time past and fresh starts

Not much to say here. Another blow to running dogs. I have been looking forward to 2009 with hope, to find it not so fun so far.
I have been sick since new years eve. I have this cough that is so bad, I end up choking and cant breath, very scary so, with it getting worse i have only been out with the dogs 3 other time since the last post. I am starting to feel alot better, but still having the coughing fits, and dont want to be on the trial, if I black out so....
Another hardship was loosing Princess. She passed away on my birthday this Jan.29. I am happy to report however, she made it to be 15 years old and was in great shape until the last 2 days. She went in her sleep. She was my first all husky leader, she was a tough old school husky who came from a litter localy and was half turner/butcher lines. She was such a pretty girl, and was one of those dogs who everytime she looked at you , you knew your were her favorite no matter what. I have never seen a dog that looked up to me and said your great and i love you, the way she did, always smiling and happy just because I was there. At the same time I have never had a dog that frustrated me as much at the same time. But an honest worker and leader and friend right to the end. She is the last of my original team and is sadley missed. Hope she finds a field of declawed cats along her trail, luv you my sweet cat killer.
With her passing, I am now down to 2 mutts. Moke and Vader, who are her pups, with a special place in my heart for them. They are pets, as not much for the sledding thing, but who cares, the are great hiking partners and gaurd dogs. The rest of the dogs are siberians now, and so a entire new chapter is ready to be opened here in our kennel. We have ALOT of young dogs to work with and train, and I am very excited to have these dogs in my yard.
We are at the point of moving out of Faro, with no work or food store, and we can never get to Whitehorse to shop, we have been fighting for the past year and a half to stay, and it is not happening. So unless a awesome job turns up, we will be turning out. Out to Dawson City, Hayden has been working up there the past 5 months and is taking on a full time job, no more contracting. In the year 2008 he was away to work for 7 months out of the year, all wich were during the winter months, which is a bit harder on me alone. Dawson is a good spot, lots of dog mushers to train with, store with food, gasstations, restauants. Ooohhh how exciting,lol. I really wanted to remain in Faro, but dont want to be away from HAyden for such long stretches of time, he has been in Dawson going on 5 moths now, with a short visit here and there. I do plan on buying land near here and building a cabin on it, so I can come back and run my dogs, as I belive Faro is a awesome spot to be and run dogs, just not feasable for us.
So I am hoping everyone elses new year is going good. I sure hope it picks up for us, lord knows I would love to run my dogs and run them alot more often. I am still planning on going into see the start of the Yukon Quest and YQ 300, but if I need to be packing up, well that might not even happen.
Happy trails to everyone.

today

lead garter viva
kisses glinda
buddah jarvi,
good run, got fire wood, now im spent.......

perfect runs

I dropped Hayden off on the way out to the dogs today, so he could cut fire wood while I ran some dogs. It was warm, sunny and the dogs were well behaved. We went the entire run today with no problems.
I hooked Anterton (this years pup) in for his first ever run with his older sister kisses and he did amazing. tight tug all the way...LOVE IT!
We did a fast easy low stress run and it was so nice to have a perfect run on a perfect day. After the run I picked up hayden and half a truck of wood.
The mountains were amazing the sun rides behind them and lights up the sky with amazing colors and the mountins are highlighted from behind, so pretty. On days like to day were riding ontop of the world
lead glinda n viva
kisses n antherton
jarvi n garter

Todays run

We went for our first run in way to long. It finally warmed here and is up to -23 today. aaaaaaahhhhh the warmth, it feels good. It was a "perfect" day to run the dogs, it was warm and snowing. We had about a foot of snow that was fresh and it snowed the whole day and was picking up when we finnished the run.
I ran Red and Buddah in lead. I do not think Buddah has ever been in lead, but he did very well there with red. He seems to like being out front, which is really good. Boo and Red should make a nice set of leaders, with the proper training. Towars the end of the run they begain to tie, as did the rest of the team. All in all there were a couple tangles, but everything else worked out great.
I had Hayden go down with the truck so he could take pictures, but the weather did us no good. Too dark to get some good still pics.

HOME 4 SALE

We are ready to get moving again. We bought this place so we would not be paying mortage or rent. We would like to sell it this spring or summer NOT BEFORE. We are staying in the area, just moving out of town for more freedom, with our dogs and our life style. Please pass the message onto any one who you think might be interested, more info available on request, and of course more pictures when it warms up.
more info is on the website, go to the side of the blog -----> and click on siberians in the yukon

40 below

weather update...still cold

Yah it is frozen through...and of course I grabbed it cuz I wanted some...:(

getting fire wood at -35

the cold is warming up

I dont know how long for sure we have been in this cold "snap" for, I am pretty sure it has been about a month and a half now. We have had -30 to -50 here. We have been in it long enough that when we go out side, it seems not too bad at all. Infact it is now 'warm' enough to do chores and quick out side tasks in my PJs.
I am starting to worry about the possibility of it warming up too much, if it were to jump and hit -20 , WOW we will be everywhere in our t shirts and PJs. Also the dogs, can you imagine living through 2 months (not warming up soon) in -40 and then it hits -20 and it is time to run again, we will have to watch them for sure.
The dogs are doing great outside though, and seem to enjoy the weather. I have a few that curl up ontop of the dog houses and sleep outside no matter the tempature, silly puppys, dont they know how much trouble it is to get them straw?
Since I am still taking it easy due to my knee injury I have not been running them at all since the cold set it. The weather deffintaly brings it challenges, the biggest is fire wood, oh the beauty of easy to get fire wood. Which no longer exists. Hayden is currently working in Dawson City, about 7 hours north of here, he has the 4x4 and i am stuck with the truck that decided it does not wish to worken after -30. Flippin piece of s**t. So wood has been a challenge to get, last summer the truck was broke down while we waited and waited for parts from the US, because the canadians that had the part did not want to sell it. 30000 dodges here in canada (or something at least that) 2 parts in canada, and neither would sell the part...NICE.
The cold brings and increadable beauty to us here, the sky is usually bright blue, and clear, the trees are all frosted amd look set for a movie, the sunsets have great color and it is one if not my favorite time of the year it is peacefull and beautiful here. All the dogs and wild animals are in their full winter fluff, and are just so increadably beautiful, and now it is warm as well , for short periods of time :) One of my goals for next year is to save up for a camerea that can show how pretty it is, I find the small one i have does great upclose , but not much for landscapes.
I will try to get back on here and do more posting, even if it is just rambling on till we can get back out running. After all with the cold it is a great time to play with puppies and do inside time with the other dogs.
May everyones stove stay burning,hot chocolate flowing and warm times with friends and family while it is cool outside.

yummy frozen salmon soup...its a hit!

the girls

top is Breeze
bottom is Bytz

the boys

Barq and Bones

well we have had a terrible training season here. Snow and temps have been perfect, but between vehical,sleds and my increadable talent to injure myself we have not been able to do much with the dogs. So all our plans to race this year fell apart, and it has been heartbreaking to just feed them and allow them to loose run and run as little as we have.
On the bright side we have found that Red is turning out to be a great dog, and better yet an amazing lead dog. With more training I can not wait to see how she does. The 2 yr olds we have (red,kisses, and asker) have proven to be natural sleddogs always working hard and always ready to go, what I really love also is they are so calm during hook up, nce on the line they seem to find their inner peace, lol. I love calm dogs during hook up.
We are hoping to start the harness breaking of this years litter of 5 (we have kept all of them)Once the weather breaks we can do more with them, and once my knee heals I will be adding them into the team again.
We are also very excited to have another litter on the ground, we have 2 males and 2 females DOB: Nov.30.08. The mother is Queen and father is Garter. http://yukonsibes.tripod.com/id1.html We were planning on no litters this winter, but we decided to go ahead with Queen and Garter after all. Again all the pups will be staying with us.
On a another note, we have decided to place some dogs, we are planning on placing glinda into a pet retirment home, although she is still running on the team and does good, she is starting to slow down and , she is a great pet in the house, (arnt they all?). I feel she should be able to get spoiled and live with a fam that can spoil and devote their time to her. We are placing 2 pups from this years litter as well. This is a part of dogs I could do with out, having to decide who stays and who is to go. Of course if the right home does not come along, they stay with us, so in the end all ends well I guess.
My knee is almost better and I should be back on the sled soon. (fingures crossed) So this year we are not racing as we had planned, we with trian and work on leaders and training the younger bunch, and have fun with the new litter.
Once the cold breaks I can get the camera out and take pics of the dogs, and do some up dating. I will try to be on here more as things hopefully get better here.
We wish every one a happy new years and best wishes in the race season this year! We will be in Whitehorse for the start of the Yukon Quest to watch that, and I hope to be in Dawson as a volunteer for the quest, but have not commited to Dawson as of yet. Safe trails everyone.