Ready For Winter

Happy Thanksgiving Day to those who celebrate this holiday. It is my favorite holiday due to the lack of presents and shopping involved. Good food, friends and family; the important things in life.

As we near the end of November I am in that waiting for winter mode and once again done with my fall to do list. Now that is something to be thankful for!

This winters dog food is in.



The freezer is full of meat for the dogs.




The dog sleds are refinished and ready to run.




And the snow blower and snow plow are on the tractor and ready roll.




And that's just the list from the past two weeks! It seems like I've been preparing for winter for the past three months when we began fall training with the dogs. It amazes me how much time and energy this takes every year. For now it's done and we can sit back and enjoy our nice warm home and with a little bit of luck a nice snowy winter.

As we enter yet another holiday season I try to pause to be thankful for the good fortune I have had in my life. I may not have a lot of money but on this day I have my health, a roof over my head, food on my table and loving family and friends. If only there was a way for everyone to have the good fortune that I have had the world would surely be a better place.

Fall Training Begins Again

Once again the leaves are turning and we're dusting off the dog carts, scooters and ourselves! It's amazing how it seems as though everyone including me forgets so much over the three months of summer vacation. This fall has been especially challenging for me due to the fact that we have a total of eight new dogs in the kennel. I have never had such a large number of newbies at one time. Five of the dogs just arrived here two weeks ago and I really have no idea how much training they have had in the past. They were given to me by someone wanting to place them as a group. They do seem to enjoy running but are pretty out of shape. We'll see how they come along as we begin to run more. I also have two young dogs with us this fall who have never run in a team before. They are; shall we say a "little" crazy. They do seem to be figuring it out though and their energy will be appreciated once they learn to point it in the right direction! These two pictures are of Thunder and Prescott. They are the two young dogs from Ontario. They're actually from the same kennel as our puppy Pacem who is not as much of a puppy any more at eight months old. I'll attempt to get more pictures of the rest of the new gang if I can ever get them to sit still long enough for the camera to capture them.

Vacation Summer 09

This year we decided to do a "staycation" and stick close to home. Generally I plan a grand adventure somewhere in New England whether it's a motorcycle tour to Cape Brenton or a week long canoe in northern Maine we usually head out for an adventure for my one week off.

This summer we only drove 70 miles to Burton Island State Park on Lake Champlain. Burton Island is a wonderful state park near St.Albans, Vermont. They offer ferry service to reach the island as well as docking and mooring if you have your own boat. We bought a 1969 Chrysler Lone Star sail boat this summer. It's a small 13 foot sloop rigged sail boat with a 600 pound; four passenger rating. We loaded it up with a weeks worth of camping gear, two adults and one puppy and set "sail" across the bay to the island. It's only about a half mile from the boat launch to the dock at the island. There was no wind at all the day we headed out so we had to rely on the electric trolling motor I had rigged up on the back. I wish I had taken a picture of the boat loaded. There was barely enough space for us to get in after we put in all of our gear for the week. Good thing it was a calm day!

Once on the island we began to relax. We had a lean too for the week and brought our tent as well. The only complaint I had was that the mosquitoes where brutal! We couldn't really relax at the lean to site even with bug dope on. If you sat still for more than two minutes you were being chewed alive. We spend a lot of time at the public use area near the docks which was open and usually had a good breeze. If we weren't there we were walking on the island trails or out sailing on our boat. Having our boat right there made for some fantastic sailing days. We were able to go when ever the wind blew and got out every day we were there.



Our youngest dog Pacem spent the week camping with us. She makes a great first (second?) mate and seemed to enjoy hanging out on the water. It was great socialization for her and a good bonding experience for us. She's really turning out to be a wonderful dog. I can't wait for winter to arrive so I can get her out for some sled runs and see how she does with that.



After six days we packed it all up and headed back home again. All was well on the home front. Our house sitter didn't have any problems with the rest of the gang which is always a relief. We were well rested and it was great to get away without having to do a ton of driving. We're already debating whether to do the same thing again next summer. I have mixed feelings about that; while it was nice to not drive a lot and spend more time relaxing it is also fun to see new places and have new experiences.