The Mighty Tawatinaw River Clearing - Bet

Howdy Ho Everybodies!

It's your roving nature reporter, Bet, here!

If you've been following along on the Facebooks, you'll know that the fantabulous Julia was here visiting, helping out, and learning the ropes about mushing.  We love having Julia visit, she's very good at opening and closing gates.

She was also very good at helping train the Pretty Curly Tails, and the lessons they learned on this visit was "water crossing".

Now you may be asking yourself: "Self... why would Pretty Curly Tails need to learn how to cross water, or get in water, or even have anything to do with water when they race in the snow???"

Well, there actually is water on the Iditarod sometimes, icy icy water, and gushy watery conditions and such, and the Pretty Curly Tails need to know that water is fine, it's good, they can just run right through it, and they need to find out that information during training, not unexpectedly like while they race, so running them into and through water is a vital training thingie.

Here they are running and then oopsies, there's water:


See how easy they make it look?

Unfortunately, the icky beavers of the MIGHTY Tawatinaw River have built all of their icky dams and have made the level of the river very MIGHTY for the Pretty Curly Tails, as you can see here:

You can clearly see that the Pretty Curly Tails were NOT at all thrilled with the prospect of jumping into the MIGHTY Tawatinaw... and who can blame them.

My favorite part is when Ryka body slams Boo into the river... way to go, I taught her so well.

Anyhooooo, it was pretty clear that we had to do something to lower the level of the river, so that meant Supervisor Border Collie time!

Yes, clearly the river is too deep

I was slightly disappointed that I was not allowed to wear my high-viz jacket... or given a floatie coat... I could have fallen in or something... at the very least given some waterproof booties for my delicate feets... but I digress again.

We sent the muscle out to determine just how high the river was, and to scope out the icky beaver dam things.

Go out farther, Bear... farther!!!

No, I was only joking about the sharks, there aren't any sharks, get out there!

Once Bear found the icky beaver dams, we set about destroying them...

Ok Bear, push this out of here, move this over here, and squish all of this down and stuffs

Yes, yes, it smells and tastes like Beaver poo, I get that, just squish it down so the water can flow!

OH, OH NO, SERIOUSLY???

Clearly we needed someone with opposable thumbs to help with this bit of a mess, so we had Julia come over

She used her stompy boots to get the water flowing

Ok, Bear, test out the waters to see if its getting lower...

I said TEST the waters, not TASTE the waters... oh euw, that's gonna make me hurl

urp

After a lot of icky, sweaty work, we finally declared victory over the stupid beaver dams... take that you icky beavers!

Now the Pretty Curly Tails can do their river crossing training without getting dunked... until the stupid beavers build more dams... sigh.

Bet

Fifteen and Counting - Bet

Howdy Ho everybodies!!!

Yes, it's MEEEEEE your Roving Border Collie Reporter, Bet!

Stuffs and things are happening really quick around here, it's like a whirlywind!

First of all, HOLYGEEWILLIKERS it's very slippery here!  The weather has not been conducive to the whole sled doggy training sport at all.

NO.SNOW.AT.ALL.

What snow there was is a glare of ice.. sheety sheety ice.  It's VERY slippery here, so if things don't get better and there's no new snow, if you are coming to the Open House (and you better, I'm expecting you... don't you dare disappoint me!) be prepared to luge yourself around here. 

If you are going to wear those big cleaty shoes, please take care not to step on a Pretty Curly Tail with them.  That would be bad, and make me frown, and you wouldn't want me to frown... would you?  I didn't think so.

How sheety is it?

Next time I'll be representing Canada in the Olympics... that's how sheety it is here.

So, if you've been following us on the Facebooks (and you better... you don't even need an account to see our page there), you saw that the Musher was promising me a very special surprise gifty thing...

The surprise gifty thing arrived!

Yep, that's my personal crampy toe massager and Musher-guy Richard all the way from over the pond.  He arrived just in the nick of time to help the Musher get more miles and more training for the Pretty Curly Tails, so I was only a small bit peeved that they immediately took off for colder climates to get their training in and left me at Jamie's. 

Of course, being the master coordinator for Team North Wapiti, it did give me plenty of opportunities to plot and plan and scheme...

We should probably have some kind of cool matching headwear for everybodies... yeah... that would be nice, and waffles

Thankfully the Musher and Richard found some great training places for the Pretty Curly Tails, and even one that matched the 2014 North Wapiti Iditarod colors!

When they got back, the Musher had to attend to the mandatory drop bag drop off!  That means we're really getting close to the start.  As of this writing, we're only 15 days away!!!  Wowzers, time flies!!!

While she was dropping off her drop bags, the Musher found out that she got one of the really cool blankets made by students!

Thanks Kathy Clement Cappa for letting us use your photo!

Isn't that FABULOUS!  It's got the Maple Leaf on it and the fabric is simply divine!  I wanted to use it as the base for one of my ensembles... but Tramp nabbed it and won't give it back... and nobody wants to go ask her for it because... well, you know... blah blah yammer, yammer, yacky yack... who needs that? 

You should go check out this bloggity blog post all about the blankets the students made from all over the US and other regions!

The Musher and Richard are now back at HQ catching up on the little administrative things and stuffs they need to do to get ready for the race.  There's a big hoopla about the weather and on Monday a decision will be made as to whether the re-start will take place in Fairbanks.  If that happens, there will be a HUGEY HUGE flurry of freaking out minions making alternate plane reservations and plotting, planning, Nyquil swigging and running around with hands flailing.  That should be fun.

In the meantime, I am doing what all good Roving Border Collie Reporters, trainers, nannies, and all around support crews do when assisting in the running of a major race.

I simply don't know what they would do without me!

- Bet

Odds and Ends and Deadlines - Bet

Howdy Ho Everybodies!!!

It will be your soon to be roving roving Border Collie Reporter, Bet, here!!!!

In case you missed the biggie big hugey huge announcement on my birthday blog announcement thingie, I WILL be traveling to Anchorage and staying at North Wapiti mobile HQ to help train the Pretty Curly Tails and do my Dog On the Scene bloggity blog reporting!

With that said, we are running up on some deadlines here, so I want to send reminders out to everybodies as the time for Iditarod gets closer and closer and things start happening really fast.

1.) I put up a counter on the bloggity blog (look over to the upper right hand side [you mobile bloggers won't see it, so get to a real computer]) there's a countdown clock on how many days, hours, minutes and even seconds are left until the Musher and Pretty Curly Tails go careening down main street in Anchorage for the Ceremonial Start!

2.) The Musher, Pretty Curly Tail main and second string and I will be leaving for Alaska soon, and yes, I've already picked out and packed my fashionable ensembles for the trip.  Once there I will set up the nerve center Border Collie Broadcasting Center (BCBC) where I will report all the happenings.

3.) Don't forget to order your exclusive, one of a kind, no place else to get them, signed by artist and Musher Van Zyle exclusive "Race Fans" print.  You can get them by clicking here. There's also a tab at the top of the bloggity blog.

4.) SNACK BAGS!!!!!!!!!  The deadline for sponsoring or getting your snack bag items to Kathryn Snack Bag Minion is 15 January 2014!!!!!!  The following check points don't have a sponsor or anyone making them so get it while you can:

OPHIR
NULATO (not to be confused by the tasty bread spread Nutello)
SHAKTOOLIK (I cut and pasted it so I would spell it right)
NOME (need 2 snack bags there, one for Musher, and one for the handler).

5.) Snack bag essentials: still have oodles of things that haven't been sponsored, including Prilosec for the Pretty Curly Tails.  Don't make me remind all of you about Snickers, and all of the good work the Iditarod vets and other organizations have done to eliminate this horrible condition all with one little pill each day...   What are you waiting for?  Hmmmm????  Click here, scroll down... even one or two items will help defray all of the expenses of running.

6.) The Monolopy Iditarod game auction ends on 1 February 2014, highest bidder is listed on the upper right hand side of the bloggity blog... just sayin.

Oh, and yes, I will have a meet and greet at the Open House (details later), but please don't surround me suddenly with your adoration... I'm actually kinda shy at first, you may scare me.

- Bet

RAGBRAI Training Continues - Bet

As the Musher opined in her radio broadcast the other day, her biggest concern was the heat.

We've had some pretty glorious days here at North Wapiti, all nice and cool and comfy, perfect sleepy and napping weather during the nights, and just warm enough to feel a little bit of the sun's warmth on you, and squishing the sand between your crampy toes... just glorious.

Apparently not good training weather for the Musher.  I just checked the googles and the weather for that raggedy bike ride is predicted to be in the high 80's almost 90 (Fahrenheit) with high humidity, so it'll feel like 4,786 degrees... or something.

Since I'm her official trainer, and since she did have concerns about doing some conditioning for the heat, the most obvious decision was to try to recreate the conditions in Iowa... so....

Sure, she's getting some strange looks, but no more stranger than she usually gets.

As an added bonus, here is the 360 degree view of North Wapiti for your viewing pleasure.



- Bet

Last Call for Cookbooks IMPORTANT - Bet

Howdy Ho everybodies!!

It's your soon to be roving again roving Border Collie Reporter, Bet here!!

I just wanted to warn you that I'm getting ready for the trip to the Canadian Challenge for my reporting duties (and get some crampy toe massage), and needed to tie up some loose ends before our biggie big trip.  I hate loose ends.  Loose ends are annoying.  They start to unravel and before you know it you just have a hugey huge mess of loose ends flopping around and Border Collies just can't have that, you know....

um...

anyhoooo, we'd like to get the order out to the publisher for the 2nd printing of "When Kibble Just Won't Cut It" the fantabulous North Wapiti production cookbook that is chock full of not only human, but Pretty Curly Tail... and other curly tail... non-curly tail... dogs that was compiled by Helen (smells of cookies so it must be good) Handler.

This cookbook is a MUST have for all cooks and people who don't cook, but need to cook because if you don't cook, then you will starve, and you certainly won't starve if you have this tome of edible nomminess!!!

If you haven't pre-ordered your copy, then DO IT!  DO IT NOW!!!  Or at least do it before February 17th, because that's when we're going to stop taking pre-orders!

I don't mean to yell or anything, but feel I must: We aren't printing extras!!!  We're only printing enough to cover everybodies that have pre-ordered!!!  There will be no more extras!!!

Ok, I'll stop yelling now, I just wanted to make that very clear, it's your last chance to get it... which means if you get it, you'll have a one of a kind cookbook not available anywhere else... and there's tasty stuffs and things in there too.


How do you get it?   oh, sorry, I didn't mean to yell that... well, it's very easy, all you have to do is click this link.
You can also go to the right hand side of the blog and click on that big cookbook picture (you won't see it if you are on a mobile device)

If you are sending a check, then PUHLEEEEZE tell the musher minions!!!!!  Contact the musher minions at Musher Minions and if that link doesn't work, type in this:
 help4northwapiti@gmail.com

and tell them you sent a check. If you sent a check and haven't told the minions, then go tell the minions how many you ordered.  We want to make sure you all get your cookbooks and stuffs and things!!!

Eeesh, I didn't mean to sound all screechy, but I want to make sure everyobodies gets their cook book.

I'm actually waiting for my tasty tasty dish to get done baking, so you really need to hurry scurry and order yours today!!!!!

- Bet