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.
Sure, let's add just one more thing to our plates this year! Why not?
Up until now we have been renting out our small orchard of 127 apple trees and 15 pear trees. We decided that this year, we will work the orchard ourselves. Believe it or not, March is the time to prune fruit trees in our area. We began pruning today and really could have used snowshoes to do it! Sadly, we've found that we've had a little bit of rabbit damage. They love the tasty bark and can just reach the lowest branches when the snow depth rises. We pruned 18 trees in an hour. Not too bad. Now we've got 124 trees to go and about another 7 hours of pruning.
If I take it easy, this can act as therapy for my shoulder injury that was re injured a couple days ago when the dogs pulled the hook and the sled lunged forward before the quick release caught. Well, not a problem unless I was gripping the sled with my right hand when they pulled it causing my arm and shoulder to pull before my grip released. And I was.
Oh, well. It was a beautiful afternoon to spend some time out in the orchard. If you're local, keep us in mind this fall if you're interested in some MN Grown Apples and Pears! For apples we've got Sweet 16, Witos (Russian Apple), Zestar, Victory, Sugar King and YES(!) we have Honey Crisp. Our pear trees are Patent, Gourmet and Lucious. You'll never find anything as good as these pears in the stores. They just melt in your mouth!
Cheryl with our beautiful northwoods hide-a-way as the back drop.
Sandy with Aise
Two of the participants from our recent women's adventure sent us the following links to the photos they took and we wanted to share them with all of you.
The City of Lakes Loppet was last month. It was the Skijoring Loppet National Championship and Rich, McKenzie and Wahya took part in it for the very first time. Our very own Hailey and Chris where his handlers for the event. They did a great job and most of all, had fun!
McKenzie retired from our kennel this past year and joined Wahya in a placement with Rich and his family. McKenzie is a deep Hedlund line Alaskan Husky and is the father to our Journey, White Feather and Topa and the grandfather to Aise and Illy. Wahya is a Tuloon/Bazil 2007 puppy so is half Hedlund and half Points Unknown Zulu line Alaskan Husky. She is the sister to our Oken, Zodiak and Zala and niece to Klaus and Sweet Pea.
Here is what Rich had to say about the event in an email sent shortly after the race:
“Hi Team M&W,
We had a good day today. Wahya got the call for the race. (McKenzie cried for hours, got lots of attention, walks and in the house time.)
There are some photos and a video in which Chris and Hailey are prominently featured prior to the start (first 20 seconds).
Saturday was totally nuts, as you can see from the start. The dogs ran too hard too fast for the first lap and ran out of gas at about 5-6k.They stopped to catch their breath, have a bite of snow and then continued.Considering the rest stop, we had a respectable finish of18m 25s.
Sunday, was the 14k, but up and down the hills at Theodore Wirth Park.The distance would have been no big deal, but we have not been trainingon steep hills. Wahya was super calm at the start.Everyone was so impressed with her nice manners compared to the examples around her.When the count down came, she took off like a shot.We caught three teams in the first 2k, they started as much as 3 minutes ahead of us.Then we settled down to a more sustainable pace. We made a few friends on the course and ran with them awhile, until we got to hills and they would fall behind. We continued to pass other teams.Amazingly no one ever passed us and stayed ahead of us to the finish. We ended up 12th for the day, but that was good enough to put us in 7th for the overall championship and 5th for the men.
Great job everyone!
Wahya's behavior surprised me the most today.She did not run especially well for her, but she socialized well with everyone.Here I mean dogs. Of course she was photographed by everyone and got lots of attention and even hugs from strangers.During the race and especially after the race she was tired, but interested in meeting all the other dogs. She did terrific, not snapping or any unexpected responses. She went with me into the lodge for the awards, sat and lay down on command. She was a great companion.
It was a really fun day.
-Rich”
Skijoring Loppet - National Championship
Minneapolis, MN 02/06/11
Place Name Age S Time Time2 Combine ===== =================== === = ======= ======= ======= 1 John Thompson M 38:39 13:03 51:42 2 Kate Tesch F 41:37 13:06 54:43 3 Rebecca Voris F 43:11 13:05 56:16 4 Brad Moening M 46:15 15:27 1:01:42 5 Kyle Gill M 48:04 16:09 1:04:13 6 Benjamin Menk M 52:40 17:35 1:10:15 7 Rich Baker M 57:05 18:25 1:15:30
Zala, a half Hedlund Husky/half Zulu line leaps into the air as White Feather, a deep line Hedlund tries to keep her self calm. They can't wait to go!
Although we train our dogs to remain calm at hook up, some of them, like Wimzi, a quarter Hedlund line Husky/three quarters Zulu line, can't contain their excitement. She is another of our jumping bean dogs.
The Klaus/Oken team rounds the bend. These dogs PULL! From back left to right: Ari, deep line Hedlund, Journey, half Hedlund/half Alaskan Bush Trapline dog, Wimzi, a quarter Hedlund/three quarters Points Unknown Zulu line, Topa, deep line Hedlund, Oken, half Hedlund/half Zulu line, Klaus, deep Zulu line.
Klaus has an extremely efficient "pace" that he uses to conserve energy. Look at that stride!
Zodiak, a half Hedlund/half Zulu line Alaskan Husky, got the nickname "Mr. Professional" this winter when Rebecca, our greatly missed handler from the UK, commented how well he seems to do his job.
The Phoenix/Tuloon team round the bend. Phoenix and Tuloon are both deep line Hedlund Huskies. Ilo peaks out from behind. He is also a deep Hedlund line Alaskan.
Joel ran his second team of the season with guests. He makes this corner perfectly! Left to right: Wimzi, Topa and Journey.
Phoenix and Tuloon with White Feather and Zodiak behind. Sweet Pea peaks out from wheel position. She is Klaus' sister and is a deep Zulu line Alaskan Husky.
Neil, the musher.
Zala and White Feather in point position with Tuloon to the front and Sweet Pea to the rear.
Neil takes Hannah and Sam out on an adventure. Ilo and Sweet Pea are in wheel position.
Phoenix and Tuloon with Zala peaking out from behind
Ilo and Sweet Pea
Rounding another bend. From left to right; Ari, Wimzi, Oken, Topa peaking behind Oken and Klaus.
Journey!
White Feather and Zala in sync
Ilo and Sweet Pea
Perfect action shot of Joel with Debbie in the sled
This photo was taken from the BOW website and includes our campsite right next to our outdoor classroom.
Each participant in our dog mushing course for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Becoming an Outdoors Woman course is invited to fill out an evaluation after taking our course. We were so happy to see the majority of "5s" out of 5 with the only "4s" being checked when participants indicated a desire to have had the course last longer so they could spend more time with the dogs!
Linda Bylander, the Director of the MN BOW program said the following of our course:
"Linda is an excellent instructor for beginning women! She is passionate about dog mushing, and educating women! Her love for her dogs shows and is so important given these women want to see compassion for animals.
All the assistants were exceptional as well; caring, courteous and willing to do whatever is needed to make sure everyone is safe. Thanks! :o)"
If you recall from a much older post, White Feather had what we believe to be vaccine related head tremors after her first puppy shot at 8 weeks old. Thanks to Swanny, a member of our Hedlund Husky Preservation group and his partner Janece, an animal behaviorist, we were able to get her through those head tremors with a regime of natural supplements. White Feather is now 19 months old and we haven't seen a head tremor since.
Can you imagine our shock when a week after giving Illy and Aise their second puppy shot, Illy began to have head tremors! Since I thought (hoped) we would never see them again, I didn't keep the supplement dosage information and contacted Swanny again. Since White Feather's issue, there has apparently been some more research completed and a new supplement lends itself even better for this type of issue. We had been giving White Feather up to 500mg of Ester C once per day and 9mg of Melatonin three times per day. Ester C boosts the immune system and the Melatonin works with serotonin production in the brain to help calm it. The new supplement that is now taking the place of Melatonin in Illy's regime is 5-HTP which is the same natural drug found in Turkey. You know how you want to curl up on the couch and nap after a big Thanksgiving meal? It's the tryptophan in the Turkey that does that and 5-HTP is essentially the same thing. 5-HTP is more concentrated than Melatonin and works more quickly to ease the after affects.
Illy will be on 500mg of Ester C and 100mg of 5-HTP per day for the next month.
We've done an awful lot of puzzling over why this could have happened twice in our kennel and have come up with some similarities that are worth considering in the future. In addition to the fact that primitive lines of dogs seem to be more affected by head tremors after receiving a distemper shot, stress around the time of the shot seems to play a role. White Feather and Illy are related. White Feather's brother Tumac is Illy's father. We first noted head tremors in White Feather a week after the shot and at a puppy class where she was noticeably stressed.
We first noticed head tremors in Illy a week after the shot at a women's event when she was introduced to the drop lines and spent time with the big dogs. A drop line is a long cable with individual drop lines that are connected to the collar ring of each dog. That long cable is then connected on both ends to something sturdy such as a tree, a post or an ice screw. The big dogs camp out on these lines when we are away from home. Illy was noticeably stressed that weekend. Aise was stressed as well so why is Aise not displaying the same side affects? Topa, White Feather's sister, was also at the same puppy class that White Feather attended when we first noticed her head tremors so why did Topa not have them? Aise and Topa likely were just dealt a different set of genetic "cards" not as sensitive to the distemper shot.
As we have discovered over the years, vet medicine (or just plain human medicine for that matter) is not an exact science. There are so many pieces of the puzzle that it will likely never be just plain black and white. All we can do it our best with the information we have when we try to uncover the reasons and the treatments. Thank goodness for the help of others around us (Swanny and Janece) who know more about this than we do!
Illy has been on the supplements for over a week and did have a very low key weekend at our women's event last weekend. She remained in the cabin with the little house dogs when Aise went in to socialize at the main lodge but did get to meet nine visitors at a time while she and Aise hung out in their pen at our courses during the day. We specifically did not want her on a drop line this weekend considering the stress it caused her last weekend and she seemed to enjoy the pen and the visitors. The head tremors do appear less frequent at the moment.
Donna has been a BOW instructor for years after first taking one workshop as a participant. She decided this year to participate instead of instruct and one of the workshops she chose was dog mushing!
Joel ran his first team with a guest in the sled for us over the weekend. And this wasn't just any guest but the director of the BOW program! This shows how highly we think of him and his abilities with our dogs.
Neil is an integral part of our program and uses the snowmobile to assist our new mushers out on the trail.
Illy and Aise pose for the camera. They stayed in this small pen during the program and spent the evenings and over night in the cabin with us.
The dogs wait in line for attention
Klaus likes to get up close and personal with our guests
What a funny sight! After we had taken the puppies in for the evening, we realized we forgot to shut the door of their pen and saw that Tuloon had gone inside to rest on their straw beds.
Had we a video of this I'm certain we could have won a prize on America's Funniest Home Videos. The puppies played intensely for quite some time around and on top of Blueberry. He ignored it all and continued eating his Nylabone.
Copper and Blueberry find my cot the best place to sleep in our cabin.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a woman's program called BOW or Becoming an Outdoors Woman. Points Unknown has been a part of the organization for six years now, volunteering our services and that of our dogs to teach women how to dog mush. This past weekend was the annual winter event held at the Audubon Center of the Northwoods, an Environmental Learning Center in Sandstone, MN. Points Unknown had a packed house with three courses, three hours in length and nine woman in each course!
BOW also has other seasonal annual events as well as numerous miscellaneous courses throughout the year that are so worth while so please do follow the link above and check out what they have to offer!
Neil learns to prune his first apple tree
Eighteen down and 124 more to go!
