It's been awhile... lots to report...

Em Update:
Is doing good. No seizures that we have been aware of recently. He is still really, really itchy at times and other times he is not so itchy. He seems to be really sleepy the last few days, but maybe he is just going into hirbernation mode like the rest of us with the dwindling daylight and cold temps moving in.
Training:
We have been training the teams with the four wheeler - for the added control. We have about 8 inches of snow, but that isn't enough for the trails to be sled worthy just yet. Since we are training with the four wheeler we are able to run bigger teams... we are training 9 & 10 dog teams unless Jen comes over with her crew, then we break the teams down to 6 & 8 dogs each. We are working towards a...
Trip to the Mountains:
We have a cabin reserved in the White Mountains for Thanksgiving! We will be running 16 miles to Moose Creek Cabin on Thanksgiving Day and then back out the next day! Right now, it looks like we will be joined by Jen, Greg & Melissa. Tom, Jen, & I will run teams from our kennel. Melissa will run her own 9 dog team. Greg will provide sno-go support to all of us! It will be fun if there is enough snow to run on and the temps don't bottom out for that week!
Possible breeding:
We have had three to 5 of the girls in heat now for some time!! They seem to be having heat cycles so close that I am starting to get worried. I am thinking I will call the vet tomorrow to inquire about this strange thing that is happening in our kennel! Anyway, we have had the girls in a rather secure pen all together for some time now. Sherman is in with them, but he is neutered so it's no big deal! Well, we came home on Thursday night to find that Bolio had gotten out of his pen - still not sure how he got out as the bottom of the fence is now nicely frozen in and there were no holes in the fencing... we finally figured that he must have squeezed out the bottom of the door that flexes about 3 inches! He then proceeded to get into the girls pen the same way... thru the door that flexes about 3 inches at the bottom!! Thankfully, there were only two girls in that pen at the time - the other two were at Jen's house!! We are not sure if he breed with either or both of them at this point. He is now a permenant dog on a chain unless we are in the pens with him. Not the way we like to keep dogs, but he is a pill and has given us nothing but trouble since he grew up enough to want to be a stud!!! Anyway, I got the calendar out and figured up the days for when we should be able to have a vet feel for a pregnancy which falls right at Thanksgiving weekend. Then, the 60 day mark would be... Christmas Day!!! Just what we need... more christmas puppies!!! And possibly two litters of them!!! AGH!!! Just shoot me now!! :o)
Other thoughts:
I leave for a work trip to Florida next Friday night. I will be gone for almost a week. I really hate leaving this time of year, but I am...so there isn't much I can do about it. The temps in Orlanda are suppose to be in the 70's & 80's!! I will use this trip as a way to get some much needed sun that will up my Vitamin D! Not that it will last long once I get back to the darkness of Alaska, but the warmth of the sun sure will feel good for a week!!!
The living room remodel project isn't moving very fast. We seem to always find something else to do or we are too tired to work on it! I am thinking it was a bad idea to start it but now that we are into it we can't really go back and it will look much better when we are done!! I hope!

Well, better get going and keep my day moving... more laundry, dishes and training to be done today!!

More SNOW!!!

In the last two days we have gotten about 6 or 7 inches of snow!! It started snowing and just didn't seem to stop for a full day!!! It was so pretty coming down and now the ground & trees are covered! Once again, I have fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book... While we were out cleaning pens last night Tom pointed to something, "What's that?" he said pointing to a brown thing sticking out of the snow. Turns out it was only a stick... but while I was bent over to look... he kicked the tree that I was under... you guessed it... I got covered with snow!!! It went down my collar and I stood up screaming!! Oh, Tom was getting quite a laugh out of it though!! I will pay him back one day! I have made a mental note to not fall for that one again this year!! However, that's not likely to happen and I am sure I will be covered again and again...

We have started training the teams with the four wheeler. Only going two miles, but with this snow we might be able to start going more!! Tom went out with the sno-go last night and dragged the trails so we can run the dogs this weekend and bump them up to 4 miles! Won't be long and we will be running the full 6 mile loop!! The dogs are so ready to get going! It is so fun to see how excited they get when we start getting the four wheeler ready and then even more excited when the harnesses are brought out of the house!!!

In other news, we have puchased a whole trailer load of straw to get us thru the next couple of years!! We got 130 bales!!! That should last us and a few of our friends for the next couple of winters. Today or tomorrow we have to unload it from the trailer and get it into a storage building. That will be lots of fun!!

We are still in the process of remodeling the living room... if you can call it that. We took the paneling off the walls to find some of the sheetrock in great shape and some of it textured!! So, we have sanded the texture off and will cover those areas with a light coat of mud before we prime the walls. Still have to get lots of it done before we can all this project complete!!

Not sure what we are going to do this afternoon, but we have lots of projects to work on! We were suppose to head to the property today and rent a backhoe/frontend loader for moving some dirt to make the driveway passable this winter. Well, it seems we are about a week late in doing this with all of the snow because the rental place cancelled all deliveries of heavy equipment today!! The good news is that we know we can rent equipment to do it outselves much cheaper and getting someone else to come in and do it for us!!!

Well, better get going and get something done before the day is gone!!

SNOW!!!!!

We woke up this morning to a covering of snow on the ground!!!! :o) It was a very welcome site! If the temperatures stay cold enough to keep the ground frozen enough for us to run the four wheeler out back, we will be able to start putting some miles on the teams! They are ready to run too!! Everyone is all keyed up and on a high that we see when we take the harnesses out to the pens!! It is just such a treat to know that they enjoy running so much! The yearlings really have no idea what they should be excited about, but they are excited anyway!

We went to the property today. Got the heater going in the bus when we first got there and then I cut up some logs that have been down since last year. Tom worked on getting some stumps cut down and the outhouse hole cleaned out (just dirt!) so we can get the actual outhouse on top... If wecan get it ready, we are going to take the dogs up this winter to run on the trails up there! It will be a new experience for many of the young dogs but it will do them good!! And there are a ton of new trails for us to explore up there. It will be lots of fun!!

I am in the middle of making rolls for our dinner tomorrow afternoon... have some friends coming over for a Prime Rib dinner!! Yummy!! I can't wait!

Well, better get moving and get some more housework done! Hope all is well...