Minnesota Honey Producers

Bee yards are pin pointed on a map

The honey extraction begins in this room

Stainless steel tanks holding the extracted honey

I spent a lovely few days at the MHPA (Minnesota Honey Producers Association) yearly conference. It was the first of its type for me and I couldn't have asked for a group of more friendly and sincere people with which to spend some time. There were some excellent speakers that included an organic farmer/beekeeper from California named Randy Oliver who is heavily involved in honey bee education (educating people, that is) and is active in the political arena when it comes to saving our honey bees and other pollinators.

Did you know that some of the very best honey bee research is being done in Minnesota? Dr. Marla Spivak is heading this quest for honey bee knowledge and has been active in the MHPA for years.

This would be my first introduction to the association members as their new State Fair Booth Manager and I was warmly welcomed. I was asked to prepare a slide show presentation that told "my story" and of course, the sled dogs took up the majority of that talk. I mentioned how I am used to giving talks to this size a crowd but only with a sled dog by my side so if they happen to see me reach down to pet the air on occasion, they'll know what in the world I was doing. I don't have a very quick wit and often wonder how I will ever make it through long presentations but end up doing alright. It helps when you have a very forgiving audience, which I did! Writing is so much easier because you get to ponder.....

A visit to a commercial honey bee operation made the weekend complete. The Honls have nearly 5000 bee hives in too many locations to count. They are migratory beekeepers and move their bees out west to California for Almond pollination in the Minnesota winter months.

After a wonderful couple of days I was anxious to get back to the sled dogs and pick up the house dogs from the "resort" where they had been housed during my time away. Being very much an introvert, the fact that I had to be "on" for three days straight took a heavy toll on me and I couldn't wait to get home and take a nap but not after visiting with the dogs first.

After my nap, the skies appeared to be not as happy as they were earlier in the day. The weather radar and television broadcast indicated that there was a storm on the way. Little did I know what would soon come.

Canicross Hike; Minnewashta Regional Park

Wading in the water

Hailey with her "fav", Mr. Zodi

White Feather "hit the deck" when the dock began to rock.

Jasny with Mia

Waiting for Mia to jump off the dock

Weekend temps and humidity were awful and not conducive to a canicross hike of good length. We arrived at 8AM hoping to get a good hike in before the heat came. An hour long hike is all we could manage as the dogs were showing signs of being overheated. We spend just about as much time in the water as we did on the trail. The dogs loved the water! The people were pretty happy to be standing in it as well.

This was Jasney's first canicross hike! And she didn't even know she would be handling a dog all of her own until she stepped out of the truck. Surprise! She did a super job and caught on quickly.

Water Bucket Frog

Tuloon would never dream of drinking contaminated water

Our Froggie friend

A sunny day, lounging in the pool

Today will be the third time I have "saved" this little guy from what I thought continued to be a bad decision on his part. Making your way into a sled dog's water bucket can often mean a swift death. Froggie knew who he was dealing with. There was no way that Miss Tuloon would even consider drinking from a water bucket with a slimy green thing floating inside much less would she even contemplate placing said slimy green thing in her mouth!

Tuloon's water was up next for changing and since our froggie friend appeared to be safe and enjoying his swim I would leave him there until I changed the water. Until then, I placed Topa in with Tuloon for a moment while I swapped some other dog play groups around. Remembering about Mr. Frog and how I had just placed an unknown factor upon him(Topa), I quickly walked toward the kennel and was taken aback when I saw Topa, ever-so-gently, scoop him up in her mouth and place him on the ground. No blood, no gore. Just an intact frog with a sled dog standing over him, looking down and puzzling at its means of getting from place to place. Topa cocked her head from side to side and watched as he hopped under the dog house. She then walked over and took a drink from the frogless water bucket.

Moment of Reflection

Photo by Hailey
Me and Klaus

Life here on Oake Lake has been so unbelievably busy for far too long. There are very few times when I actually get a chance to sit and reflect. I just had one of those chances! All of this hard work will pay off when Points Unknown moves to where our heart and soul belongs; in the northwoods.

Believe it or not, while growing up in a U.S. Forest Service family, I recall resenting that we lived in the woods in the Appalachian Mountains for a period of time, away from just about everything and "in the middle of nowhere". Maybe it was because there was no snow. I remember being completely disgusted that we were cutting a Christmas tree down in the woods of all places! I just stood by the car and checked my hair in the mirror. Clearing a portion of the Ice Age Trail with the YCC (a division of the Forest Service) one summer was horrific as I recall picking 36 ticks off myself on the drive back to the base, complaining the entire way. When we moved to Upper Michigan and Wisconsin it was "What?! I've got to walk to the bus stop in all of this cold and snow?" You've got to be kidding me.

Alright, so I wasn't the easiest kid. I was(and still am) fiercely independent. I rebelled against everything my parents stood for at the time, like many kids, and one big thing just happened to be the great outdoors! Instead, I spent hours upon hours practicing my trumpet from about grade 6 onward, losing myself in the music. This progressed to a college music scholarship to study Classical Trumpet performance. And where is that trumpet now? It has been sitting on its stand being moved from room to room in hopes of getting my attention to begin playing again. Oh, I have tried a few times. Most of those attempts were in the dog yard. It wasn't pretty. You just can't "pick up" a trumpet and play. It takes a lot of conditioning of the lip muscles. Ask the dogs.

So what happened?! I've discovered that those core values that are ingrained upon you as a child do come back around. Then you get to choose what to do with them. If it's something you'd like to discard to make a better path for yourself, then it's your choice. But if it is something that makes your heart sing, sticks with you and feels apart of you then you explore it and see where it takes you!

Now 41,(Did I really write that?) I was able to reclaim my passion for the outdoors and discover a passion for working dogs in my early 20s. That passion for the outdoors was always there, I just hid it well. As a child, I spent hours carving necklace pieces from southern shale in the Appalachian Mountains in our front yard and in the "middle of nowhere". Swimming lessons at YCC camp in the lake, snapping turtle stew, beaver and bear sloppy joes, catching fireflies and bumble bees in jars, making sand candles on the shores of Lake Michigan with my mom, tromping through the woods on a regular basis, canoeing, fishing, hunting (once), starting my own little campfires at age 5 in the nearby woods (oops), camping in leaky tents; all of these things and more are apart of me and have brought me to where I am now. Where I am now is making plans to move up to the "middle of nowhere" with a bunch of sled dogs. Life has come full circle. Life is good.

This is what it is all about; what this blog is all about. "The quest for a more simple life; working with traditional sled dogs".

Kennel Tour

The entrance to the dog yard with our Clematis in full bloom.

Picket fence serving as a bowl drier.

Four kennels are "lakefront"

Route up the hill to either the "dog yard" play yard or the "back yard" play yard.

Double gated entry into the back yard for the safety of our little house dogs.

The "dog yard" play yard is all uphill so a lot of exercise can be had by the dogs as they chase each other around.

Interior kennel with another behind it.

We've been pretty happy about our kennel set up and will try to come up with a similar and more improved version once Points Unknown moves to what has been our winter home in the past, for good. At the moment, there are eight, 6' high kennels which will be expanded to nine, 10' high kennels up north. We have two very large fenced-in play areas currently with only a 4' fence around them. Our new home will have three even larger play areas with 10' fence around them as the snow gets much deeper and there are more concerns about predators.

A big concern for us is that the mosquitoes and black flies are outrageously thick during a couple months of the year so we will have indoor/outdoor kennels so the dogs can escape the bugs. The doorways to the interior portion of the kennel will be swinging metal, heavy duty, dog doors so that the little buggers don't just follow them inside. Of course, this indoor kennel will need to be well ventilated if the temperatures increase outside. More details in the works!

Our plans are coming along nicely and we feel lucky to be able to provide our dogs with such luxury, even if it means that the home for the humans becomes smaller and less luxurious.

Product Testing

Miracle Coat "No Fly Zone"

Springtime "Bug Off Garlic"

We're testing a couple new products in the kennel as alternatives to using chemicals.

Miracle Coat "No Fly Zone" is an herbal insect repellent that we have been applying to the dogs' ears to deter flies as these nasty creatures like to snack on the tips of ears and can leave them raw if not tended to properly. So far so good. It seems to work well, however it does need to be applied every couple of days and the dogs have become concerned about the spray bottle pointed at their head. We've begun following the "squirt, squirt" with a treat and this seems to make it tolerable for them.

Springtime "Bug Off Garlic" was recommended to us by Amanda whose kennel we recently visited. Once in the system, it is supposed to repel flies, ticks, mosquitoes and fleas. When the package arrived, I could smell it coming in the arms of the UPS driver! THAT is how strong it is. We purchased the Equine version because it was a better deal for the amount of dogs we have. We've been using it for almost two weeks and it takes between two to four weeks for the garlic to penetrate the dogs' tissue so we haven't seem much difference at this early stage. At first, some dogs loved it and others despised it. We give 1tsp per day and it is sprinkled over their food. Now that there was been a pattern of one meal a day with garlic, the dogs are more accepting of it but do eat quite a lot slower so it may also be a good deterrent for stomach bloat! (Dogs that inhale their food can develop a condition called stomach bloat where there is too much air and/or expanded food in the dog's stomach than it can handle and gas within the stomach is created. It is a very uncomfortable and potentially deadly condition.) The verdict is still out on this product but if it doesn't work out, we've got an awful lot of garlic we'll just add to our own diets!

Couple's Winter Adventure on Website!

Sandy and Corey take turns running the sled dogs

The 2011 Points Unknown Family Winter Adventure that will be taking place at Boyd's Mason Lake Resort near Hayward, Wisconsin has been posted on our website!

Please click here for more details!