November 23, 1999

Well, I did end up canceling the school visit I was suppose to do last Thursday. I 'toughed' it out on Friday though and with the help of a few glasses of water, got through 2 presentations to a total of nearly 700 kids! I still haven't completely recovered from this nasty flu, but I seem to have it on the run now!

I did 2 school talks yesterday. Spud, Camilla,and KD came along. Spud used to be my 'regular' for school visits, but maybe because we had been doing so many, he was getting bored with them and not having fun. This was the first visit he has done in a long while and the KING is back! I looked over at one time during my slide show and Spud was stretched out across the laps of 4 teenage girls. One was rubbing his ears, one scratching his belly, and another stroking his tail - what a ham! He absolutely 'worked' that crowd! Little KD had a blast too! I turned her loose and she would run in circles around the room at high speeds, punctuating the run with a little bark every now and then, and then PLUNGE into the group of kids. It was like Moshing - Siberian style!!!! A fun time was had by all!
I thought that you might be interested in a little about what a typical day and a typical week in our lives is like, so here goes....

Normally the dogs get Monday and Thursday off. I've been using those days to get into the city, pick up dog food, grocery shop, do banking, school visits, vet visits, etc, etc. Tuesday and Wednesday I've been running 1 team each day. Mark doesn't work Friday, Saturday, Sunday (he works 4 - 10 hours day/week), so those days are are big running days. This is putting the dogs on a 3 days on - 1 (2) day(s) off, 1 day on - 2 (1) days off. For now that is working well, although the runs will need get more frequent relatively soon.

A 'typical' day is kind of rare around here, as things always seem to happen to disrupt the best of plans, but usually we are up at 5am. On work days, Mark is out of the house by 6am - and here's my BIG confession - between 6 - 7 I usually plunk myself in front of the TV with a cup of coffee and watch Northern Exposure on A&E. Absolutely, my favorite show of all time! After that, or at 6am on Mark's days off, it's out the door to water dogs. First I feed the 'A' team (24 dogs and 2 'alternates'). Their meal is thicker and meatier due to their increased caloric needs. Then the 11 'B' team dogs. We then go through and pick up bowls, taking the opportunity to play, snuggle, and mess around with the dogs. This is also a good time to check any problems with the 'A' team dogs, something like the foot that might have been tender after the last run or things like that. Then off to 'Geriatric Park' to feed and say 'Good Morning' to the 4 seniors. We save the pups for last! After feeding we get the meat thawing for the days teams and dinner. Then back into the house for 1 1/2 - 2 hours while the dogs digest their meal! This time is usually used for breakfast, catching up on email, paying bills, and stuff like that. Now comes running! As we are still on the quads, runs are slower then with a sled, including hooking up, running, and feeding/putting the dogs away afterwards, we are usually out for between 6 - 10 hours. Sometime during that time, Colin, the young man that helps out in the yard, will have showed up and shoveled the yard for us. If we get in the yard after about 4 pm, then we will feed the dogs their dinner in harness. Otherwise, they get another meal of soup after a run. At 8pm it is feeding time. Mark and I always feed the kennel together in the evening. Last year, I was feeding before Mark got home from work, but he missed the time with the dogs we changed the schedule. By 9pm we are calling it a day!

Well, the 2 hours since feeding are almost up this morning! I need to get out there and get ready to run!

November 15, 1999

I've lost my voice due to a cold/cough that I've been packing around for a few days. So, I'm going to have to get my 'talking fix' in by updating my journal today!! I don't know what I'm going to do if the phone rings. I hope it doesn't last long, as I'm scheduled to do 5 or 6 school talks over this Thursday and Friday. I'd hate to have to cancel.

Other then the cold, everything is going well. We did a 43.5 mile run on Friday, 20 miles on Saturday and then Sunday spend the day doing health checks and vaccinating the 'A' team for kennel cough. For our health checks we bring the dog into our well lit garage weigh them, check their feet, teeth, gums, ears, look for harness rubs, etc, etc.. Of course, we do check them every time we are putting them away after a run, but it's a good idea to get a really good look at them up on a table every now and then too! Just for interests sake, I thought I'd give you some weights on the dogs. Our smallest dog is Joey, who weighs in at 38.5 lbs. On the other end of the scale is Mork, at a whopping 65 lbs. Average weight on the 'A' team is 49lbs.

I spent some time at the vet's again yesterday. Striker has been coughing for almost a month. We had tried some antibiotics, but they didn't help, so we had him put under so Dr. Jackson could take a good look down his throat. Turns out he has tonsillitis. So he is on a different antibiotic. I hope this clears it up quick. His attitude has not been affected by his cough and he is not at all happy with not being allowed to run!

I almost forgot to tell you about 'Take Out' :) On our Saturday run Mark discovered an abandon little grey and white kitten on the side of the road. It was meowing it's head off and Mark flatly refused to leave it there. It was quite the trick trying to keep 2 - 12 dog teams under control while trying to grab a half wild kitten. But we accomplished it! I will long hold the memory of Mark's team moving down the road in front of me with a kitten perched on his shoulder (the kitten kept crawling out of his jacket, climbing up his shoulder and attempting to leap off the moving quad). So 'Take Out' now joins 'Grisle' and 'Kibble' as the resident yard cats!

Well, I'm going to go drink another gallon of orange juice and see if all that vitamin C helps me shake off this nasty bug!

November 10, 1999

Well hello to all. Things are going pretty well here. We had another good weekend of training on the dogs. On Monday I went to the Kikino Metis Settlement, about 1 1/2 hours from here and talked to the kids. One of the pups, Odie, and Lyra came along for the trip. We all had a really good time.

Yesterday I wanted to get a run in on the dogs, but ended up returning phone calls, booking airline tickets, and doing some trip planning. It is only 6 weeks till I head up to Alaska, so I can't let details get away from me. This morning Mark and I were counting how many days we are going to be in Alaska and trying to figure out how much kibble and meat we will need for the dogs. Then, of course, we are working on the food drops for Iditarod. We need to cut up and package all the meat for the trail, as well the rest of the dogs food, my food, extra gear, etc, etc. I can't wait till all that is out of the way and I can get on the trail!!!!! I think that is a pretty common feeling among mushers!

I did also get one fun chore in yesterday - it was a Straw Day!!! The dogs just love straw. It is like Christmas in the yard when I drag out the skidder and start dividing up a bale. The pups hadn't seen straw before and it is so scattered across their kennel that it won't offer much insulating value for them, but they sure had fun running around chasing each other through it! The older dogs aren't much better. They bounce and bark, grab mouthfuls out of my arms and dash around their areas shaking their heads and sending straw flying! After dinner there was a lot of satisfied 'sighs' as the dogs bedded down in their houses for the night! I think the mental benefits of Straw Day are just about as good as the physical ones!
Well, I need to get outside and get the dogs fed, so I can run later this morning. We give the dogs 2 hours after their breakfast to digest their meal before asking them to work.

November 2, 1999

Hunting season has arrived! Not a good thing for mushers around here! I've outfitted the dogs with blaze oranges vests to wear over their harnesses, which should help keep us safe as we share the woods with hunters for the next month.

We had another excellent weekend of training, putting 90 miles on all the 'A' team dogs in 3 days. We even discovered some really lovely new trails!

Yesterday the dogs all got a day off to rest. I spent the day catching up on paying bills, banking, my correspondence, yard chores..... Not much rest for me :) We picked all the water buckets up on Sunday too, that means that our feeding schedule changes now. In the summer, the dogs have buckets hanging on their houses with fresh water available all the time. Feeding consists of going through the yard in the evening with dry kibble. Now that the buckets are off the houses we feed a breakfast of meat, National Energy Pack and water. Their evening meal starts off with dry kibble and vitamins and then we go through the yard and scoop out their 'soup' of meat and water. Most mushers feed their kibble soaked in water/meat, but we have found that our critters eat better if offered dry kibble first! It requires an extra 'pass' through the yard in the evening, but Mark and I both enjoy feeding time and the visiting that we do with the dogs then! Of course, in addition to all this, the dogs get fed after every run too. Usually a snack of frozen fish, lamb or beef and followed up with a meat, Energy Pack and water soup! Lately, we have been adding a little kibble after the run as I'm trying to put some more weight on a number of the dogs!
Today, I'm going to get a run in. Then I need to go into the Vet in Westlock. Seems Striker and Chester had a minor disagreement on the weekend. Even minor disagreements can be a problem when you have 2" canines! Striker got a puncture wound on his nose, nothing serious, but it is swelling a little and I want my vet, Dr. Jackson, to take a quick look at it and probably put him on antibiotics.

Well, that's the news and gossip for this morning!

October 26, 1999

We had a great weekend with the dogs! Despite some warmer then normal weather we still managed to put over 70 miles (in three separate runs) on the dogs. We are aiming to put a straight through 50 miler on them this weekend! Their training is coming along really well.

On Saturday, we were finished running around noon, so we packed up and went into the city for the day. We went to a gun range in town and I practiced some with firing a .44 magnum. This is the caliber of gun that I plan on carrying in the Iditarod, so it is important that I get comfortable with it! MOOSE BEWARE - I'm getting pretty good. We also took the time to treat ourselves to a movie - something we used to do lots, but can't seem to find much time for anymore. We went to see the 'Sixth Sense' with Bruce Willis - pretty good, I thought!

I had read the scary story on Jon Little's homepage of his moose encounter last week and wanted to tell you all some of the 'dangers' of the trail that we face during training. We do also have moose (luckily not quite as big and ornery as Alaskan moose!), in fact, Mark chased a young bull moose down the trail with his team on Sunday. However, we live in a mostly rural, farming/ranching area, so most of the animals we meet during a run are loose farm dogs, cows, horses, and such! Actually, the farm dogs are great distractions and good 'On By' training for the team! In addition to all this, we live 1 mile off of Highway #2 that runs from Edmonton to Athabasca, many of our trails are accessed by running 2 or 3 miles along the highway in the ditch. The ditches are wide and safe to be in, but the semis roaring by are unnerving at the best of times! It's also a pretty big distraction for drivers, dog teams in Alaska might be a common place, but in our area, we are quite the novelty! Drivers honk, hit their brakes, and some even stop to take pictures! I just keep my fingers crossed that there will be no accidents and remind my self what great training this is for Day 1 of the Iditarod, where we run through downtown Anchorage!

I spend all day yesterday in a town about 1 hour from us, called Smith. I did 6 presentations to the school kids there (Grade 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6, and the junior High Kids) on dog sledding and the Iditarod! Camilla and Mannie came along as well. Mannie was unsure of his footing on the linoleum flooring and didn't have a very good time, but Camilla was very well behaved and enjoyed meeting all the kids! I did my slide show and showed the Idit-a-Rock and Roll video, which is a BIG hit with the kids! I always have fun at school visits - the kids are always so interested and ask some of the coolest questions! I've been doing around one school a week for the last while, but we are going to have to start putting visits off till after Iditarod, as training is taking up more and more of my time!

Well, that's all the news for today. It's kind of warm again, but cloudy so it shouldn't get too hot, so I'm off to do a 20 - 25 mile run with the team!

If anyone is reading this :) and has questions that they would like to see answered here, just email them to me at (removed old address)  and I will certainly try to get them answered!

October 21, 1999

My goodness, I almost forgot that I have a picture of my 'new' dog truck online! (actually, it's not new - just all refitted and repainted!!! But it looks NOTHING like it did before!). Our sincerest thanks to our good friend, Roger Morey - he put a lot of time and heart into making them look so good!!

Not much new here. I've been having sleepless nights thanks to a coyote that is hanging around the edge of the dog yard. This is the first time in 10 years that we have had an ongoing problem like this! I'm not really worried about the Siberians, in fact, they don't even seemed bothered much by the visitor, but my 15 year old, half blind, mostly deaf Sheltie X house dog is a worry. He is only allowed supervised time outside right now. I got Mark up at 4am when the coyote was out at the entrance to the yard. He fired a few shots into the air, but it only scared our visitor away for an hour or so. I'm worried that if they keep getting braver, they might start bothering the Sibes. Mr. Coyote is going to have to take the hint that he is not welcome here - or we are going to be forced into looking at getting rid of him :(

Well, yesterday was too warm to run the dogs, but today is a little cooler, so I'm heading out to run right away! Talk to you all again soon!

October 15, 1999

Well, we are back from Jamie's and working hard at the training! The trip to Minnesota was great. We put a lot of miles on the dogs and Jamie, once again, showed me that I need to up my expectations on them. They are now doing 20+ miles per run and have even done a 40 miler, although with a 4 hour break in the middle of the run! I'm having a great time playing with all my young leaders, in fact, I can't remember the last time I had one of the 'old stand-byes' in lead! We had some problems with Mork. The day we were leaving he somehow badly sliced open his foot. Cut right through one of the toe pads. We packed him up and took him along and one of Jamie's vets in Minnesota did surgery on him. For awhile there was speculation that this might end his running career, but he has healed well and was back in harness again 3 weeks after the surgery! That was the vet's 'best case' scenario! I'm very happy to have him back - now he just has to catch up in miles! Breezy, Mom of our summer pups is back in harness! And speaking of the pups, I have a few new pictures : Hugi and Kara, Thor, KD, and Stripey. Stripey has actually moved to her new home in Edmonton with a very nice couple that think the world of her! It is hard to let pups go, but a little easier when they go to such terrific homes! We also have a new addition - Pirate. Pirate comes to us from our friend, Karen Yeargain in Sisters, Oregon. I had tried to buy Pirate when he was a young pup, but Karen wouldn't let him go. Then, sadly, within the last few months he developed a habit of eating rocks! Within 2 weeks he had to have 3 surgeries to remove them from his stomach! Because our kennel is on sandy soil with no rocks it was in his best interest to try living up here! He is still a young dog, just over 1 year, but I'm happy to take the chance on him - he is soooooo nicely built!! Well, I think that is all the gossip and news for now. Now that the page is up on the new site, you should see it being updated on a more regular basis!!! PROMISE!! ;)