It’s official, it is fall in the northlands again. The leaves turned yellow and a couple days later they are already stacking up on the ground. There is nothing like cruising through the birch forest while on a puppy walk or with the team and quad… The trail coated in leaves like a yellow brick road.
So Paige brought the dogs back from the glacier last week and introduced them to their new dogyard and the new pups and dogs that appeared here this summer. This week has been exciting running teams mixed with all our old and new favorites. They all look so good that it is hard not to contemplate 2 full Yukon Quest teams, but as the season progresses we will likely have only enough SOLID dogs for one good quest team. However we should have two really nice teams for all the mid-distance races this year and Cody may run the Quest 300 while Paige is running the full Quest. The dogs are strong, but here in the hills with our thicker coated dogs that have been running on ice all summer, it is still to dang warm to go more than 2-3 miles without them getting to hot., especially when doing some hill climbs. Colder temps, please come.
The pups are all doing great. Smoke’s pups (grisman songs) have taken to the excercise wheel and love it. Lucy’s pups are getting more active and are showing lots of personality these days. We are going to take Laurie’s suggestiong and name them after lyrics from the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
Besides the running of the dogs and puppy walks, we have been having a multitude of friends helping us out with projects that must be finished before it snow and we forget about everything except running dogs. Cody will be taking some sleds to the Hakadal sleddog symposium in Norway on Tuesday and then the Willow symposium the week after, so he has been in the shop up to his elbows building dogsleds… with lots of help from Thomas, Tom and Paige of course. We also have been working on new 4 wheeler training trails and have a great new out trail, thanks to Jessie’s help. The last big project is getting a roof on our rental/handler cabin. Megan and Thomas, who worked with our dogs on the glacier all summer will be staying there this winter. However there still is no roof, but the rafters are up and we are confident that they will have a warm home soon! Thanks for all the help! One more month of working hard and then we can just train hard! can’t wait.