December 13, 2005 Photo Ops

So I was clearing off the files on my digital camera and found all sorts of odds and ends on there that I thought would be fun to post - so this is going to be a rambling and somewhat disjointed diary entry - bear with me!
First off - just in case any of you were worried that Kara wasn't quite spoiled enough

Kara

Kara

She really continues to be the perfect little dog though. A real pleasure to live in the house with - and when I want her to go in her kennel, she willingly and happily goes in. She put in a fabulous run in lead yesterday too. Really fast - and saved the life of a little Yorkie cross that ran out to confront the team. I don't know that many of the rest of my leaders would have loped by it like that.

Last Friday, as we were frantically packing the dog truck and getting ready to leave for Alaska (which of course, didn't happen) a very strong Chinook blew in. One particular gust shredded our Eagle sign on our front fence and did this in the dog yard.....

Thanks to much digging and peeing by the dogs, the tree had been dead for a couple years. We had discussed removing it, but it was going to require some skilful chainsaw work to fell it without taking out any dog houses - and even dead it was providing some shade (or at least that was our excuse) - so it stayed. Well, skillfully Mother Nature took things into her own hands and dropped that tree perfectly. I did have a few scary moments until Draco, Skor and Surge were safely accounted for - all were fine. Draco actually thought it was an early Christmas gift and was rather offended when Mark got out with the chainsaw, cut up the tree and hauled it away.

These pictures are from a run I did on Saturday through the muskeg. Loki and Moses are in wheel.
Hard to believe it was December 11th when these were taken. That Chinook the previous day robbed us of all our snow too!

Finally got some pictures of that Cat that is stuck out in the Muskeg.
 

Taking a break...
 

Hector (looking away) and Junior	Surge
Surge	Jinx
Draco and Herman; Surge and Skor; Moses and Loki	Nahanni and Pepsi
Olena and Crunchie in lead	Jinx and Snickers

One of the cool things about our area is it's history. I love the old houses that dot the area. This particular one has always 'spoken' to me. I remember running by on Christmas Eve in '02 and wondering about the Christmases it had seen.
 

What's everyone staring at???

A llama and 2 pygmy goats, of course. Cows, my team is pretty blasé about, but llamas and goats are a different story.
 

I've always been fairly fascinated with the shadows that travel the trail along with us.

Our last water break -
 

Loki	Nahanni
Jinx	The Legendary (and much hated) Pork Chop takes a run at the team on the way home.

The trail home and back in the yard...

Not having left for Alaska on Saturday has turned out to have a few perks. Yesterday, I was able to harness break a few of the pups, something I had really wanted to do before I went north. With Markus's help, we got Fritz, Paxson, Summit and X out for the first time.
Watching those instincts kick in and those pups take off with big grins on their faces always brings a smile to my face. All 4 pups did fantastic!
 

	Paxson and Charge; Vortec and Summit; Runner and X; Nokken and Fritz;  Lingo (not really visible) and Boom
the pups are tired of waiting!	the pups - can we go yet?
Summit - who will be heading to Azgard Kennels in the UK this spring	Lingo and Boom
The eXtraordinary X	Summit
Charge	Lingo - he acts like an old pro in harness!
Nokken

Well, that's it.

Looks like the last 4 pups (Tazzy, Minto, Tolsona and Koyuk) won't get run till I'm back from Alaska, because Markus and I are planning on hitting the road first thing tomorrow morning!

Talk to you all next from Alaska!
Karen