Follow our quest for a more simple lifestyle living off grid in the remote north woods of Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, working with traditional sled dogs.
Winter began early this year and it ended late. What a super winter we had! Mud season lasted way too long and now we're on to spring!
On Saturday there was the appearance of a puzzle on the lake, with various sheets of thin ice floating further and further apart. It still seemed as though winter had a small hold on us. After a night of thunderstorms and winds, we awoke the next morning to a pool of beautiful blue water! All the ice had disappeared with the storms over night.
Now that the ice is gone, we can safely close the property gate and let the sled dogs out to free run on the entire property without fear of someone trying to head out on our lake trail, which consisted of until recently, dangerous ice.
The ice went out on Oake Lake almost two weeks later than it did last year! Onward to spring!
Phoenix lead us over the bridge at Forestville State Park
A water challenge!
Lilly decides that Sara is the one that can get her feet wet.
We've just added our 2011 Canicross Hike schedule to our website. Click here for details. Our group has had so much fun over the years and we're always looking for more adventurous human/dog teams to join us. If you'd like to give this a try, just bring yourself and your dog and we'll outfit you for the day. Your dog needs to have an adult weight of over 30lbs to participate and be relatively dog friendly and absolutely people friendly.
We hike. We don't run. You get to take advantage of your dog pulling you up the hills! And the best thing is; they are supposed to be pulling so praise them for something they probably do naturally in the first place. And yes, you can train a dog to pull and you can train a dog to heal and they will not be confused. They are two very different commands with different expectations. A dog pulls from the back of a harness and not from the collar. A dog heals when attached to a leash by the collar and not by the back of a harness.
Contact us for details or with any questions you may have. Try something new this year! Come out and hike with us!
Phoenix. Topa is peering out from below the hill. Funny shot!
Topa
Wimzi and Topa
Journey has a very solid build and looks shorter than she actually is. Her super dense coat hides the length of her legs.
Zodiak tries to intimidate White Feather and, of course, it works. White Feather quickly recovers from the oppression and runs around enticing him to chase her.
Noses in the same place with no issues! Big change for Zodiak.
You can't believe how completely unbelievable it is that I think we just might have a good kennel mate for Zodiak! Zodiak is a real sweet boy to humans (unless he's trying to push MY buttons) and he loves kids, however he seems to have issues with most dogs. He loves to play with them until they try to take something that is his or even go in the vicinity of something he thinks might be his. He is an intense resource guarder which makes him potentially dangerous around other dogs. He also has the Zulu line "edge" versus the mild mannered nature of the Hedlund Husky, of which he is half on paper, but obviously not half in the actual genetic distribution.
Wimzi is 3/4 Zulu line on paper and displays close to 100% of those traits. She is 1/4 Hedlund Husky. Wimzi has that darn stubborn edgy thing that is buried in the Zulu line that really tries my nerves at times. It's funny how this all evolved because Zulu is nothing like most of the dogs in our Zulu line. The foundation female, Jesse, in the Zulu line appears to have had the dominant genetics in that breeding because I see more of her in many of these dogs than I do Zulu. On the opposite end, the dogs in this line are excellent sled dogs with superb drive and intense focus so we've got to take the good with the annoying.
I had wondered if the two would get along and figured that they would because they were so much alike or they wouldn't because they were so much alike. But I had wanted to wait until Wimzi was old enough and large enough in size so as not to be injured during play. Turns out that Wimzi is very similar to Zodiak but much more submissive. This makes Zodiak happy. Wimzi also has the guts to egg him on and then has the smarts to back down when she knows she can't win and won't be getting from him what she's after. So far, it works! Good thing for Zodiak because otherwise, he'd have to live the life of a bachelor, just getting out to play with a couple other dogs but never living with them.
Kenzie meets his grandpuppies through the fence for the first time.
Lookin' good for 9 1/2 yrs!
Wahya makes her way up the dog yard hill. Look at the gorgeous gait!
Kenzie and Wahya's humans are on spring break so they are staying with us for a little over a week. They came to use nice and clean with really fuzzy tails; they were very well groomed. Sorry to say that they will be going back covered in mud! But boy are they having fun!
Illy is HUGE! There is a little layer of fat on her ribs. She's not chubby, just big!
Illy is a very sweet girl. She's a thinker and a bit vocal about things. She's got a lot to say!
The puppies visit with Aunt Journey at the fence. Journey is their mother Daisy's sister.
Aise (Eye Sha) still has an intense black mask.
The girls follow Sweet Pea, their adoptive mother, everywhere.
Ilo, Phoenix and Ari's pop, stands in line for the water bowl in the back ground. Illy has a very sturdy build with shorter legs than Aise. After watching Wimzi's legs shoot up almost over night at just over a year old, anything can happen.
Aise is a wild one! She's very curious and extremely people oriented.
Wahya runs through the layers of straw that were strewn all over the main dog yard to soak up the mud.
The dog yard in early spring
Rotten ice getting ready to give way
I went out the back door to retrieve Tuloon from her makeshift pen for the evening. I say "makeshift" pen because Neil recently installed it just prior to the time McKenzie and Wahya were to arrive for a week and a half stay so their humans could go on spring break. Topa appeared to be going into heat and we needed to make certain we had enough room if we did need to remove her from her small pack. This makeshift pen is not equip for mud season yet. Its base if black dirt and grass. Worse case scenario, we would have strewn a thick layer of straw as a base to keep Topa out of the mud for the short term. Since, however, Topa is not yet going into heat, the pen isn't really needed at the moment.
I had placed Tuloon in the pen for feeding and planned to retrieve her so she could spend the evening with us in the house. So she could be comfortable and out of the mud, I turned over a wooden shade fence that she could use as a "raft", placed a dog house and water bowl next to it so she wouldn't have to get her feet dirty getting to them. She doesn't like to do that. Or so I thought. So, as I was saying, I went out the back door to retrieve Tuloon from her makeshift kennel for the evening to find her perfectly clean except for her nose. It was covered in thick black oozing mud. Sorry, Tuloon, you're staying out tonight! She had apparently buried her bone in a corner of the pen and tried to cover it up with her nose.
I did remedy the mud issue in the main kennel yard for the time being. It took five bales of straw to help soak up the moisture. Now I'll have the job of removing those five bales of straw when it appears that the frost has completely surfaced. There is an end in sight!
The ice on the lake is rotten and menacing in appearance. Any day now, it will break up and the Canadian Geese, Sandhill Cranes and Trumpeter Swans that have been circling the area for over a week will have a place to fish. I saw the arrival of the first Red Winged Black Bird last week as well. That is a sure sign that spring is near!
April 9th
April 10th
