August 31, 2004 Signs of the Season

The signs are all around!!! Numerous flocks of geese have been spotted and heard flying over the dog yard, the leaves are starting to turn, the mornings are cool, the smell of fall is starting to touch the air, I’ve put the flannel sheets on the bed, and today – the Sears Christmas Wish Book arrived!! The season is changing! YEAH!!!

One of the very enjoyable parts of fall around here is BLUEBERRIES!!! Our land is absolutely covered in blueberry plants. Each year for the last 3 years I’ve been raving that this year’s crop was the best – but really this years is the best! Honest! The berries are big, thick on the plants and everywhere!!! An easy hour picking will handily fill up a large ice cream pail – all within sight of our yard! I have snuck out among my neighbors (human and bears) to do some picking. We’ve been eating blueberry muffins, blueberries and ice cream (Mark’s favorite), blueberries with sour cream and brown sugar (my favorite), blueberry coffee cake, blueberry scones…I also discovered 2 recipes that I believe I will be packing on Iditarod this year – blueberry ‘fudge’ and chocolate covered blueberries! The blueberry fudge contains no chocolate, just blueberries, raisins and walnuts and I’m still fussing with it some to get it the consistency I want, but the chocolate covered blueberries are a snap – one cup semi sweet chocolate chips, melted; 1 tbsp oil; 2 cups blueberries. Drop by teaspoons onto a sheet of waxed paper and chill. I’m freezing mine and like frozen orange sections, I think they will make a nice refreshing trail snack!

The sad part of fall is that the tomato and zucchini plants that I babied all spring and into the summer are just starting to bear veggies and now they are threatened by frost. We have had a number of nights right around freezing and I know any day we will get our first killing frost. Oh well, I much rather have to buy produce and be able to run dogs!

And we have been running dogs! I’m not quite where I wanted to be at the end of August with my training schedule, but we are close and considering I’m currently working all the main string dogs plus the yearlings (over 40 dogs) I’m not unhappy.

As is ‘traditional’ in my diaries at this time of year, I thought I’d take a few moments to tell everyone a bit about the 31 ‘A’ team dogs for this season. This year instead of going ‘dog by dog’ I’m going to break them up into groups and then put a ‘fact’ list at the end of the diary entry!

The first group is the older veterans. That consists of Grover, Draco, Gus, Surge, Chester, Odie, Loki, Denali, Smiley, Kara, Kaylinn, Squeaky, Nahanni, Camilla, and Olena. These are dogs with multiple seasons of training and racing on them. They are the stabling influence in the team and most of my really reliable leaders come from this group.

The next group is the young veterans. Crunchie, Hilda, Hector, Herman, and Moses are all strong, young dogs on their second real season with us. These are key dogs in the team, all are coming into their prime and expected to be significant players this season!

Snickers, Sprite, Pepsi, Barq, Skor, and Dasher are all dogs that have had a the majority of last season under their belts, but needed a little more time before racing. This year should be a big year for the six of them.

The last group is the rookies. This year Holly, Batdog, Junior, Spot and Zackery make up that group. Zack is kind of the long shot of the group, as he won’t be 2 until well into winter, but Surge was the same age Zackery will be this winter when he finished his first Iditarod. Holly is the real shining star of this group. She combines the best of both her Iditarod finishing parents (Odie x Kaylinn) and is already a decent leader for us!

Like the blueberries this year – this is the best crop of dogs ever for the kennel!!

Call Name	Registered Name	Sex	DOB dd/mm/yy	Iditarod status	Sire*	Dam*
Barq	NorthWapiti’s Barq’s Got Bite	M	01/07/01	Rookie	Butch	Jumper
Batdog	NorthWapiti’s Seeley Lake	M	13/03/02	Rookie	Odie	Kaylinn
Camilla	NorthWapiti’s Camilla	F	13/07/96	Veteran	Blunder	Ginger
Chester	Ch. Chuchinka’s Pathfinder	M	12/12/96	Veteran	-	-
Crunchie	NorthWapiti’s Crunchie	M	06/06/01	Veteran	Grover	Visa
Dasher	NorthWapiti’s Dasher	F	21/12/01	Rookie	Butch	Kara
Denali	NorthWapiti’s Denali	M	27/05/00	Veteran	-	-
Draco	NorthWapiti’s Draco	M	5/11/97	Veteran	Butch	Minnow
Grover	NorthWapiti’s Super Grover	M	13/07/96	Veteran	Blunder	Ginger
Gus	NorthWapiti’s Mr. Snuffleupagus	M	13/07/96	Veteran	Blunder	Ginger
Hector	Chlout’s Hector of NorthWapiti	M	28/12/01	Veteran	-	-
Herman	Chlout’s Herman of NorthWapiti	M	28/12/01	Veteran	-	-
Hilda	Chlout’s Hilda of NorthWapiti	M	28/12/01	Veteran	-	-
Holly	NorthWapiti’s Holland Lake	F	13/3/02	Rookie	Odie	Kaylinn
Junior	NorthWapiti’s Long May You Run	M	14/07/02	Rookie	Grover	Joey
Kara	Ch. NorthWapiti’s Valkyrie Kara	F	27/06/99	Veteran	Striker	Breezy
Kaylinn	Chuchinka’s San Antonio Rose	F	27/05/96	Veteran	-	-
Loki	Ch. NorthWapiti’s Loki	M	27/06/99	Veteran	Striker	Breezy
Moses	Clout’s Moses of Velikaya	M	04/01/00	Veteran	-	-
Nahanni	NorthWapiti’s Nahanni	F	27/05/00	Veteran	-	-
Odie	NorthWapiti’s Odin	M	27/06/99	Veteran	Striker	Breezy
Olena	Alaskan’s Olena of Anadyr	F	28/07/00	Veteran	-	-
Pepsi	NorthWapiti’s Pepsi	F	01/07/01	Rookie	Butch	Jumper
Skor	NorthWapiti’s Skor	M	06/06/01	Rookie	Grover	Visa
Smiley	Ch. NorthWapiti’s Guy Smiley	M	13/07/96	Veteran	Blunder	Ginger
Snickers	NorthWapiti’s Snickers	F	06/06/01	Rookie	Grover	Visa
Spot	NorthWapiti’s See Spot Run	F	14/07/02	Rookie	Grover	Joey
Sprite	NorthWapiti’s Sprite	F	01/07/01	Rookie	Butch	Jumper
Squeaky	NorthWapiti’s Robert E Lee	M	27/12/98	Veteran	Butch	Ginger
Surge	NorthWapiti’s Sir Galahad	M	27/12/98	Veteran	Butch	Ginger
Zackery	Kimlan’s Xzackeryit at Nwapiti	M	15/02/03	Rookie	-	-

*Sire and dam are noted if they are other dogs from here.

That’s it for today!

Karen

August 23, 2004 Attack of the Killer Cow

Ah yes… never a dull moment here.

This morning was cold and rainy. I spent a little extra time in the house drinking coffee and answering emails, wishing the rain would stop before heading out to run dogs. The rain slowed down to a drizzle while I was hooking up, which made things better for me and great for the dogs. They left the yard strong and were just motoring down the trail.

The miles were ticking off and the run was still going great. We went up the driveway and into the 320 acres that borders our land where our neighbor has a herd of cows grazing. The cows are there from about July – late September of each year and we routinely train in the field with no incidents…well, Camilla did find a very large, slimy cow pie to roll in on one of our breaks yesterday which didn’t please me – but that is about it.

We crisscrossed through the land without seeing the herd. They had been down by our house earlier this morning, so I had a pretty good idea where I might run into them. Sure enough, as we were heading to the gate to leave the field, we came across them. The dogs picked up but stayed nicely on the trail, as is expected of them. As we passed, one of the cows broke loose from the group and went charging up ahead of the dog team. There were cows on both sides of the trail, so I figured that maybe she had got separated from her calf (actually these calves are older and the Mom’s are not usually very protective of them anymore) and called the dogs to a stop so she could cross the trail in front of them. She didn’t stop, but swung her head a bit and made some generally unfriendly motions. I decided we weren’t going to hang around and see what was up. As the dogs moved forward she started to angle back, picking up speed and heading towards the team. I called the dogs up and punched the throttle on the ATV to get past her. She now swung around and started coming after us, angling towards the dogs again. I was yelling and insulting her species to no avail. To make a long story shorter, she chased us down the trail for almost a ¼ mile. I was in disbelief. Why the heck didn’t she just give up?? We were bearing down on the gate and I knew I was going to have to make a stand. I called the poor dogs up even more – I don’t usually push them to lope like that at this time of the year and I know they were confused, but I needed to buy some distance to get as far in front of this bovine Smarty Jones as I could. She was RUNNING down the trail behind us. Right before the gate, I braked the ATV and leapt off to charge at the cow. She stopped and snorted at me. While she debated her next move, I started throwing sticks at her. That seemed to help her make up her mind and she turned. With one final glance over her shoulder, which was met with another barrage of sticks, she LOPED back down the trail to the herd.

The dogs and I got out of the field and back home without further incident.

Mark, I hope you are hungry when you come home from work tonight – we are having STEAK!
Karen

August 9, 2004 Electric Litter

Hello:

This summer I was given the rare and dubious honor of picking a stud for Olena. During our pre Iditarod training run to Skwentna, on a very hot couple of days I was so impressed with the way that Surge worked and his never say die attitude that I said to myself "this dog should get laid".

So this spring when Karen asked for my ideas on a stud for Olena I immediately said "Surge". Karen checked out the pedigrees and said that would work. I was ecstatic, and the fact that Surge is a "Son of a Butch" and a Grandson of Spud, my two favorite dogs in the kennel was just icing on the cake.

To make things even better Karen said that since I named Surge that I could name the litter. Now I didn't really name Surge, the family that whelped out his litter named him. His real name is Sir Gallahad. Karen and I both agreed that we were not going to own a dog named Sir Gallahad, so we both tried to think of nick name for him. At the time I was in school getting my electrical ticket, so needless to say my head was full of things other than dog names. The one night while going through my text books it appeared to me in my sleepless, caffeine overdosed state as electrical terms and dog names swam around in my head together, SURGE, and it stuck.

Karen said that the theme of the litter would be electrical names. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was pretty sure that back in Sir Gallahad's time that there wasn't a whole lot of electricity around, but I've learned that agreeing is easier.

Anyway after three tries here are the names that Karen says that I agree on:

-Black and White female "TESLA"
Tesla is the unit of magnetic flux density, named after Nikola Tesla the inventor of the AC motor.

-Dark Male "WATT"
Watt is the unit of power, named after James Watt.

-Light Grey Male "SPIKE"
Spike is a variation in voltage or current.

-Light Grey Male with Spot "SPARKY"
Sparky is a undesirable nickname for an electrician, but its preferred over "hey dickhead".

-Black and White Male "CHARGE"
Charge is the measure of quantity of electricity.

Well there you have it, the names you will hear being yelled and cheered as Karen flies down the Iditarod trail in 2006 and years after that. The names that future generations of Siberian Husky owners will refer to while there talking about their puppies. The names that will be in the Siberian Husky history books forever.

(Management reserves the right to change names with out any prior notice)

Later,
Mark

August 3, 2004 Best Laid Plans...

Ah, the best laid of plans....

'The Plan' was that I could sneak in the AKC dogshow in Calgary this past weekend and be home Monday evening, in plenty of time to get ready for Olena to whelp on Thursday (her first due date).

Seems we forgot to discuss things with Ollie though...

We would like to announce the arrival yesterday of 5 new NorthWapiti kids. Four boys (2 grey/white, 1 heavy masked black/white, 1 black/white with lots of white on him) and one girl (black/white). Mother is 2x Iditarod participant, Alaskan's Olena of Anadyr and Dad is 2x Iditarod finisher, NorthWapiti's Sir Galahad (Surge). Mom and pups are doing terrific!!!

It will be easy to remember these guys birthday, as it was Mark and my 18th Anniversary yesterday. No, we will not be naming them after 'wedding' related things - Mark helped Olena whelp and he will be the one naming these kids. He tells me they will be named after 'electrical' things.

:)
Karen