A short post with sub-par pictures.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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