summer and I have to say that after postponing the race once already, freezing rain was not what I wanted to see five hours to race time. For a week prior to today I have been grooming a trail to the point of obsession. It has wound up costing a lot of money; we broke one snowmachine and had it repaired, we broke a hydraulic groomer that tows behind a 4-wheeler with tracks on it instead of tires, which we also had break on us. This race was one obstacle after another; however, today was race day and I was up at 0500hrs to gather our gear, load our dogs, prepare their food, feed those left behind and then, get Jenn and Hunter ready, too, if need be. Normally, Jenn needs a few wake up calls but today she had Hunter dressed, a lunch packed, her race clothing on and a coffee for both of us by the time I was done my part. I think she was either excited or nervous. Probably both. We left in the pre-dawn darkness.

Leaving for the races

Although the race didn't start until 1000hrs, I had to be at the start line early so we could set up the road crossings, which included snow fencing down the middle of the trail for head-on passing, bales of straw on either side of the trail so the dogs knew to continue straight ahead and snow across the road so the sled didn't run over the bare road. Along with the two road crossings, we also had to set up for the 4-dog loop, which meant the placement of more bales of straw at trail junctions. On top of this, we also had just over eight miles of trail to groom. I parked the truck and trailer, set up the drop chain for the dogs and Jenn set about feeding the dogs in their boxes. By this time, the sun was starting to show and the freezing rain had turned to very fat flakes of snow.

After my grooming and setting up of the trail, I came back to the truck to help Jenn drop the dogs for a pee and I started to get her equipment ready. Hunter was wandering around the dogs and I knew Jenn would have her hands full until our race help arrived. We were expecting a few people to come out to help Jenn harness, hook up and get to the start line. I headed back out on the trail to groom the left hand side. The trail was about ten feet wide and the groomer is only four feet, so we had to make three passes. One snowmachine would tow the groomer and the other would pull three tires behind to smooth out the trail. These sprint dogs sure get the best trails.

At first, Jenn was concerned that I wouldn't be able to help her prepare for the race, but on my last go-round with the snowmachines she said that there were enough people around to help so I didn't have to worry. I had volunteered to be at one of the trail junctions in case a team blew through the bales of straw or a team and driver became separated. I was also going to relay the bib numbers of the mushers who were passing the half way point to the emcee so that he could relay, in turn, the information to the crowd. When I last saw her, before her first 4-dog heat, Jenn had quite a throng of people around the truck and the dogs. Some we knew, most we didn't and Jenn was being asked questions from all sides while trying to prepare for her first race. I was due on the trail, so I wished her luck and left. Hunter was with her cousins and Jenn's parents so at least Jenn was able to focus on her preparations. Since I wasn't there, I don't really know how things went, but Jenn was very appreciative of Stacey and Darryl, Rick and Brenda, Jim and Deb, her mom and dad, our neighbours, Bob and Linda and all the others who helped her. If anybody wasn't mentioned, it is my omission, not Jenn's.

From the speaker of my walkie-talkie I could hear Doug, the Trail Boss and emcee count down for Jenn's start: "three... two... one, go driver!" and shortly after that, across three farm fields, I could make out a figure on a sled: "well, she's still standing" I thought. A few minutes later around the bend comes Jenn with her team. They looked pretty strong still even though it was fairly mild for them. A smile and quick wave and Jenn was gone.

Jenn and her 4-dog team

Next came the 6-dog class and because of some confusion at the timers truck, Jenn was late for her start. Originally, she was told that there would be a ten minute break between the Purebred class and the Sportsman class, which she was running. When Jenn heard the emcee announce over the PA that she was supposed to be in the chute, she didn't even have a harness a dog and her gangline was still set up for the 4-dog race. As fast as they could, Jenn and anybody close by stated harnessing dogs and putting them on the gangline. In all the confusion some dogs ended up with tug lines on their collars, neck lines on their harnesses, some facing forward and some facing every other way. Jenn was forced to start behind the last musher. Before I tell the rest of the Day One, six dog run I should explain the trail.

We had 1- and 2-dog skijoring classes as well as 4, 6, and 8 dog classes, so we needed a trail that was at least eight miles long and preferably with no head-on passing. The latter we accomplished with snow fencing and bales of straw; the former we accomplished by zig-zagging the trail through the available farm fields. The first three fields were the most severe in terms of zigs and zags: in some places one part of the trail was separated from another part of the trail further along by 50 feet of open, snowy fields. This meant that although a musher might be two minutes ahead of Jenn, they may be only 50 feet apart.

Even though we took great care to provide adequate trail markers, one of Jenn's lead dogs decided: "To Hell with this zig zag business, I can just cut across here to the trail and save us all some time!" By the time Jenn was able to stop the team she was into the softer, unpacked snow and her snow hook wouldn't hold. Olive, the disobedient leader refused to listen to Jenn and wouldn't stay on the trail. What was she to do? With no snow to hold the hook and no trees to tie to, Jenn somehow managed to get Olive back on the trail and running again with a fifteen minute deficit. She was nearly fuming when she passed me, at which point she decided to move Olive out of lead.

Jenn and her 6-dog team

The rest of the race was uneventful. I came back in to the staging area because there was a gap between Jenn's race and the 8-dog Pro race during which time we held a Kid and Mutt race. Hunter didn't enter, but her two cousins Lauren and Owen decided that they'd like to run it so we brought out Ruby, the secret wepon, for them. Ruby was great; she pulled Lauren first, then the two boys of a friend of Jenn's from work, then Owen. Ruby ended being the best (no bias here, honest) dog out there mostly because she managed to run straight and not stop to sniff, pee or climb the snowbank. Lauren came first overall. I finally had a chance to mingle a bit with the folks around the truck and then it was back out to the trail for the last class of the day.

Ruby: Kid and Mutt dog extraordinaire.

Lauren, Hunter and Owen

Once the day was over, Jenn and I ended up talking to the musher who was parked beside our truck. He was a member of the race committee. His wife was nearly two hundred kilometers away and he didn't feel like going to his lodging right away, so we decided that we'd go home, feed and water our dogs and then meet for dinner. We sat and ate and talked for nearly three hours and then it was off to bed for us.

Day Two:

With the majority of our gear already in the truck and Hunter having slept over at Jenn's parents house with her cousins, we were not nearly as rushed as Saturday. I loaded the dogs again and fed those being left behind while Jenn made the coffee, which I eventually managed to spill. Hers, not mine. Yep. Good start to the day for her. The temperatures on Saturday night were around the -10C mark and everything was pretty icey in the dog-truck area. We, the trail groomers (all two of us at that point), wanted to get out on the trail as soon as possible to see what the above zero temperatures during the race, combined with the packing action of sleds and dog feet would do when combined with freezing temperatures. It was as we had feared: the trail was glare ice underneath frozen balls of icey snow. We started to groom the trails and quickly came to the realization that the race was going to be severly behind schedule, if it went at all, because of the ice. Not only would it make the steering of sleds very difficult, it would cut the feet of the dogs. All we could do was keep grooming and try to scrape as much ice off as we could. The problem with this was that the snowmachines couldn't pull the groomer when it dug into the crust because the tracks would just spin; it was that icey.

We ended up hooking two snowmachines together. I towed the snowmachine that towed the groomer. This worked for a bit, but since the machine I was on was liquid cooled, overworked and unable to get snow on its cooling fins, we soon overheated it. I ran it back to the staging area and got another one. This one we had more success with, but managed to blow three sparkplugs out of the other machine. It wasn't looking good. Back at the starters truck, the mushers were getting antsy. Some had seen the trail and agreed that it would be of no real benefit to run it while others thought the complete opposite. We had a meeting with the Trail Boss and the Race Marshal, who also disagreed on what to do. Finally, we agreed to wait until the sun had been on the trail for a while, groom it and then start the races. This seemed to meet the approval of many although by the time we got started at 1230hrs there was some more grumbling going on.

Rick (one of Jenn's handlers), James (Lou's handler) and me, waiting for the races to start

It was considerably milder this day and after running her four dogs, Jenn asked me if I thought she should run in the 6-dog race. She said that the four dogs were hot after they had finished their race. I said that it was up to her, since I didn't see the dogs when they had finished, but if she did run them and it seemed like they were getting hot to stop and give them a break. Since I was out on the trail still, we communicated through a friend who had picked up grooming duties between races. I'm glad that Jenn decided to run the dogs because she had a much better race on the second day and even though she stopped for the dogs three or four times, she still managed to beat her time from the day before.

After the 8-dog race, I came in and finished cleaning up and packing our truck. Jenn had already gone to the arena where the awards ceremony was to take place and I met her there with her parents, Lauren, Owen and Hunter, asleep on a pile of clothes on the table. The awards went until around eight-thirty, Hunter, Owen and Lauren having left earlier on with Jenn's parents to go to our house where they'd wait for us. Once the awards were over and people started leaving Jenn and I exchanged email address with a few friends we had met that weekend. It was hard to not feel like it was the end of summer camp and everybody was scrambling to get the addresses of their new-found friends before the bus left.

On the ride home, Jenn said that she was proud of our dogs. She thought they did really well in spite of us. She's right: Jenn fell twice; the dogs passed and were passed successfully even though we haven't trained for that yet; they handled the crowds well even though it is usually me, them and a Crown Land trail where we run; and they managed to stay competative with sprint dogs, even though ours are more suited to colder weather running and longer distances at a slower pace. Jenn finished 3rd in the 4-dog out of a field of seven and second in the 6-dog out of a field of two. Not bad for her first race, I'd say.

Jenn helped me put the dogs back at their houses and then went inside so that her parents could go home. I fed the dogs while Jenn got the three kids ready for bed and then the four of them hit the 'off' switch and that was it for them. It was a long day and they were tired. I was starting to slow down, too, but there was no way I was missing the celebratory, congratulatory, we-did-it-but-thank-God-it's-over party that was going on at the Champ's house, just up the road.

Lou, the champ, with a groupie and his greyhound

I'll have more photos of the weekend as soon as I can get them from Jenn's mother.

Yet another trip around our yard

2007-03-05T21:21:00.000-05:00

Dogwise, things around here have been pretty quiet. The majority of my time has been spent putting in a race trail for our up-coming Markstay/Warren Challenge the Champ race on 10 March. We had to postpone the race because it looked like we were going to be snowless on race day; we were proven wrong, but a decision had to be made early enough for those planning on coming from out of province or from the States. Last Friday we received our biggest snowfall to date this year. It came down all day and at certain points during the day it was difficult to see even a few feet ahead of you. We have lots of snow now and today was spent grooming and regrooming the race trail because of all the drifting snow. We had winds of 50km/h gusting to 70km/h and since the trail is mostly through farm fields there were drifts on top of drifts. Three of us groomed the trail on snowmachines, pulling tires, a home-made groomer and a manufactured groomer, we were at it all day and by the end of the day, it looked like we hadn't been there at all. These sprint dogs, they sure have it easy. My team has to jump open water, run over, through or around scrubby brush and break trail in a lot of cases, but the sprint teams get a level, flat well packed trail. No wonder they go so fast!

As our snow was falling last Saturday, my friend Rob and his wife Sue came out with one of their daughters, Chanelle. We took them for a ride or two and offered them their own team to drive. I had to tell Rob, who is a snowmachine enthusiast, to use his brake because he kept catching up to me with his four dog team and small sled.

I had six dogs, my big sled and a passenger. I think he liked taking the team out; all I heard as he careened through the bush was "This is awesome!"

Chanelle was brave enough to try out her own team but it was easy to see that she was a bit nervous. She saw Rob come back covered in snow and asked what happend. He fell off the sled, but managed to hang on and the dogs dragged him a bit through the new snow. It was pretty funny; I watched the whole thing from my sled twenty feet in front of him. As he was on the ground and holding the sled I think I even called his leaders. I sure wish I had a video of that. Anyway, Chanelle was a bit nervous and she was scarcely out of the dog yard when she jumped off the sled and into the snow. It was too fast for her. She got back on the sled however and tried again but had trouble with the speed. Jenn walked with her part of the way and then just decided that one dog might be best so she unhooked Jinx and let her run back to the dog yard. The rest of the run went smoothly and Chanelle wanted to try it again. Jenn got old reliable Ruby and hooked her up alone,

but brought out Jinx again to hook up once the major corners were over. Chanelle had more confidence this time and was able to complete the run with her pair of dogs. That was it for the day as it was really mild and the dogs were starting to get hot.

The first taste of spring mushing

2007-02-28T23:05:00.000-05:00

The sun rose in a nearly cloudless sky this morning and although it was on the mild side of below freezing, Jenn and I decided to take Hunter to her babysitter and then go run our dogs together. Something that we have done only one other time this winter. Totally kid-free. We were sort of squeezing in the run between me dropping Hunter off, some guests coming out to have some dogsled rides and then my business course. Yes, I said it; business course. Those that know me can stop laughing anytime now.

It was a pretty nice spring-like day; bittersweet in some ways because even though the weather was great it only drove home the point that there are a limited few weeks of good sledding left. We have borrowed some harnesses from a friend of ours and so we were able to take out ten dogs today. We could have taken more had I been more industrious and made another section of gangline. After hooking up the trailer, we loaded the dogs and drove to one of our longer trails. Jenn didn't want to go too far because she is working with a new leader who is a bit shy still and who doesn't have a lot of miles on her so her endurance isn't what the rest of our dogs have. We agreed to run up to the lake and back, about an eight mile run round trip.

When we arrived at the trailhead, which is pretty much where the plough stops and turns around, we unloaded the dogs and harnessed them. Here, on their drop-lines, is what our team looks like while they wait to be hooked up.

Jenn has been a little critical of my work with the dogs in that the leaders don't hold the line out like they are supposed to when we hook up. I kept telling her that I thought it was because she really only saw them around the yard, when they were more apt to mis-behave. Today I was let off the hook: my leaders were great and didn't move once I put them in place; in truth, both sets of leaders were very good as we continued to hook up our dogs. I took six and Jenn had four and it wasn't long before they were hooked up and straining to go.

I thought that Jenn was ready to go, so I pulled the hook and took off but looking back, I saw a knot of dogs and Jenn in the middle trying to sort it all out. My departure had spooked the shy leader and she had backed up into the dogs behind her, tangling the lines in the process. There was not much I could do, so I just continued on hoping that things were alright back at the truck. I guess what I should say here is that the brake on the small sled broke yesterday and we only have one prong to use instead of the normal two. I was in the process of fixing it this morning when Jenn assured me she'd be alright with just the one prong, "We don't have a lot of time," she said, so trusting her judgement, I put down the prong and haven't picked it up since. This would explain the body prints that I saw in the snow on my return run. Jenn had fallen off the sled three times in eight miles, but to her credit I never saw the sled without her on it, so she must have managed to hang on, ploughing snow all the while.

We had a less than stellar turn around partly because I made it to the lake before Jenn (a person dragging in the snow behind the team tends to slow them down a bit) and I ran out onto the lake to turn the team around. The whole trail up to the lake was just two tire tracks from a 4-wheeler and they went out onto the lake and looked like they turned around. I debated about following them farther onto the lake but we have had some snow and some mild temperatures in the past week and it looked like there was some pretty good overflow on the lake that I didn't want to deal with, so I just turned the team around where I was. I was just about to tie my sled to a tree when Jenn came around the corner and before I could do anything to help her, her dogs were past me and heading further down the trail. Jenn tried to get them to turn the proper way but they didn't listen (bad dogs!) and there was no solid snow for her snowhook so she had no choice but to run them down the trail further and then try again. About half a mile later we were able to get the teams turned around and we headed back.

All in all it was a fair run. Many of our dogs are still in heat and because it was a bit on the warm side, their focus was not what it noramally is. We let the dogs cool down and Jenn took some photos of them, individually, which I will use for the "team" page that I am working on. Then they got their treats and we loaded them back into their boxes and headed for home with less than half an hour left before our company was expected to arrive.

Our company, a co-worker of Jenn, the co-workers' sister and friend, arrived nearly right on time and we gave them a tour of the dog yard, the dogs, and brief intoduction to the basics of driving a dogsled. At first, only one wanted to drive their own sled so I took one other in my sled and we headed out down our trails for a quick run. It wasn't long before I was passed by two dogs, a sled and no driver. Jenn caught the sled on its way by and another guest took over the driving of it while the previous driver walked up the hill, a little sheepishly, to meet her friend and Jenn. Here in this photo you can see the big puff of snow as another driver doesn't make the corner. (That's her in the snow)

All of our guests took the spills in stride and tried again and again to make it around the trail without falling off. We even had two teams running side by side at some points, which isn't something we normally do, but the dogs surprised me at how well they handled it. We even managed a few passes without incident. Some surprises are good surprises.

With that, I suppose the post is over. Here are some more photos of our guests and our dogs.

This is what happens...

2007-02-24T22:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was go-get-meat day. I drove to South River with a friend of mine, who just happened to be going there as well. I picked up 300lbs of specially formulated winter feed. It is supposed to be a good mixture and the people I bought it off of seem to have good results, but I thought that I'd just buy a small amount and try it out first. I was gone longer than I had planned on being away, and I felt a little bad because Jenn worked at night and she was at the house by herself. I had dropped Hunter off for a day of play with a friend of hers.

This is what happens when I leave Jenn unsupervised for the day.

Yes, the picture is a poor one; it is blurry and the background is a disaster, but that is a direct result of the circumstances: six dogs, at once, including two puppies, in the house. Even if they were calm pet dogs I think that most would agree six at once is perhaps excessive. Actually, there were really only five dogs to watch out for; Olive decided that she would rather keep an eye on the rabbit. She tells me it didn't go very far.

I came home to find Jenn gone, all the dogs back at their tie-outs and the house looking like we'd just hosted the party of the year. At least they got a walk to burn off some energy prior to coming into the house.

Today I left the house early and went to help set the race trail for the Markstay-Warren race. We finally have enough snow to try again. The difficulty is that the race is being held in a series of joining farm fields. There is not a lot of protection from the wind and the snow has a tendency to blow across the fields and away. At any rate, the bit of a base that we had managed to groom a few weeks ago was more or less intact and it helped us improve the trail to the point that the race would be runnable tomorrow. Jenn had told a regular customer of hers that we would be happy to have them come out and see the dogs today, so I left half-way through the trail work to come back and run two teams of dogs for these people. It was a very short trip, just around our property, but they seemed to like it anyway. I think that they were more interested in just seeing the dogs but let themselves be talked into going out.

Ruby sure was happy to go. Here she is showing her excitement. (She's the one in the air)

I hadn't noticed Jenn take the picture, but it is good that she did because it is interesting to see how high Ruby jumps when she's harnessed and on the line. Freak. The last photo is of one of our guests and I rounding the corner towards the dog kennel.

We have another person and his son(s) coming out tomorrow for a dogsled ride and lunch. I have just put some moose in a marinade for skewering. It's quick and easy and aside from making the actual skewers and cooking, it's done.

Not a lot to write this time. Hopefully, I'll do something exciting one of these days.

Here are a few shots of some of our dogs:

Taiga

Jinx

Baby - one of the puppies

Video

2007-02-22T21:49:00.000-05:00

After an inordinate amount of time spent in front of the computer monitor, I think I have managed to post some video of our dogs and us. Admittedly, the videos are of three winters ago when we were still living in the Whitehorse area, but they are the only videos I have right now. Also, many of the dogs that are in the videos are not with our kennel. Some of them were given back to the musher we borrowed them from and two others we gave away because they didn't fit our kennel for a number of reasons.

This first video is of us hooking up the dogs. Jenn is seen dealing with a dog that wants to chew the gangline and I get to deal with a young dog that doesn't quite get it. She was new to sledding and had only gone out a few times. Before coming to us, she was a pet and we took her because Jenn has a soft heart. She is one that didn't fit our kennel. She is now a semi-pet, semi-skijoring dog with a young girl. They are both, at last report, very happy with each other.

The second video is of us coming onto the Watson river that runs under Annie Lake road. Again, Jenn's mother was doing the filming; it is the end of the run of the video above. I don't remember why we stopped, but we were only about a kilometer away from our house at this point.

Finally, some snow

2007-02-21T15:18:00.000-05:00

I am just in from running the dogs. Jenn took the truck to work, so I am not able to take them anywhere and so I had to run them from the property. Not too bad, I guess. We are finally getting some snow -- now that it is the end of winter and the race I was helping organise had to be postponed due to lack of snow. For any of you who are interested, information on the Markstay-Warren Challenge the Champ race can be found here.

I guess just to update from the last post, Hunter has started going out with the dogs again. He problem was that she wasn't able to drive them. Her legs can barely span the runners, but she's mad because she has to sit in the sled. We have made a deal with her; she can take out Ruby, one of our more calm, non-racing dogs, on the small sled with one of us helping steer. She seems to like that.

I have managed to snare two rabbits. There are now skinned, cleaned, cut up and frozen. I debated about taking a few pictures of them, but in the end figured that people who wouldn't mind seeing a dead rabbit on this blog have probably already seen one before and don't really need to see one again; and those people who haven't seen a dead rabbit would likely prefer to keep it that way. I expect that this was the better decision. The first rabbit was a bit lean and I cleaned it outside because we had company with a girl about Hunters age. I wasn't sure if the parents would appreciate me dealing with the rabbit around their kid, so I stayed outside. The second one, however, was frozen (the first was caught on a relatively mild day) and I had to bring it in the house to thaw so that I could skin it. Hunter was facinated and wanted to help clean it, to feel its fur and kept asking when we were going to eat it. I was surprised at her interest, but decided that I'd not involve her right away. I let her watch what she wanted to.

As I started out saying, the dogs and I went out today on the river again. Risk and Dora were in lead, Blitzi and Lacey were in swing and Horton and Dart were in wheel. I only took one team out there, though, because we ran by a lot of open water and through some long patches of overflow. I think that the river is still safe enough to run, but the temperature is just below zero and the weight of the new, wet, snow is pushing the ice down a bit and creating the sticky overflow. I decided to get off the sled this time for a picture, so that people could see what my dogs look like coming, instead of going. I apologise for the quality of the picture; it was snowy and my dogs pulled the hook on me as I was taking this.

If you are wondering why the sled is on its side, it is because there isn't a lot of snow for the snowhook to grab and the sled adds a bit of weight on top of the hook. Still, they managed to pull it out. This is just a shot I tried to take while we were moving and from a different angle. It might have been better if I had a longer string of dogs and better scenery. I'll have to work on that.

The second team I took out was Olive and Mouse in lead, Moxy and Taiga in wheel. I have to work on some leader commands, anyway, so it was okay to only take out four dogs and a smaller sled around the property. I don't have leaders that hold the line out very well, and I spent a long time today working on this with Olive (yellow) and Mouse (the other leader). I think that these two are two of three of our best leader candidates, but I still need to work on their commands more. They are great at showing a willingness to run out front and set the pace and they do understand their commands a little but what I need is consistancy and no hesitation. It is coming. Here they are, after the run.

Jenn and I are thinking of starting a race for next year. There are not many mid-distance races around here and the races that are available to go to are often very serious because they are sanctioned by ISDRA and count for a lot of points in the sprinting season. I don't pretend to know anything about the sprint circuit, nor the sanctioning or point system of ISDRA but it seems to make for a very serious race. If anyone wanted to go to compete just for fun, they may have the feeling that they are in the way of more 'serious' mushers. So, in light of this, Jenn and I are planning on having a fun race series here in the Markstay area. We were thinking of a monthly race, where the milage goes up by ten miles each month. For example, Decembers race is ten miles, January is twenty and so on. If you are reading this and are interested, contact me.

Lastly, let me just describe my day yesterday. Jenn was off work and I had to drive 150 kms to get 300lbs of meat for the dogs, so we thought that we would make a day of it. After all, we had to go through North Bay and they have a mall. I get meat, Jenn gets to shop. On our way to North Bay, I noticed that the truck wasn't running like it should have been. It seemed to not have much power all of a sudden. I checked the transmission fluid, it was fine; I wondered if maybe we had some bad gas, but since we had experienced the problem prior to filling up and were still experiencing it after having filled up, I decided that wasn't it, either. The only other thing I could think of was that one of my plugs was missing. We drove on to get the meat and found, after an hour-, hour and fifteen minute drive, that the place had run out of meat yesterday. Great. So, we turned around and headed back to North Bay and stopped at the mall. It was just like all the others, so no surprise there. We piled back into the truck and drove back home. We were about half an hour from home when the truck blew something. I wasn't sure what but it sounded like a belt had gone and was hitting something every revolution. To spare you my diagnostics and cursing at not being able to source the problem -- it wouldn't have mattered even if I knew what it was because I was blessed with a complete lack of tools -- the mechanic who I convinced to drive out to my truck said that I probably blew a sparkplug. Somehow, the plug had been forced out of the threads that hold it in the cylinder head. Fantastic. "So you'll probably have to re-tap the threads then?" I asked. "Probably." I expected it to be a rather involved process, because, after all, how do you keep metal filings from the tapping process out of the cylinder? You remove the whole head and plug housing. Not a quick fix, I thought. Anyway, the guys were able to able to fix the problem quickly and we would have been out of the mechanics in less time except for the bird brained people who designed my engine. I mean, who buries sparkplugs so far in the engine block that you need a 4-inch socket just to get them out? 4-inches! Excluding the extension the guy had to use just to clear the rest of the engine. Oh well, it only cost $35 so I suppose I shouldn't complain.

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

2007-02-16T17:31:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-02-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

It turns out that I am further behind than I thought. The pictures below are clickable thumbnails, and if you are interested in seeing them larger you will be brought to a different page. I'll work on this.

I'm not sure if I should really be posting this, but I went out and set some snares for rabbits today. I'm hoping that I get at least two because it would be really nice to have our neighbours over for dinner and I know they enjoy rabbit.

When we moved to this piece of property, our first neighbour was pretty much a shut-in. He wandered outside when the mood struck but that was not very often. Then, last winter, the house was put up for sale and our current neighbours moved in. At first, I was happy because that made them the newbies and the "you knew we had dogs when you moved in, so quit complaining" argument applied. Eighteen dogs barking and howling when I'm feeding them or loading them up for a run can get pretty noisy. Happily for us, however, they are both great people and both of them love being outside. They say they don't mind the dogs, much less hear them which is good and the other day we took them out on the sleds so that they would maybe understand the thrill of it. At any rate, it is nice to be on good terms with them, so let's hope for some rabbits.

Below is one of the only pictures of the first goat we had. Hunter, ever the princess, is out with him feeding him grass. He was about six weeks old in this photo.

Sorry if this post seems a bit random and boring. I was more looking for a test of sorts to try out my new changes.

one last photo of my goofy kid, for all those who haven't seen her in a while.

'til next time,

Dogs, dogs and more dogs.

2007-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

It has been a pretty dog-filled day today. This morning was bright and cold; temperatures were -32C, the sun was hardly up and already there were shadows sprawled across the snow. I boiled some water for the dogs chicken broth and went out to feed them. Almost all of them had frost lines on their faces from where their expelled breath had condensed and frozen and the bucket of chicken was steaming as I ladled out the broth into each dogs' bowl. The dogs are pretty funny to watch when I feed them; most of them will put a foot into the bowl when the chicken is done and just a few leftovers are clinging to the side so that they can more effectively lick out the remainers without the bowl scooting across the snow. I'm not sure who the originator of this behaviour was, but all of them do it now. Surely holding a bowl is not innate.

This is the entrance to the dog yard:

The red shed is the feed shed and equipment storage;

This is the front of the dog yard

and this is the back of the dog yard

I went in for a coffee and then it was time to do toenails. We have eighteen dogs so that is two hundred and eighty-eight nails to cut. I'd like to say that all of our dogs are well behaved and stand patiently while I cut their nails, but not all do. I admit that I was not as thorough or regular as I should have been with our puppies of two summers ago. I should have been touching their feet and cutting their nails more frequently so that they would be accustomed to it but I didn't and I am now paying for it. The thing that I don't understand is this: why can the dogs figure out to hold the bowl when they lick it out, but can't make the connection that I don't cut their nails too short and am done sooner when they don't jerk their legs around? Anyway, an hour and a half later, I was back in the house for more coffee and to make the plan for the day.

When I came in, Hunter and Jenn were in the living room; Jenn trying to get some sleep because she was suffering the effects of being out too late the night before with some friends -- she drove in the driveway as I was going out to feed the dogs at 0730 -- and Hunter was climbing on top of her and playing with Jenn's hair. It was too nice a day to spend inside so I agreed to not bug Jenn for an hour or so and to let her have a bit of an uninterupted sleep and then we'd take the dogs out.

The plan for taking out the dogs this time was for Jenn to drop me off at the trail where I normally start and then drive to where one trail option comes out on another road, about twenty kilometers (twelve and a half miles) away. We were not planning on having a long run for a few reasons, one being that I only have enough booties for three of my dogs and the snow was really abrasive (more booties are on their way as I write this); and another being that Jenn had to work later on in the afternoon. Hunter likes a fire and hot chocolate so I got some wood ready for Jenn to build a fire that they could sit around, sipping their hot chocolate while they waited for me. This whole hot chocolate and fire thing started when we took Hunter out with the dogs one day. We hooked eight dogs up and Jenn sat in the sled with Hunter and off we went with no real destination in mind. We'd packed marshmallows, hotdogs and hot chocolate because earlier in the year, we took Hunter out and she was cold, bored and not having a good time. This time, she was laughing, calling the dogs names and saying "wheee-ee" a lot. We ran until the dogs looked like they'd need a break, so I picketed them and Jenn built a fire and Hunter ate hotdogs. It was great fun and Hunter hasn't stopped talking about her picnic since; and so it was that Jenn and Hunter set out to have another fire today. Here is a shot of the first picnic. It is terrible because Jenn's camera battery was too cold to take any more than one quick photo.

Jenn helped me hook up my dogs and I was off. I bet it was the fastest run I have been on with my dogs to date. What needs to be said is that we don't have very much snow. I have spent much of the winter running over snow, bare ground and then more snow. The plastic on my runners is nearly worn through and it is scratched beyond all reason and repair. Because of this, the majority of our runs have been slow paced and a little depressing to both me and the dogs. Today, however, the trail was awesome. I had a hard time holding onto the sled in some of the corners and the hills were heart-pounding. It is an indescribable feeling to be out at -20 in the bright sunlight careening around corners, holding on for all your worth while your dogs are all running as if of one mind. They were certainly having fun today. We did the trail in about 45 minutes and beat Jenn to the arranged meeting spot. It was great and the dogs knew it.

This is Hunter in the dog yard, waiting for Jenn to get back with her 4-dog team

Tonight, I have just come from a meeting with some mushers in the area. We are putting on a race in the community and have been planning it since the summer. It is all ISDRA sanctioned and counts for points and all that stuff that I don't even pretend to understand. Lou Serre is a world-class sprint musher and he is a resident of the small community we live in. The race is named in his honour and sort of tounge in cheek at that: Challenge the Champ. The small committee has managed to raise a purse of $10,000 and recruit several big name sponsors and we were looking at a pretty high attendance, based on early registration. It looks like we are going to have to reschedule the race, however, since the forcast for the 24th and 25th of February is rain and +5c. I spent a whole day Saturday putting in the race course with another of the organisers and by today, we don't have a trail. That is how little snow we have. It is a shame, too, because Lou was going to have some pretty stiff competition... just look at this 4-dog team go!

On that note, I'll leave it there for now.

And away we go. Again.

2007-02-12T22:46:00.000-05:00

Here we are mid-way through February and I am finally getting myself organised enough to start my blog writing again. I'm not really sure how many people actually read this thing, so this may be an excercise for me alone; however, I shall endeavour to keep it posted regularly. Also, please bear with me as I re-learn the blog intricasies. Once again, I have no pictures to show, but that is more a result of my having the computer fixed and a good portion of my programs deleted in the process. Not to worry, I'm told, I just have to reload them onto my computer; a bit like being delivered all the ingredients for your meal at a restaurant and then being told it is up to you to cook it.

So an update: we no longer live in the glorious Yukon. Yes, I am still having a hard time getting over it even though it has been two winters now. We are living just east of Sudbury, Ontario in a town called Markstay. We have just under 40 acres of land on which we house the dogs and, up until the past fall, two goats. We didn't have them for long. Just long enough for Hunter and Jenn to get attached to them and then one of my dogs (they are all 'my dogs' when they are bad) got loose and killed them. The goats were just babies and I was nearly living on the street with my dogs. I will say no more other than it was totally out of character for this particular dog to act like this and I am just as surprised as everyone else.

Although we do not have the luxury of running our dogs from our yard I have been able to find some fairly decent trails within a ten minute drive and the dogs are getting pretty good at being boxed. For any mushers out there, the word 'luxury' is not excessive, I don't think. Oh! for the open trail out of my front door!

I will keep this post short so that I am able to write something and have pictures to accompany.

'Til then,
Evan.

No pictures... again.

2006-03-13T11:02:00.000-05:00

It would seem that it is time for my irregular update.

Still have no pictures to post. Actually, I do have pictures to post, but no way of posting them. Borrowed computer and all that. So, again, text will have to do.

Winter is slowing down. More to the point, I think, it has stopped. We were +11 yesterday and have had -- and will be getting more -- rain. Although the trails that we were running are still on waist-deep snow they are too punchy to run. Even on snowshoes I sink up to my knees when I'm walking on them. As well, the river that I used as a trail is now more suited to a canoe than a dogsled. Ahhh, life in the south. I think that we had one solid month of decent sledding.

I have started work on the new dog run. I am working on getting material together for a few sleds that I want to build this summer and I am looking for a good anorak. If anyone has any sources for the anorak thing, let me know.

Is it as boring reading this without pictures as it is to write? I do apologize again and promise that soon, in the near future, I will have pictures and more interesting stuff to write about.

After a long absence...

2006-01-25T12:59:00.000-05:00

So, here it is almost the end of January and nary an update 'til now.

Thanks to all who have faithfully kept checking back here. I do apologise for taking so long to update my blog. The excuses are many, but as those of you close to us know, we have undergone a fairly substantial change in our lives. I'm really happy to say that it didn't involve getting rid of our dogs.

This is a short post with no pictures because we are not set up to do things properly yet, so bear with me just a little longer. I'll fill everyone in on our trip back, our new 'situation' and our dogs progress. I'll even have some pictures.

Thanks to all who have been kind enough to leave a comment and for those of you who want to see how things are in the Yukon, maybe Stacie will be kind enough to send me the address to her blog so that I can add it to my links section... (how 'bout it, Stacie?)

Two new dogs and one ugly rig

2005-04-24T12:51:00.000-04:00

So, what does a dog truck and trailer look like? Well, if you are us, it looks like this:

the truck

the trailer

The box on the truck came up here with us when we moved. So did the trailer. However, everything else has been added for our trip back. Most of the wood was salvaged from the dump, so some pieces don't really fit like they should; some were too short but I had no choice, I had to use them. The paint was the cheapest we could find (any wonder? Who would use that colour?) And, there you have it: one dog-rig.

Yesterday we picked up our last two dogs. Moxie and Mouse. They are sisters and they, too, are shy. The pictures of them are the best I could get since the batteries on the camera were running low. Here they are:

Moxie

Mouse

This will be the last post for a while because we are heading back to Ontario. We expect the drive to take a week. I will post as soon as I can, and I should have a lot of pictures from our trip. Also, I hope to better be able to describe our new dogs, so I'll have a seperate page for them. Watch for the link on our sidebar.

The addiction grows.

2005-04-11T19:57:00.000-04:00

When I started 'dog sledding' it was with two Malamute brothers. They were from a friend who raised Malamutes for the show ring and to sell. I think it would be fair to say that this kennel was not a working kennel in the sense that none of his dogs were routinely put in harness and taken out on a trail. He did have a sled and there were harnesses laying around, but only once had I ever seen the dogs go out and even then, it was only for about ten minutes in a farm field. Needless to say, Hudson and his brother didn't have a very strong work ethic. But, disregarding this, I would take them out as a pair: pulling my bike, pulling me on skis and when I finally got a sled, they pulled me on that. Sort of. We did a lot of leaf-looking, a lot of scent-sniffing and a lot of peeing on trees, rocks and blades of grass.

Then, I went down to one Malamute; Hudson. We took the summer off while I thought of how I was going to put together a team of dogs. Originally, I swore that the Malamute was the only dog for me. I wanted a team of Mals but I soon realized that this was going to be pretty difficult to achieve. Firstly, there were not a lot of Malamutes available for sledding. Some that were had some pretty severe behavioural problems, not the least of which was aggression, and others were from show kennels, which I had learned don't necessarily produce the hardest workers. Secondly, Malamutes as a breed are dog aggressive, small mammal predatory and generally strong willed and stubborn. All of these traits have served the Malamute well during it's development and they can be bred out of a gene pool, but for the recreational musher who was just starting out and who had very little access to dogs in the first place these were traits I wanted to avoid.

So, there I was, standing at the proverbial crossroads and trying to decide which direction to go when I met someone who was not only willing to support my new-found obsession, she wanted to be a part of it as much as me. Jenn and I went to every pound, animal shelter and stray-dog accumulator that was in reasonable driving distance and began to amass a rag-tag bunch of misfits. We picked up pretty much anything that looked or sounded like a sled dog. Our major coup, though, were the three dogs we picked up from a musher and tour operator in Temagami, Ontario. Marten River, specifically. One of the dogs was supposed to be a "Seppala Siberian" -- a great dog from great lines for those that are not familiar with the history of of the sled dog. The second dog was supposed to be from Andre Nadeau's kennel. Nadeau nearly won the 2000 (maybe 2001) Yukon Quest with some pretty remarkable dogs. A lot of people laughed at him when he showed up because he had almost pure Siberian Huskies as his team and Siberians are known around the Yukon (by their detractors, I should point out) as "Slow-berians." Nadeau managed to shut a lot of mouths during the race and it was only a "mind-game" that lost him the race. Even still, a second place finish in a 1000+ mile race as a rookie is not at all a poor showing. So, one of our dogs was supposed to be from his kennel. We were understandably excited. Lastly, we picked up a houndy-looking dog who was supposed to be furred lightning. He turned out to be a great dog for us, but I don't think he was as fast as he was made out to be. We also bought two puppies from a local recreational musher. They were $50 a piece and of all the dogs we had that first winter, we still have these puppies. Ruby, the mother of Valley, is one of those puppies.

We spent one winter with this collection of dogs and had a blast. We knew very little. We made mistakes that, now looking back, were so silly and amateurish. We went on 1 kilometer runs and acted as though we were going to be out all day. It was really funny. We had a blast, though. The second winter was a little more serious. We went farther, we learned more and we said "if we had more dogs we could..." a lot. We began to notice other mushers in the area and we were not above following a dog truck to talk to the driver. We went to races, we visited mushers yards and we began buying dog food in bulk to get the discount. We also started collecting meat scraps from any source we could find and we began to make our own food concoctions. From here it was not a far leap for us to plan our first camping trip; one that in hindsight was a bit ambitious. We were going to do a 100 kilometer trip. From our house to a Provincial park where we would meet our neighbour and our truck to transport the dogs back. We only had eight dogs at that time six of which, it could be argued, should never have worn a harness. Both Jenn and I were going to go, so it would be four dogs a piece, and packing between us a wall tent (8'x10'x5' when set up and all canvas), kibble for the dogs, our food, extra clothing, and God-knows what else. We expected to take five days to complete this trip. Unfortunately, one of our dogs died before we could go, which really was probably a good thing as it kept us from getting into trouble, I think. As far as the dog, Coal, goes; I wish I knew him now, knowing what we know. I think he would have been an exceptional dog. He taught us a lot. Just for comparison: if we were to do the same trip with our dogs that we have now, it would/should take us 24 hours, including rest times.

This leads me to the present. Our dogs. I titled this post "The Addiction Grows" for good reason. Although we have returned three dogs -- Ben, Scroggy and Grizzly -- to the musher they came from, and although we have found a home for Bluegrass, we have just brought five more dogs into our yard. Four of them are from Brian McDougall and the other one is from Kiara Adams, an 18 year old musher who has already run the Junior Percy De Wolfe and the Junior Quest as well as many other races. I have taken their pictures and have listed them below. I plan on getting together a page for our dogs, but until I know more about them, they will be displayed here.

Risk

Risk comes from Kiara Adams. She is a 7 year old leader who we are hoping will help us train our future leaders. She is so far a quiet and happy dog.

Olive

Olive is one of the dogs from Brian McDougall. She is the most outgoing of the four we picked up. She was not one of the dogs I had a chance to run when I went out with Brian. However, she was on his racing team this year and she went to Oregon for a race there which I think means something.

Lacey

Lacey is very shy. She is also from Brian and although she responds to him very well, it will take some time for her to learn to like us. She is not really accustomed to strangers, but she lets me harness her and will come for a visit if I move slowly and don't startle her. I ran her with Brians dogs and she was one of the hardest workers.

Horton

Horton is another shy dog. He is, again, very responsive to Brian but I am confident that he will warm up to us in a matter of time. I am happy to have Horton because he is a fast, eager dog.

Bug

Bug is a nine year old leader. Again, we picked her up for helping to train our dogs. She comes from Brian and she is outgoing and friendly. She led my team of Brians dogs and did a great job. One may think that because I was following Brian, just about any dog could have led but we switched lead near the end and Bug performed for me very well.

We will be picking up two more dogs from Brian before we leave to go to Ontario and Blitzi should be pregnant by then, so in a few months, we should have a pretty good team of dogs: experienced dogs that have raced and some up-and-comers who should be ready to start training in February.

Truly nomadic

2005-04-05T21:49:00.000-04:00

In a few short weeks, we will be on the road.

We will have 11, maybe 12 dogs with us, six that we have just aquired. Maybe seven (see below).

One of our dogs will (hopefully) be pregnant. (Also see below) (Further below)

We will be trying to do a 6000+ kilometer drive with a 14-month old in a week. And stay sane.

We hope to not look like a bunch of Gypsies or the Clampetts.

We are going to Ontario for the summer.

Our recently aquired dogs have not yet made it to our yard. Just yesterday, I returned Ben, Scroggy and Grizzly to Kyla Boivan. Bluegrass has found a permanent home with a friend of a friend who is interested in getting into sprint racing. That leaves four empty spots in the dogyard. I can fill all four tomorrow, if I want. As I mentioned in my last post, I have been able to work out a deal with a local musher. I think that he would be happy to have the dogs out of his yard because that is six less mouths to feed. It's not that he doesn't like having his dogs around, but when you have thirty or so, they go through a lot of food. Six dogs gone would be saving at least two bags of food a month. Although it would be financially wise to let the dogs stay in the other musher's yard until the last moment, I don't think this is right. Also, I want the dogs to be bonded to us before we leave so that they are more comfortable and have less stress on the trip. So that is six dogs. The seventh is one from another musher around here who has a leader up for grabs. The dog is six years old and that is all I know. I have to call and find out more... we do have an extra box for another dog.

Blitzi is the real reason why my departure date has been pushed so far forward, so fast. She came into heat and because we want to have puppies from her and "Jack" we didn't want to pass up this opportunity. Originally, I was supposed to stay here and do more work on the cabin. Make it more livable for when we return. I was supposed to leave for Ontario in mid to late May, although in hindsight, this might have been too late, even without a pregnant dog because the temperatures would have been getting fairly warm for travelling.

Anyway, I'll try and post a picture of our rig before we leave. If you see us on the highway, wave.

The horse trading (or, dog trading, in this case) has begun

2005-04-01T00:36:00.000-05:00

There is a musher around here and everyone covets his dogs. Well, I do at least. Some will claim that they have seen better dogs, but really, they'd be pretty happy to have one or two of his dogs in their yard. He is a very successful musher and dog trainer; two traits that are often linked together but really couldn't be more seperate. At any rate I approached him last year, through a mutual friend, with the hope that he would maybe have a lead dog for me. He had two and was willing to let me try them out, keep them in our yard and run them, for the winter. As it happened, I spent last winter handling for a Yukon Quest musher and was up to my ears in dogs, barely having enough time for ours, never mind a third kennels' dogs.

And so it was that I found myself sitting in this mushers kitchen not even a month ago talking about dogs and which ones he'd consider selling me. We talked. We discussed philosophies of dog mushing, we covered topics minute and mundane to the exciting and implausible; namely, me doing the Quest. I say "implausible" because the more I learn about dog mushing, the more I realize I have to learn. At this rate, I may be able to run the Quest the year after I die. Someone once said that when they came to the Yukon, they were sure they could have written a book about it. Yet, after spending a year here, the were sure they'd at least be able to speak confidently on the subject. After spending two years here, they thought that they had maybe taken some good notes... so it is with dog sledding.

We settled on two dogs. Horton and Tarat. Horton was going to be free and he worked out well, we could discuss a price for Tarat. I thought that this was a fair deal. Here I was getting the so called "bottom end of my racing team," which is pretty much the top end of my racing team, for free and the possibility of getting another dog with great bloodlines for a decent price, too. I told him that I had to find a home for one dog and I had two, maybe three others that needed to go back to the lady who loaned them to us. Once I had a free spot in our yard, I'd come and get Horton.

Well, it has been a while and Bluegrass comes and goes. The girl that we had offered her to hasn't yet made a decision, but has come and taken her out on two over-night trips. As for the dogs on loan, I have not yet been able to get in touch with their owner. I was starting to worry that the deal I had made would fall through from a percieved lack of interest on our part...

...until last weekend. Our neighbour had just come from this mushers place and came by to tell us that if I was interested, this musher had a deal he wanted to try and work out. Was I interested? Of course! I think that I was on the phone that very second. I arranged a time that I could meet with him again, and we discussed the "deal."

It works like this: He will give me a core team of dogs, 6 in total, in exchange for some help around his house; namely, siding it. He has set a price for each dog and has set a hourly rate at which I can work. We both felt that this was fair and we moved from negotiations to selecting which dogs would comprise the core team. Well, can you do that without running them? He didn't think so, either, so today I went out with him for a ten mile run with six dogs each.

We screamed down the trail. The dogs screamed, I screamed, the sled screamed. I mean, we went fast. We came to a hill that I was sure I'd have to get off and run up but I kept waiting for them to slow down a bit and before I knew it, we had crested the hill and were looking for more. To say that I have never gone this fast on a dogsled is not an understatement. I felt like I had to re-learn how to drive a sled. We careened around corners and zoomed under tree branches. It was exhilerating. We returned to the yard at the same speed at which we left.

I was pretty happy with the choices that he made. I can't wait to call Bug, Minnie, Olive, Donald, Horton and Lacey 'my dogs.' I feel good about next winter already.

The Contest is Over

2005-03-28T17:07:00.000-05:00

Our "Name the Puppy" contest had ended and the puppy got her name late last night.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I wasn't sure how many people would enter our little contest, or who they would be, but I was surprised at the amount of people who wrote in. I'd like to thank everyone who participated. The names that we received were varied and creative, but at the end of it all, we could only use one suggestion.

The winner of the contest is Cathy Parent who suggested that we name the puppy "Valley" because of her Valentines Day birth.

So, Cathy, please e-mail me your mailing address so that we can send out your prize.

Another collection of miscellaney

2005-03-24T21:21:00.000-05:00

Things around here have started to slow down considerably in the last few weeks. Cold temperatures have made for some pretty icey trails, and although there are still mushers going out, they are doing so during the warmer part of the day so that the trails are a bit softer. The problem is, this is when I work. Or, they have switched from sleds to dry-land training rigs and 4-wheelers. Neither of which I have.

After some shameless hinting on my part, our friend Stacey has agreed to let me tag along on the camping trip. So far, there are going to be seven people going. I don't know all the details yet, but I think that we are headed to Haines Junction to go to one of the summits there. It is supposed to be a short twenty mile run and then an overnight and back again. I guess I'll have to get working on my dog-food cooker.

I would like to use the opportunity of the camping trip to teach our dogs how to behave while camping. I don't think that they will be tired enough to let them stay on the gangline, though, so I will have to picket them instead. Picketing is when a length of chain or aircraft cable is stretched between two solid points -- like trees or sled and snowhook -- and the dogs are attached to it with "drop lines" which are usually about 16 inches long or so and spaced far enough apart that the dogs can't really bother one another. They will be fed here and sleep here and then hooked back up to the sled when it is time to go. The reason that I don't want to try to keep them on the gangline is a two parter: Firstly, we still have Scroggy who is a chewer. He has already chewed through several necklines, a tugline and had started on the gangline. If he isn't tired enough, he will use this extra energy to chew, I'm sure. Secondly, the dogs will not want to stay where they are supposed to. They will get up and wander around and create all sorts of tangles in the lines. While it is a huge pain to untangle a team of dogs if it goes unnoticed for a period of time it could be fatal to a dog. Using the picket system, the dogs will get an understanding of what is going on and they will be of no danger to themselves or others.

Bluegrass has been taken to her (hopefully) new home for a trial run. She went yesterday with Kim, our friends daughter. Jenn talked to the previous owners of Bluegrass and they were very understanding of our reasons for choosing to not keep her. I haven't yet heard how Bluegrass fared with her new owner or whether she even has a new owner yet, but I am sure that I will hear within the next day or so.

With a spot open and available now, I am now looking forward to bringing home a new dog from a very good and successful racer. This dog, Horton, is just not as fast as this racer needs, but he will be far and away faster than our current team, so he will add greatly to our kennel, I'm hoping. While I'm on the subject of new dogs, I suppose I should also say that there may be a possibility of aquiring another dog out of Hortons kennel; and the partner of the person to whom we loaned our dogbox has offered us a great dog at an unbeatable price. It is looking like we will have a moderately competative kennel next winter!

We will be opening up spots in our yard for the new dogs because two, possibly three of our dogs will be going back to their owner, as was the deal this past fall. We'd like to make an offer on Ben, but Scroggy and Grizzly are just not going to fit into our kennel, either.

"Puppy," as she has become known for now, is growing rapidly. She is getting rather agile and confident when she is out and about. Her ears are almost completely up and she is beginning to look more like a dog. I can't believe that we have had her for 6 weeks already. This weekend is the name choosing and I hope to have the name and the winner published before Monday rolls around.

Here are some shots of the puppy, because I haven't any other shots of any other dogs right now...

I'm only holding her for size comparison. Really.

Furry close-up

The "Calander Shot"

A variety of subjects

2005-03-18T02:32:00.001-05:00

After several weeks of near-spring to spring like weather, the temperature has finally dropped to a more seasonal -18 at night. As of yet, however, I have not managed to get out with the dogs. I think that the trails are a bit too icey to be safe right now. It isn't that we'd be going too fast, after all, I have a brake but more the case of risking injury to the dogs. Conditions like this can lead to shoulder and wrist injuries as well as cuts on the front of their feet or on the bottom of their feet. I have decided that since we are not training for a race I should maybe make the more judicious decision to stay home for now. So close and yet...

I had thought that since the dogsledding is at more or less of a standstill at the moment, I would post some pictures of the northern lights that we have been seeing these last few nights. However, my night-time photography is not what it should be so the photos wouldn't be much to look at. Take my word for it, though, the lights have been stunning lately. It makes a midnight trip to the outhouse a bit more enjoyable.

There is only one week left in our Name the Puppy contest and I can tell you that I am glad we have decided to pull the names from a hat -- there are some very good ones that have been suggested. I wasn't sure who would enter; I expected some family, some family friends perhaps, but I was really surprised by the entry from Texas and the classroom of kids from Sudbury, Ontario. Below is a more recent photo of the yet-to-be-named puppy.

As I learn more about this Blogging business, I am trying to make the site more user-friendly and treat it more like a website than a diary. Soon, I hope to have a link to our dogs, so that the team is easily viewed with one click. I also want to try and keep you, the reader, more involved. I hope to have things like this contest for you to participate in so that you are more than just a reader of the site. I would welcome any ideas that you may have, so please use the contact links on the right-hand sidebar.

I think that we are going to try and find a home for Bluegrass, our last aquisition. She is not a bad sleddog at all, in fact, we have seen a great improvement in her ability since she has come to us, but she just doesn't mesh with our other dogs. I have a person in mind who I would like to offer her to. He, his wife and his kids are all mushers of varying degrees and I think that Bluegrass would find a place there quite easily.

Our neighbour is planning a camping trip for this coming weekend. He is going to be going on the Yukon River from Dawson to Eagle, Alaska with his eight puppies. I think he said that he has a friend coming from his hometown who has not really been on a dogsled before. What a way to start! This section of trail is part of the Yukon Quest trail. We also have another friend who is planning a camping trip in April with her dogs. She is going with some of her friends for an easy-paced, try out the new gear trip. I wonder if there is room for another person? If she is reading this...

There is not much else going on with the dogs. We are back to kibble in the morning and evening feedings. I had been given about thirty pounds of fish from work that was a big help and the dogs got this in the mornings. And, speaking of kibble, the puppy has started to eat soaked kibble, too. I guess it won't be long before Ruby has her completely weaned.

Any training is good training, they say.

2005-03-12T23:53:00.000-05:00

As you may or may not have noticed, I have made a few changes to the sidebar of this page. I am hoping to provide easier access to our kennel for the viewers of this site. I would welcome any ideas or suggestion and I will do my best to incorporate them here.

It has been pretty warm here these last few days. I have been reluctant to take the dogs out because of the temperatures but most other mushers around here seem to still be going out so tonight we decided it was cool enough to go for a run. Earlier this week, I made plans to take the dogs out with a friend and her team today, but it was 4 degrees above zero at nine o'clock this morning so we postponed the run to a later date... maybe next winter at this rate. It is a good thing that we didn't go out, because she lives about an hour away and by the time we would have been ready to go, it would have been downright hot -- it was 16 degrees in the sun today. It is also good that we didn't go earlier today because the dogs had a terrible run tonight and I think that the warm weather was a major contributing factor. I can't imagine what it would have been like with warmer temperatures and another team to distract mine further. My dogs were tired much sooner than normal, and they were looking for excuses to goof off; and this is before we met two other teams which we had great difficulty passing.

Our run started out okay, but by the time we were two or three kilometers into it, the dogs were starting to bite at snow -- a normal thing when they are warm -- and my leaders were disobeying commands and looking around as though they were on a pleasure walk. This is part of the frustation that comes with having a recreational team and wanting a serious, working/racing team: the dogs do not have a strong work ethic. Partly due to this and partly owing to my lack of good leaders, the two passes that we had to try today were disasters. We met a team coming on a fairly passable section of trail and we ended up with our leaders standing nose to nose at a dead stop. I think that Amber may have tried to pass, but Crystal, ever the social dog, wanted to visit. We got past the one team by taking the leaders by the neckline and walking them past the first team. Then I waved to the second team further down the trail to come and pass while I was still off the sled and holding my leaders. The other team, although it wasn't the cleanest of passes, managed to run past our dogs and continue on. Jenn was standing on the brake of the sled while I held my leaders. It is lucky that she was there. Many leaders find passing another team to be stressful, especially those that haven't any training, or experience in passing. Definitely time to work with smaller teams and get them used to passing obstacles and teams. Today's passing was not acceptable.

The rest of the run disintegrated from there.

Earlier on today, we went into town to pick up a few things and we decided that the puppy was should come. We packed her mother, Ruby, in the back of the truck and brought the puppy up front with us. This worked out quite well. Until we picked up the drywall. I didn't want Ruby in the back of the truck walking all over the drywall, so we brought her into the front of the truck, too. We had the baby in the back seat, Jenn in the passenger seat with the puppy and Ruby in the back seat, too. It would have been fine if Ruby had stayed put, but she kept going from side to side in the truck until Jenn had had enough. I pulled over, moved Ruby to the passenger seat and Jenn got in the back and things were fine from then on. Maybe we should have left Ruby at home, but I was concerned that she'd try to get out of the run and find the puppy, which she has done before. She chewed through the gate closure and ran at full tilt into our front door, which burst open and in came Ruby.

As for the puppy, she is doing great. She is now walking around the run, barking, growling and starting to play with objects. A little unsteady on her feet still, she will try to run a few steps and then lose her balance. I'm not sure how much she weighs. Because she is so fat, I'm not that concerned with her weight just yet. Ruby is gaining weight again, which is good, and she is in good enough shape to take out on a run although we won't be doing that this season. At four weeks old it is now time to start offering the puppy some food other than her mothers'. We soak puppy kibble in water and make a slurry which we set that on the ground in a wide, shallow pan for the puppy to get at. She has so far not needed much encouragement to eat, but she is not a big eater yet because Ruby hasn't started to wean her. It is unlikely that Ruby will wean her soon because, being an only puppy, Ruby isn't feeling the stress of nursing like she would if she had seven others to feed, too. We have seen many changes in the little pup since she was born and her development is rapid. Here is a picture of her, although it is a week old. It was kind of nice to get the kennel logo in the shot, too.

The makings of a lead dog

2005-03-07T01:08:00.000-05:00

The contest is half over now. The puppy is three weeks old and getting big. Any name suggestions can be sent to nameoursleddog@canada.com

NOTE: Sorry for the lack of pictures. I have two videos that I would like to post here. Once I figure out how, I will. Hopefully, it won't take long.

There are two main schools of thought when it comes to training lead dogs. The first are the people who feel it is best for dogs to learn from other dogs; they use an experienced, usually proven dog that knows its' commands and they run it beside a dog they feel has the potential to become a lead dog. The other side feels that there is no better way to train than personally and they will walk with the dogs, working on commands, or they will take an inexperienced dog out on the trail and reinforce commands using 'teachable moments.'

Most often, the latter method is used by people with: limited funds -- good lead dogs are expensive; limited resources -- trying to dogsled in an area with little to no sledding community; limited dogs -- small kennels with few dogs, or a pet or two and a borrowed sled. Not always is this the case, though. Some mushers with the ability to buy good leaders, who live in the middle of a mushing community and have many dogs still prefer to train the dogs personally. However, most use the following method.

Using a proven leader allows the musher to take his team out, knowing that they will be able to navigate the trail network without a lot of difficulty. This lets the musher concentrate on other things, like attaining a milage goal, or breaking in new dogs or practicing camping, overnights and so on. The inexperienced leader will pick up on commands through repetition and good leaders will nudge or tug the dog in the correct direction. This requires no corrections from the musher and the leader-in-training gets to see what is expected by the driver. If any of you have ever thought "it would be so much easier to train my dog if we both spoke the same language" the experienced leader is your translator.

I bring this up because although I would like to try the latter method, circumstances have me using the former method. I can't say which works better but our run last night is certainly an argument for personal training.

Amber has taken over the lead position with Crystal since Ruby has become a mother. At first, Amber didn't know the simplest commands; she wouldn't hold her line tight at hook-up and she would become very unfocused on the trail, wandering from side to side and goofing off. Gradually, though, she has become more serious and much more reliable -- to the point that she may be Ruby's equal, if not her better right now.

Last night we went on a run that took us off familiar trails and through a community center parking lot that had cars, people and confusion. I was expecting a big hassle at the community center, but Amber was flawless. She led the team around a few parked cars and between a snowbank and a van that had just pulled in and was still idling. Quite a progression for a dog that has only been leading for four weeks. She took commands very well, only missing two turns, one which was difficult since it was a snowmachine track that led off of a wide driveway and road intersection.

Today I thought that we should test her a bit more, although I was fairly sure that she would have difficulty. Jenn came with me in the sled so that I would have help if I needed it. We ran our normal trail, but instead of turning 'haw' to come home, we went 'gee' instead, and ended up on a river trail. There were patches of overflow and the trail was braided with snowmachine tracks, but Amber was able to focus on the main trail. Our run would take us right by -- thirty feet from, in fact, -- someones dog yard. I knew this was going to be difficult and Amber had a hard time passing it but once she got pointed in the right direction, she was off and running again. It is difficult for our dogs to pass by a distraction like a dog yard or a house because we don't normally run on trails where these are encountered. It is, however, important that the dogs know what sort of distractions are out there and become able to pass them cleanly.

I think that I would prefer the confidence of an experienced leader for training, but Amber has been very good so far. Tomorrow is supposed to be warm again and the dogs have done well running in this weather, but I think that they can have the day off. Amber could use the break, too, since leading and taking a lot of commands on a short run is stressfull.

A busy weekend

2005-02-27T22:15:00.000-05:00

Two weeks into our "Name the Puppy" contest and we have received some great suggestions. We even have an entry from Texas! Thank you to all who have written in and to those who haven't yet, c'mon, what are you waiting for? We have decided that the prize will be a Nomad Kennel patch and the "Lone Trail" DVD which is produced by the CBC and follows the 2003 Yukon Quest. I've seen it and it is great. Even if you don't like dogsledding, the scenery is incredible. So, send your entries to: nameoursleddog@canada.com

Certainly a weekend that will require some rest afterwards. It is Rendezvous weekend here in Whitehorse and the town fills with people out enjoying the activities and events.

With the exception of today, I have been out with the dogs every day since my last post. Each time, I have taken a passenger which is great strength training for the dogs. On Thursday, Jenn's mother went out with me at night. It was an absolutely clear night with a bright full moon. Most of the run was done without the headlamp. We went about 12 miles and arrived back home twenty minutes faster than I had expected, even though Bluegrass, the new dog, didn't pull at all. To be honest, she was a complete bonehead. She was by herself in the position just ahead of the wheel dogs, which is the easiest position in the team. She looked around, she tried to turn around a few times, all the bad behaviour of a dog that didn't want to run. However, the temperature was only -13 or so; a really nice temperature to travel at because the dogs don't get as hot and yet it is comfortable for the passenger, too. Jenn's mother, Nancy, got to drive the sled across the lake which I think she enjoyed and I got to see the scenery from the bed of the sled for once.

On Friday, it was again too warm during the day to go out and because I had a big run planned for Saturday morning, Jenn and I just went out on a quick 6 mile run around 2200. We just went across the lake, through the bush and back down a laneway near our house... I don't even think the dogs knew we had gone out we went so fast. It is good for them to learn how to work hard, but they also have to enjoy what they are doing so a short, fast run is often benefitial to their mental well being. I took all seven dogs, even though I had reservations about Bluegrass. I thought that because it was such a short run, I'd give her another chance, so I put her in wheel with Ben. She was very good. She pulled the whole way; in fact, she loped the entire six miles.

First, in case the positions of dogs are not familiar to the reader, the order goes: Lead dogs, Swing (or Point) dogs, Team dogs and then Wheel dogs, which are the dogs just in front of the sled. Each dog has it's special task: Lead dogs are expected to keep the gangline strung out and tight, whether they are running or not. They are also supposed to take commands from the driver. They are not necessarily the strongest dog in the kennel, the most dominant or the one with the best relationship to the musher. Often, they are just like the other dogs. They are also not expected to pull the hardest, as long as they manage to keep the lines tight.

The Swing dogs are just behind the lead dogs and their job is to pull but also to help turn longer strings of dogs. A team of eight dogs is roughly 35 feet long and going around a corner takes practice, both on the part of the driver and the team. Basically, the swing dogs take the corner wider than normal so that the team stays on the trail.

The team dogs are the power. They are the ones who pull, pull, pull. That is all they are expected to do. Good team dogs can change gaits easily from a lope to a trot. Most distance mushers favour a trot because the dogs can cover a lot of ground without getting tired. It is the most energy efficient gait. As well, a good team dog knows how and when to rest when they are pulling. Most often the dog will stop pulling and just trot along with the team for a short distance and then they will lean into their harness again and resume pulling. There is a fine line between being a good, hardworking dog that knows how to rest and being lazy. Although the job of the team dog is to pull, there is one position on the gangline that is easier than the rest. Just in front of the wheel dogs is the 'resting position' and this is sometimes used for dogs that either need more than a few minutes break or dogs that are not as strong as the others but need the training to catch up.

Lastly, there are the wheel dogs. Their job is to pull and to help steer the sled. Because their lines come straight off the sled line, when they turn they pull the nose of the sled one way or the other. A wheel dog that is not pulling its' share is quickly noticed because it is more difficult to turn to that side. Also, the wheel dogs have to be tough both physically and mentally. Again, because their lines are attached almost directly to the sled, they get a lot of jerking on bumpy trails and downhill trails can see the sled creep up behind them. Some dogs cannot deal with this sort of pressure and they will not perform well in this position.

Fortunately, it was still cool on Saturday morning. I had plans of getting up at 0545 and feeding the dogs a broth before we were to leave. I like to give them water before we go so that I know they are not getting dehydrated and so that they don't 'dip' as much. 'Dipping' is when they grab at snow on the ground as they run. Some mushers completely discourage this behaviour, while others don't mind, their philosophy being any moisture the dog can get is welcomed. I don't mind the dogs doing this, as I share the above philosophy, but I find it can slow down a team if the behaviour becomes excessive so if I can meet their liquid needs with a pre-run broth I will. Anyway, I also like to give them about an hour between the run and the broth so they are not going on full stomachs, so I had set my alarm for 0545 with the hopes that we'd be able to get away by seven at the latest. I wanted to go early because of the temperatures, for one thing, and for another, we were going to Teslin -- a two hour drive -- after my run.

As it was, my alarm didn't go off and I ended up sleeping an extra hour so Nancy and I didn't get away until 0800. I was really eager to be underway, too, because we were going part way up the mountain and this was going to be the dogs longest and most difficult run to date. I have a lot of faith in our dogs, but I have not really pushed them too hard, so they have not really learned how to work hard and this run would require just that. I was going to put Bluegrass in the position just ahead of the wheel dogs because she would be going quite far, but I thought back to Thursday nights run and decided that I would put her in wheel to start and if she got tired, I'd move her later.

Nancy and I were gone for three hours. I would expect that we covered just over 35 miles -- 30 for sure -- and the dogs were great. Amber and Crystal were nearly flawless in lead -- even managing a head-on pass with a skier and their dog -- and I never did end up switching Bluegrass, who pulled solidly the entire run. I guess wheel is her position. I suspect that, being new to sledding, she is uncomfortable with a dog behind her and prefers the security of being the last dog.

I was very impressed -- and pleasantly surprised -- with our dogs. I wasn't sure how they would do on the long run, up a mountain, with a heavy sled. They were super tired when we got back, but they never quit. Of course they were given breaks on the way back, but we never stopped for more than thirty seconds and they were lunging at their harnesses to go again. I have to say, I think that the team has graduated to a new level. I was very proud of them.

The dogs get a day off now. It is +6 and lightly raining but they were going to get a break anyway. Hopefully tomorrow is a cooler day and we can go out again.

Moonlight mushing

2005-02-23T00:15:00.000-05:00

Enter our contest. Name the puppy, win a prize. E-mail entries to: nameoursleddog@canada.com

Last night at about ten o'clock, I could hear our neighbours dogs barking and noticed that they had turned on the lights in the kennel. I wonder if they thought there was a wolf or a moose around at first. I'm sure it didn't take them long to figure out what was going on though; it was us. We were hooking up our dogs.

Jenn gets home from work at around 2140, so I have to wait until then to take the dogs out. Any sooner and the baby has to come with me. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem but I don't want to go on the trail with her in the backpack in the dark. It's one thing for me to get whacked with a branch, but for her, quite another. Lately, the temperature has been too mild for going out with any daylight, so last night found us getting ready to go at ten.

The baby was not even close to sleeping. She was not even tired and Jenn hasn't been out with the dogs at night before so we decided to make it a family trip. Jenn harnessed the dogs while I got the sled ready -- laid out the sleeping bag for Jenn and the baby, straightend out lines, that sort of thing. Once we were all hooked up, Jenn climbed into the sled with Hunter and we were off. We took all our dogs, except Ruby, Hudson and Bluegrass. Ruby and Hudson had good reasons to stay home, but Bluegrass was left behind because I don't have enough sections of gangline to take seven dogs out and because we were going for a twelve mile run and I wasn't sure if she was up to it yet. I have since made another gangline section and I will put her in the team next time I go out. It is easier to rest when there are more dogs.

Heading into the bush

The moon was out and almost full, so it was quite bright. In fact, for nearly a third of the run I didn't even use a headlamp. This proved to be fortunate, too, because even though I put new batteries in my headlamp before we left they were nearly completely drained by the time we came home. I think it is my halogen bulb that does it -- it draws a lot of juice. I really only used the headlamp when we were going through the bush sections in case there was a low hanging branch or an animal on the trail. Jenn was able to take some photos, and this is what it looked like without a light on:

Taking a break

On our way again

There was a south wind blowing, which we hardly noticed going through the bush but once we got to the lake, we could feel the warmth on our faces and when we arrived back home the temperature had climbed four degrees to -8C.

I have mentioned to Jenn on several occasions now that I would like to have a hand-held GPS unit so that we can better gauge our distances and our speed. For recreational mushers, I don't think that speed is that important, but since we want to get into racing it would be nice to know how we are doing. Regardless, we made pretty good time on the trail. We were on the trail for just under two hours, arriving home at 2355. Normally, it takes me an hour and twenty minutes to an hour and a half to do that trail with a moderately loaded sled. However, with Jenn, all my gear still and Hunter, the six dogs didn't slow down all that much. It was a very good run.

Day two at the NMI Dash for Cash

2005-02-20T23:45:00.000-05:00

Our Name the Puppy contest is still running. Email your suggestions to nameoursleddog@canada.com and enter to win a prize.

It was another beautiful day today, although it was again too hot to run the dogs.

Instead, we went to the NMI Dash for Cash. These are sprint races, and they don't last long, so it was an okay temperature for the dogs that were competing. I think that the average time for the six mile race was nine minutes. Not a long run at all.

We had several friends that were competing, not to mention the kids of one of our friends, too. This is the friend that we loaned our sled to. Here are his son and daughter taking off from the start. I don't know if it is obvious in these pictures or not, but the start line was at the top of a fairly steep hill. It was amazing that every racer that we saw managed to stay on their sled.

Kim

Alex

It wasn't long before the racers rounded the corner to the finish line. Both of these kids were working as hard as the dogs and they take their racing quite seriously. The finished middle of the pack, which is pretty good, especially since this is their first year with dogs.

I was hoping to get out with the dogs tonight since it is a much better temperature. -14C. Unfortunately, my headlamp isn't strong enough, so I can't see much on the trail. I could take my chances, I guess, but I'd sure hate to run into a low hanging branch or the two moose that have been spotted around here.

So, for today, we had to get our dogsledding fix from the sidelines.

A better run

2005-02-20T01:13:00.000-05:00

This will be a rather text-heavy post since I didn't have the camera with me today.

Also, the "Name the Puppy" contest is still on. We are not going to name the puppy officially until she is six weeks old, so you have another five weeks to come up with a name and email it to nameoursleddog@canada.com This 'contest' is open to anyone who reads this site, so if know us, hardly know us or just stumbled across our blog, please feel free to enter. The prizes have been chosen and we will have pictures for them once we have them here in the cabin.

Today was the start of the NMI Dash for Cash. It is a fairly well attended sprint race and one that offers quite a large purse for the 'serious' race. We had plans on going in the less competitive race a few weeks ago, but since Ruby is not able to be part of the team, we were unable to enter. So, instead, we have set our sights on the SilverSled race in Haines Junction. Along with the 100 mile race, there is a sportsmans race and we are planning on entering it.

As for our little run today, things were better than last time. We went around the same loop, which is 6 miles or so. Originally, I had Crystal and Bluegrass in lead, but we didn't make it much more than fifty yards down the trail and Bluegrass started to turn around and drag Crystal with her so I had to stop and put Amber in front with Crystal. I don't think that Bluegrass was comfortable with the dogs behind her, because when I took her out of lead and put her in wheel, she was much better.

I also found out that Bluegrass is a right-hand dog. She does not do well on the left and will try to run on the right side all the time. I hooked her on the right today and we had no problems with her tripping over the gangline. After I came back, Jenn took Bluegrass out for some one-on-one leader training. This she does with a harness and a leash; they walk around together and Jenn works on the basic 'line-out' command.

We were just on our way back from our neighbours place when a friend of ours and his two kids came up the laneway. His son was upset because he had placed last in the 4-dog sportsman race at the Dash for Cash and they were looking to borrow a sprint sled from our neighbours so that he may place better tomorrow. Our neighbours were not home so we loaned him ours. I hope that he does better tomorrow.

When we went to drop off the sled, we got talking about his dogs, and then we were invited in for a coffee and we talked more and by the time we noticed, it was well into the afternoon and we had not managed to get anything else done today. But, I suppose that is how it goes around here. They don't say you're on 'Yukon Time' for nothing.

They can't ALL be good runs, I guess.

2005-02-16T22:27:00.000-05:00

Don't forget about our Name the Puppy Contest... email your suggestions to nameoursleddog@canada.com and win a prize if your name is chosen. Here's the puppy and her mom:

This was definitely not a run that I will want to look back on fondly. Even though it was the first run where I had Hunter with me, I would rather forget it, I think.

We got a new sled dog from one of Jenn's friends at work and her husband. The dog is very inexperienced and has never run with a team before. Since it was too warm for a long run and because I had Hunter, I thought it would be a great time to get the new dog out and see what she is like. Besides, not having run much this winter, she wouldn't be able to go far, anyway.

I packed Hunter up in her snowsuit and backpack and went out to the dogyard to start harnessing up the dogs. They were happy to see that we were going for a run and they all started to bark and howl. Harnessing wasn't a difficult job, but getting the dogs to the gangline and having them stay in one spot was. Ruby, my main leader, is busy with her puppy now so I don't have a dog that will hold the line tight while I bring other dogs to it. I had to put Amber up front because she has the most experience in lead, but she doesn't understand the command "line out" or "stay" so she kept turning back to see the dogs behind her.

That is when it happened. I had Ben in lead with Amber, in the hopes that his excitement would keep Amber looking down the trail, too. Behind him were Blitzi and Scroggy and behind them were Grizzly and I was on my way to get Bluegrass, the new dog. Amber decided to go visit the new dog and she turned back, which put Ben and Scroggy nose to nose. We had been warned that Ben and Scroggy don't like one another from the musher that loaned them to us. We had been careful and made sure not to run them side by side, but in this instance, facing each other was too much and they started to fight. So, with Hunter on my back, I had to seperate the fight, which didn't last long thankfully. I took each dog in turn and marched them back to their stakeouts where they will stay for the remainder of the year. Or at least until the musher comes back to town. We were considering buying Ben, but after today, he can go back. We will not tolerate fighters in our kennel.

Now I was down to four dogs. I decided to hook up Crystal, who is slow but willing to go. Now I had Amber in single lead, Crystal and Blitzi, Bluegrass and Grizzly. I pulled the hook and we were off down the trail. Things went okay for a while even though it was pretty evident that Bluegrass hasn't run in a team before. She kept going under the gangline, tripping on it, and running alongside Grizzly. This is nothing that can't be fixed with a little training though, and she did really well otherwise. Her line was tight the whole run and she was not as tired as I expected when we got back to the yard. I'll post a picture of her when I can better describe her personality.

It was a difficult run because Amber was getting distracted on the trail which is usually a sign that the job of lead -- and single lead at that -- is too stressful for her. I was glad that we were only on a short run. This is definitely a hint to work on leader training.

Here are some pictures of the run.

Sunset on McConnell Lake

Crossing the Field

I hope the next run is better.

A new arrival and the start of the 2005 Yukon Quest

2005-02-15T00:35:00.000-05:00

This is what greeted me this morning when I went out to feed the dogs. Ruby was all curled up around her only puppy, came out quickly to eat and went back inside her house to take care of her newborn.

The puppy is not a day old in this photo. She -- it's a girl -- was born sometime last night and spent the first several hours of her life in temperatures that got down to -24 or so. Originally, we thought that Ruby would have more than one puppy, so it would not have been hard for them to huddle together against their mother for warmth, but since there was only one puppy in the litter, we decided that it would be best if we brought them inside.

This is Ruby's first litter and she is showing signs of being a very attentive mother. She had the puppy all licked clean when I went out in the morning and she nuzzles it to feed. Even though she is in the house, Ruby won't leave the little one and they both seem very comfortable.

We thought that it would be fun if you named the puppy, so we have come up with a contest of sorts. If you think that you have a good name for our newest addition then email us with your suggestion and we will collect all the entries, put them in a hat -- or dog dish -- whichever is closer to hand and we will draw out one name. If it is yours, then you will win a (possibly) fabulous prize, a photo of which will be posted here when we decide what the prize will be. If you are not sure that we have your mailing address, please include it with your email. Enter as often as you like. We just have one rule... No Native or Inuit names, please. Email us at nameoursleddog@canada.com.

One more photo...

The 2005 Yukon Quest

Yesterday we went to Whitehorse to watch the start of the Quest. I won't get into the specifics of the race here. If you are interested in the race, it's history, the trail, the standings and the mushers then go the Quest's website: www.yukonquest.org

It was a great day for a race start. The sun was shining, the temperature was around -28 and there were hundreds of people lining the start chute. We managed to arrive early, so we wandered around the staging area, talking to some mushers that we know and wishing them luck. Cathrine Pinard is using our dogbox and so far, this is as far as Nomad Kennels has come to being in the Quest.

William Kleedhan is wearing bib number six on the right and bent over, just about to undo the snap that holds the sled to the truck is our friend Didier Moggia -- a pretty respectable musher in his own right and one of Cathrines handlers for this race.

Here is another shot of our dog box and Cathrine being mobbed pre-race by her fans.

Just beside Cathrines truck was Williams truck. We wanted to see his well-known lead dog, "Dogmatic" because he is the brother to Blitzi, the female that we have just recently bought. Here he is, although the picture is a little fuzzy -- sorry.

The excitement level in the staging area was pretty high, as one could imagine, and the dogs were barking and howling their eagerness to get the race underway. Many of the mushers were going through their pre-race rituals, others were putting booties on their dogs and the more realaxed veterans were wandering from truck to truck talking to old friends and secretly sizing up this years competition. As we went from truck to truck we managed to capture the expression that sums up the mentality of someone who decides that a one thousand mile race in the middle of winter is just the thing. The wild-eyed and crazed look; the expression that says "you've got to be a little crazy to do this."

Although I can't remember the dogs name, it is one of Hugh Neff's dogs.

Martin Massicotte was a little further down the line and he was looking fairly calm. Our friends, Paul and Josee, were helping him get ready for the race and had put him up at their place for just under a month. Paul will follow Martin on the race and help out where he can. This is one of Martin's dogs and again, I don't know the name.

Amid all the noise, we heard the announcer declare the race officially underway, so we went to the starting chute to see the mushers take off. This is where it can be interesting; imagine 14 dogs attached to your sled and all riled up and ready to go. It usually two people to hold the sled, another on to stand on the brake and another six to hold the gangline. Each racer leaves in two minute intervals which may not seem like a long time, but believe me two minutes can seem like an eternity when all you want to do is get going. As well, imagine a path about five feet wide that is lined with several hundred people, some two or three deep in places. It takes a good lead dog, one that won't go and visit people, to navigate this barely contained mayhem. Now imagine being in your car with the brake pedal pressed all the way in and you're thinking "as long as I go straight, I will be fine. If I go left or right, I can't stop and who know what will happen." This is what it is like to start the race. Here are some shots of the mushers leaving the First and Main intersection:

Sam Perrino:

Martin Massicotte (and Ben, the handler):

Bruce Langmaid:

Once the majority of the mushers had started, we thought that we would go to the Takini River bridge, another great vantage for seeing the race go by. I guess it was such a good place to watch the race that most of Whitehorse turned out. There was close to three miles of cars parked along the side of the road and everyone was down on the river, close enought to reach out and touch the dogs as they went past. This is what the tail end of the race looked like, from down on the river:

Sebastian Schnulle:

The back of Gerry Willowmitzer and Sebastian as they head to Breaburn, 100 miles down the river.

And, with that, the race had passed us by. Now, we will have to rely on CBC Radio and the Quest site for updates.

Just as a little note of interest, we met a couple who were travelling through Whitehorse with a team of Malamutes. We stopped to see them and to talk for a few minutes and was I ever surprised. They had a dog that looked identical to Hudson. For those that know him, see for yourself:

Catching up.

2005-02-10T21:26:00.000-05:00

I was able to take the dogs out for a short run yesterday. We go in the morning before Jenn has to leave for work. I had them all harnessed up and we were gone by about 0830 and although Jenn suggested I do an abbreviated run since they hadn't been out for a few days the trails were fast and hard so I took them on a 16 mile run. Things were great for about 14 miles and then, just after we had come off the lake, my dogs jumped off the trail and tried to follow some tracks in the snow. This isn't normal for them; usually, they will turn their heads at the new scent or animal trail and continue on past. Not so yesterday. I had a huge tangle, which is saying something because I only had six dogs. While I was trying to sort out the dogs, Scroggie chewed through his neckline, some of the gangline (I use coated aircraft cable in hollow braid rope for the gangline, so he wouldn't have been able to actually cut the gangline in two) and almost all of his partners neckline. Scroggie has some chewing issues that we are going to have to work on. I have to hook him up last so that he doesn't destroy the lines in his excitement to go. That is what he is all about -- "go! go! go!" He is so excited to go that he gets all worked up and unless we are running, he has nowhere to channel this energy.

Anyway, I got the team sorted out and I am still not sure what it was that made them go off the trail like that. I have seen caribou there, in much the same spot on previous runs this winter, but the dog were only twenty yards or so away from them and we passed by without so much as a head turn. Later, I found out that a musher from just down the road was out the evening before, in pretty much the same spot as I was, and was followed and then cut off by two skinny wolves. She had to yell at them to get them off the trail and they continued to follow her until she got to the road another two miles away.

Other than that and the breaking of my driving bow (the thing I hang on to when I am on the sled) when I was at the half-way point in my run, it was uneventful.

There is not much else to write about today. It was too warm to take the dogs out (+3C), so I used my time to catch up on some kennel chores. I fixed the driving bow, which was a fairly simple proceedure since I already had some UHMW plastic laying around. I then spent about an hour making new neck lines for the sled. I have made extras because I know that I will need them with Scroggie around.

I also took all the dog-yard scoopings over to the trench that our neighbour dug for his dog-yard waste. This would normally not really need to be commented on, but as I was walking over I noticed that there were four dog trucks parked near the neighbours kennel, a dozen or so people milling around and two reporters not knowing which way to point the camera. As it turns out, Lance Mackey had just arrived at Hugh Neff's place, which is a few miles down the road from us. They were at my neighbours because they were dropping off a dog for him. The reporters were on their way down to Carcross to William Kleedhan's place to interview him and just happened to spot Mackey and Neff so they followed them to maybe get a second story.

Since I have the pictures downloaded now, I thought that I would post a few that I had taken during our last cold snap.

I think that for most, the word "Yukon" is synonymous with "cold." During the winters here in the early parts of the last century, it was not uncommon for the temperatures to fall below -30 Celcius in December and never rise above that until mid-February. Now, however, it seems that there is only about a two week period that sees these sorts of temperature drops. Ours this year was during Christmas where it was -50 or better for several days. I don't know exactly how much below -50 it got because, as we found out, our thermometer bottoms out at -50.0.

This next picture is what a morning at -50 looks like. Normally the sun isn't this bright at this time of the year, especially when it is early and behind trees. What made it so much more noticable was the ice fog in the air. When the temperature gets cold enough, the moisture in the air freezes and these frozen particles of ice just hover, much like regular fog. In Whitehorse, the city proper, it was nearly impossible to see much more than ten to fifteen feet in front of you because of the ice fog. It was much worse there, I expect, because of the river; which, incidentally, hasn't completely frozen over yet.

Our dogs

2005-02-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

I have finally downloaded the pictures of the dogs. They do not, with the exception of two, look like the typical image of a sled dog and ironically the two that may fit the stereotype of a sled dog do not go out with us anymore.

Jack London wrote much about the treatment of sled dogs in his day. Whether or not his depictions were true, even then, is a matter of debate. However, today's sled dog is recognized for what it is: a highly trainable athlete. No musher has to go out to their team of dogs and kick them to get them motivated. No musher uses a whip to discipline their dogs and there is no such thing a "leader of the pack." The dogs are treated well and fed a highly nutritious diet of meat, fat, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins. To what degree the musher chooses to supplement their dogs kibble is up to them as an individual. For us, we use kibble as a base, to ensure that all the requirements are met in the off season. During the winter, however, we will adjust their diet according to training, weather and general condition of the dog. We feed mostly meat with kibble. It could be moose meat or chicken or pork. Even horse in some cases. Horse is a great meat to feed to dogs that are in heavy training because it allows for the dogs muscles to rebuild themselves much quicker than any other meat. We have also fed fish. A lot of the time, what we feed depends on availability.

All of our dogs that make up the actual team are Alaskan Huskies, which shouldn't be confused with Alaskan Malamutes. Essentially, an alaskan husky is a mutt. They are mixes of siberian huskies, malamutes, 'village' dogs and basically anything that would pull a sled in the early part of dog-powered transportation. They were bred on the basis of a certain mushers wants and needs. Some alaskans have very thick coats, long legs and are large in stature while others are lighter, shorter coated and smaller. Often, alaskan huskies will have very detailed pedigrees, going back many generations but despite this, they are not a recognized breed.

Anyway, I said that I would post some pictures of the dogs, so here they are:

Hudson

Hudson has been with me for ten years now. I got him from a friend who bred Alaskan Malamutes when he was just 6 weeks old. Originally, I just wanted a dog. But, once I started to read more about dogsledding and Alaskan Malamutes, I just couldn't resist. I bought a harness and tried him out. We didn't know what we were doing, but it was fun nonetheless. So I blame him for what has followed. He is now retired -- did he ever really work? -- and has managed to become a house dog and the team mascot. Although he is a great dog around people, he is aggressive and prone to fight around other dogs -- an unfortunate trait of many Malamutes. He is kept seperate from the other dogs for this reason.

Crystal

Crystal has been a funny dog since we got her. She came from a kennel just south of Temagami, Ontario. We were new to the aquisition of dogs and we believed everything the kennel owner told us. We were told that she was from a well-known musher from Quebec which has since been proven in many ways to be not entirely true. She is a 35 pound Siberian Husky and although she loves to run, her legs are too short and she is too small to keep up with the rest of the team. She is now the comic relief for the team. When the summer comes, we will have her spayed and she will become a pet for Hunter (and us) and she will be able to keep Hudson company. Crystal is a very strong minded dog and I wish that she could keep up with the team because she is very good at breaking trail through deep snow and when she does work, she throws all she has at the task.

These two dogs are the two that do not run with us anymore. The following is the real team.

Ruby

Ruby is a sister to Amber (see below) and came from a musher in St. Charles, Ontario. She is three years old and about 40 lbs. Her personality is fantastic. She gets along with every dog she meets and is always wagging her tail and happy to see people. She has been my lead dog all winter and I have seen a lot of progress with her. She is starting to know her commands, like 'line-out', 'gee' and 'haw' and she is obviously proud to be given the responsibility of guiding our team. She has always been a good eater and drinker and although she takes her job very seriously, she can be a goof when she isn't working. This year, so far, I guess she would have run about 200 miles for training.

Amber

Amber is the sister to Ruby. Their mother was 100% siberian husky and the father was an alaskan husky. Amber is the bigger of the two, weighing in at between 55 and 60 lbs. She is definitely the more serious of the two and welcomes a challenge. She is a non-stop puller and very responsive to both Jenn and I. For discipline, often just saying "Amber!" in a scolding tone is enough to correct her behaviour. When she was not quite a year, we think that something spooked her and now Amber is not a very trusting dog of new people. She is suspicious and wary of people when they come too close to her. She was also a very dominant dog up until recently. Amber would usually take any opportunity to re-enforce her status with our other dogs when they would be loose together, but since she has made friends with Ben, she has mellowed quite a bit and has become a much friendlier dog.

Blitzi

I apologize for the poor quality of the picture, but it is difficult to focus a lens on a dog with this much energy. Normally quiet in the yard, Blitzi loves attention. She is a very hard worker and it is evident that she has had much training prior to coming to us because her muscles bulge like an over-stuffed shirt. She is 5 years old and has had two litters of puppies. Two of her puppies have already completed the Yukon Quest and another three will be competing in it this year. She comes from Gerry Willowmitzer's kennel. She is soft tempered and loving -- we can tell already -- and she gets along well with our other dogs. We hope that Blitzi will be the founding bloodline for our racing kennel.

Ben

Ben is most likely three years old and weighs about 40 lbs. He came to us from the Northwest Territories via another musher, Kyla Boivan. She is a Quest veteran and was looking for homes for some of her dogs this winter. She said that she didn't have much of a chance to run Ben before she had to leave for the winter, but she was certain he'd be a good dog. Well, he hasn't disappointed. He is an extremely hard working dog and he is super friendly. What more could one ask for? He has this habit of biting snow and throwing chunks of it up in the air when we are about to go for a run. He is quiet, loving and obedient. An all-round honest dog.

Scroggie

Scroggie is an odd dog. He is about 3 or 4 years old and roughly 40 lbs. He came to us from Kyla Boivan, too, but our friend Paul had him first. Paul didn't want Scroggie anymore because he didn't think that he could keep up with his team and because he wouldn't shut up. Scroggie doesn't bark or howl. He screams. Well, he used to. Now that he is with us, he isn't as loud as he used to be but we wondered if he'd ever be quiet in the beginning, too. As for keeping up with our dogs, ever since he passed the garbage bag pieces that were in his stomach, he has done really well for us. I don't know where the garbage bag came from, but it was in him for a long time, I'm sure. Scroggie always looks like he just got in trouble for something perhaps because he is a somewhat shy dog. Scroggie doesn't really get along well with Ben, which is a shame, because if it were not for this sometime-aggressive behaviour, he'd be a great dog. As it is, he's a good dog, but he will never run beside Ben.

Grizzly

Grizzly is another dog from Kyla. He's also around 3 or 4 years old and he's in the 37 to 40 lb. range. He is a dog with a lot of personality and he is a funny dog to watch because he is still very puppy-like. He loves to play and he likes to work but play is definitely the priority. Regardless, he still comes out with me because he works more than he slacks off and his contribution is definitely positive.

So there you have it. That is our team. I will try and take some pictures of the trails for my next installment.

The Kennel

2005-02-03T20:12:00.000-05:00

Our kennel is set amongst the trees, about 50 feet from our front door. We have cleared most of the trees from the inside of the kennel, so that the dogs will have sun exposure in the winter and there is more of a breeze in the summer months, which will hopefully cut down on blackflies and mosquitoes. The kennel itself is a fenced enclosure with a gate at the front and a gate at the back. This allows us to harness the dogs and hook them up to the sled in the kennel itself, and when we come back from a run, we can close both gates and let the dogs loose as we unharness and them and put them back at their house.

Each of our dogs has a house, which is full of straw in the winter and wood shavings in the summer. They have a chain that is 6' long which is attached to a post with a swivel. This gives them roughly 113 square feet of 'territory.' Each post is 11.5 feet apart and the posts are in rows, so the dogs can socialize with their neighbours, but they can't breed. Having rows makes kennel chores easier; up one side to feed, down the other. Up one side to scoop poop, down the other. Up one side to harness ... and so on. I'd like to take this time to discuss the issues involved with chains and free-running dogs.

When we first got involved with dogs, we thought that we'd like to have them all loose in a large pen. While it was nice to see them playing, we had some dogs that didn't like each other, which necessitated the building of a second and then a third pen, just to accomodate the grumpier dogs. At the outset, it would seem the ideal way to keep dogs, but the longer we used this system, the less impressed we were with it. We encountered several problems with it that we thought needed to be addressed. We noticed that our dogs were developing a pecking order, and when it came time to feed them, the lower dogs were chased off their food by the more assertive dogs. We also found it difficult to clean. Since the run was through the trees and undergrowth, it was difficult to find and remove all their waste. Even if all of it could be found, it was impossible to identify whose was whose. While this may seem trivial to some, it is important to us because their feces is a good indicator of their health. Not knowing whose is whose does not let us diagnose the dogs properly and we may miss a health issue. A good example of this is one of our new aquisitions had a fairly large infestation of worms. Since he has his own spot, we were able to notice and treat the problem rather quickly and we have seen a great improvement in his personality and his performance. This would not have been possible in a free-run system where we would have had to deworm all the dogs and this is hard on their systems, not to mention costly to us.

When we first moved to the Yukon and set our dogs up, we did not have a fence around our dogs. That didn't last long as the neighbour dogs were loose and they would come over and harass and try to fight with ours. The fence was not long in going up. Since moving we have put up a fence again not so much to keep the dogs in but, rather, to keep things out. We have porqupines here and other small mammals, but more importantly, we have wolves. Last year, a friend of ours had a dog killed and partially eaten by a wolf and this was not an isolated incident. Many local dog owners lost dogs or had dogs maimed as a result of wolf attacks.

The dogs get fed twice a day. I feed them a broth in the morning, which is just warm water mixed with some sort of meat. Last week, it was ground moose that a co-worker gave to me, since it was freezer burned. This week, it is pork that I managed to salvage from work as well. When it was -50 a few weeks ago, we fed them pure pork fat, which is like putting coal on a fire: their internal furnace converts the fat to almost pure heat, so it was not unusual to see the dogs laying out in the sun, even though the temperature was -50 or lower. In the evening, they get a scoop of kibble and a scoop of water in their dish. It is important to keep them well-hydrated, so we try and give them lots of water. Some old-school dog owners are of the opinion that the dogs can eat snow for their daily water intake but this is a difficult way to get water since snow is converted to water at roughly the rate of 20:1. Plus, to melt the snow into water, the dog needs to use its body heat and when the temperatures are cold, it is dangerous to take away body heat.

Once the dogs are fed, I make the rounds again, picking up after each dog. This means that to just feed and clean up after the dogs, I am in the kennel about 730 times a year.

To store our food, both kibble and meat products, we use an old decomissioned freezer that was given to us by a local appliance store. We store most of our dog-related things in the kennel, and we are hoping to build a better shed and covered structure when the weather permits so that we can keep our straw dry and better organize everything.

Hopefully, this has explained a little bit about our kennel set up.

An Introduction

2005-02-02T23:33:00.000-05:00

For those that don't know, Nomad Kennels is a sled dog kennel that is interested in and training for mid- and long distance racing. We are also looking into the possibilities of providing hour, day and overnight dogsled trips for the public.

We are a relatively small kennel, as far as dogsledding goes. We have eight dogs right now, although one of them doesn't run with us anymore. He's more of a mascot, I suppose, and the one I blame for starting all this.

When there are pictures available of our dogs they will be published here, along with a little background on each member of our team.

Thanks for visiting and stay tuned.