No mushing, no skijoring, no horseback riding. Today we do nothing. Its a rest day for all the animals, its a doing-nothing-working day for us.
Doing nothing is a very relative term here at the Heavy Horse Farm. As the dogs and horses get some rest, we have many things to do. The new kitchen is in and John works on the last details to hook everything back up. Also the dog truck needs some caring and the fire in the workshop has to be maintained to defrost the hot tub. Dog handler Destry feeds all the 30 animals (24 dogs, 6 horses) twice on the farm and bakes some bread on the side to feed us. I work on the website and do some reading up on advertising. Tomorrow we are mushing again.
Iris
Sam the house dog is roaming around inside, visiting dog Snap is laying on a floor rug inside, lead dog Nordic is curled up on the couch inside. Me and the rest of the dogs are outside, looking up to the Northern Lights.
Iris
Today we went to the Tanana river with our dog team to meet up with Kathryn from Sled Dog Adventures to take customers out mushing. Two sleds (each pulling another sled) with each 8 dogs make quite a spectacle. The dogs are very excited to run on this beautiful day and we are also happy with the more moderate temperatures. It has been -45F here, and 20F feels like hot to dogs and people.
When we are almost ready to go, a sprint team pulls up besides us. Their dogs are skinny compared to our more sturdy dogs and there are many. Many like in, how many? All together they put 24 dogs on the line and attached a very light weight sled behind them. It looks freaking fast and scary. Good that the sled is hooked up to a big truck, which is still shaking by the pull of all these dogs.
Now we are surrounded by 40 crazy barking, jumping, howling dogs. They all want to run, they all want to go. The whole atmosphere is intense, nervous, energetic and we can’t hear each other anymore above all the noise. With difficulty we keep our dogs to the side to give the sprint team right of way.
Suddenly silence. All 3 teams take off and the dogs run, run the way they love it. Full out before mellowing down into a nice rhythm. There is no noise, no engines, just the dogs, the mushers and 4 clients.
The opportunity is to good to just wait at the truck for John to come back, so I take the last dog left behind, Fanny and go skijor with her. What an amazing place to be.
Iris
Heidi Hatcher has a great write up of her recent trip with us on her blog.
Spring has sprung in Fairbanks. days are getting longer, sun’s been shining, temps getting up into the 20′s, and only down to the -20′s at night. roads are starting to clear up so we’re driving on patchy ice and pavement instead of just solid ice now. our road’s still packed snow, but i like it that way. with the beautiful weather comes beautiful opportunities to play outside. gorgeous days to go skiing or ice climbing. and now, spring break.
What better way to kick-off the break than an overnight mushing trip??
Read More Here:
http://heidihatcher.blogspot.com/2011/03/dog-days-of-winter.html
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