March 29-
Well, here it is, the
final entry for March 2009. In way's the month has flown by and in others it
seems like it was a long time ago that it began. Seems hard to believe that
it has only been 3 weeks and one day that we added Huck and Millie to our
family. They continue to bond with Nora and I and become more and more of an
integral part of our lives. In fact, if it were not for them, I would have
very little to write about this week. The weather really did not provide
much in the way of excitement. We dodged a lot of the rain early in the
week. We actually picked up about a quarter of an inch of ice Monday night
and then on Tuesday had some drizzle, but as far as rain goes, I think we
did not even have anything that could be considered rain. We had about two
inches of snow loss due to the above freezing temps Tuesday, but then by
Wednesday, temps started to cool and were below freezing from Wednesday
evening on. We did pick up about an inch of new snow on Thursday
night/Friday and another inch or so on Friday night/Saturday morning. It
melted off where there was bare pavement, but has stuck around on the snow.
We still have around 2 feet of snow on the ground in our woods and the
snowmobile trails from Mohawk north are still snow covered. You will likely
encounter the small bald spot on a hill or corner, but there is still
anywhere from 5-10" of base out there and I suppose some spots might
still have more. Of course all the roads are bare, so getting to and from
the towns is going to be a pain, but anyone wanting to ride still could.
Just know it is spring conditions and until we warm up, the snow is rock
hard.
It looks like we will get some fresh snow this Tue/Wed,
but just how much is a little up for grabs. The models are all differing on
their opinion right now. Some say not that much (a few inches at best) and
others say double digit accumulations could be seen. Right now I would
either like to see double digit accumulations occur, or nothing. I am kind
of ready for the snow to go and if we are not going to get enough to make it
worth the effort to move and deal with as it melts, then we may as well not
get any at all. The temps look to be cold enough this week that little in
the way of snow loss will occur, so for those of you hard core spring riders
coming up for one last weekend of riding, looks like you should be OK in
this neck of the woods. I am up in the air as to if I will be heading out
for any more rides. Obviously if we get some decent fresh snow, that will
sweeten the deal and I might just head out.
So I have not been out on my sled since last weekend and
other than tending to Huck and Millie, about the only other things I have
been doing are my regular work duties, some things for the adoption agency
in TX, a speaking engagement at Hancock High School and getting a new
computer setup. The machine that I used as my main PC for work and this
website was really starting to act weird and was starting to make life
difficult for me. I am not sure if it is a virus or just some bad memory
that is the problem. I am hoping it is just some bad memory and all I need
to do is swap out some ram. I am still using the machine as a backup, but
have moved all of my regular work duties to the new machine. It sure is nice
to have the new machine! I had it custom built by a computer guy up this
way. He has actually built three machines for me and all three work well and
were setup just the way I wanted them. It is amazing how much stuff I had on
the old PC. About 7 years of adding programs and files to it. Plus the
entire website was on it. That is probably close to 50,000 files of one type
or another, maybe more with all the images. In any case, it was a ton of
work to get the new machine up to speed, but it is there now and it is nice
to be running with a fresh set of legs. Hopefully this machine will last me
another 5-7 years!
I guess the rest of this entry is the Huck and Millie
show. They continue to amaze and entertain Nora and I. They are growing up
in more ways than one. Millie is fully house broken. She has not messed the
house in over a week now and if she needs to go out will go to the door and
let us know. Huck is a different story. He has his streaks where he will not
mess the house for a few days and then like yesterday, he will go pee twice
inside. Even after just coming in from the outside. We scold him when he
goes inside and praise the heck out of him when he goes outside, so it will
just be a matter of time before he is fully house broken.
We have been working on keeping them close to us. My
biggest worry right now is that they can run right across the snow like it
is solid ground and the road is not that far from the cabin. They can run
very quickly and I would imagine that at an all out sprint could make it
from the cabin to the road in under 20 seconds. We also will be spending
lots of time in the woods and I do not want to have to have them on a leash,
but there are times when they need to be called back to us, so having them
stop their current direction and turn around and come on command is very
important. I'd say Huck is about 95% of the way there with that and Millie
has the stop feature down, but does not always turn right around and come
when asked. We have made huge strides with them on this in the past few days
though and if the current trend continues, then by next week at this time,
they will have it down. Other than that, the only other things we are asking
them to learn right now is to not chew on things that they are not suppose
to (which includes humans) and they are getting pretty good at that.
Really, for only being 10 weeks old, they are pretty well behaved. In fact,
I have seen dogs that were years old that were not as well behaved. The neat
thing about a lab is they really seem to want to learn things and they
especially want to please you. So our main method of scolding them is to be
disappointed in them. They hate that and want to please so we are very quick
to praise them when they do something good. I did the same thing with Burt
and Baileys and never once struck them and they were very well behaved.
Nora and I are excited for the snow to melt and the lakes
to open up so we can take them swimming. I have a feeling the water is going
to be a very strange thing for them at first, but once they see how much fun
it is, we will not be able to keep them out of it. As mentioned, the snow is
very hard right now and we all can go anywhere we want on it, walking across
it like it is solid ground. Starting Thursday I took them into the woods and
needed snow shoes to stay on top of the snow, but then by Friday could just
walk across the snow like them. Nora joined us on Friday and then we all
took a walk in our woods yesterday and today. The pups just LOVE to get out
into the woods and explore. One spot that they seem particularly interested
in is an old white pine that has taken it on the chin from a woodpecker.
There is a bunch of wood chips at the base of the tree and the dogs spend
quite a bit of time smelling
things there. The woodpecker has really torn into the tree. It is still
alive, but probably not for long as there are several
holes dug into it that go pretty much into the center of the tree.
It's neat to see the dogs be so adventuresome in their
explorations too. Not that Burt and Baileys were chickens, but it seems like
Huck and Millie are not afraid to go anywhere and are quite
capable of getting there too. It's not just the smells that will grab
the puppies attentions, but the sounds too. Here is Millie
listening to something. The other thing that the dogs have started to do
is to play chase with each other. Sometimes they chase is just a few seconds
long and other times it will go on for a full 60 seconds. That does not
sound too long, but keep in mind they are going full speed ahead and having
to dart in and around the trees and other obstacles in the woods. A still
photo of one of the chases just does not do it justice, so I took a
video of one of their shorter chases.
This next shot was taken to show how much snow is still
on the ground up here, but unfortunately it did not give the representation
I wanted. At any rate, it is also one of the puppies favorite things to do
and that is to climb
down into things and explore. By the way, the snow there was over two
feet deep.
As mentioned, the snow right now is rock hard. Even though it
is at least two feet deep and in spots I rode with Skylar last week, three
feet deep, I can currently walk
across it like it is bare ground. That is kind of cool because Nora, the
dogs and I have been walking all around our woods. The way things are right
now, there really is not anywhere we cannot go. Even the areas that are a
twisted mess of blown down trees and thickets are passable via foot due to
the snow covering everything. I have wanted to blaze a trail from the cabin
to a trail to be able to take the snowmobile and ATV down without having to
go down the road at all and have used the current conditions to be able to
blaze that trail. I will have to see what things look like when the snow is
gone to see if it is a doable route, but at least I have it marked and can
go from there. Since my shot of the dogs in the snow cave did not really
show how much snow is still down in our neck of the woods, I did take a shot
of a path that I keep clear that goes into the woods a
bit. The burn barrel
is the standard 3 foot one and is sitting on top of 10" blocks. I
measured 28" there.
So I think that about covers it for now. Hard to tell what the
week ahead will bring, but I will try my best to capture it with the camera
and share it all with you.
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD-
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March 22-
Some days I really
struggle with items for the journal and then there are days like today when
I hope I have the energy to get through all I have to talk about. I have
three main subjects to talk about and probably some other sub topics will
sneak in. I also have over 40 pictures to share with you, so maybe I can let
them do a lot of the talking.
My first main topic for the day is the Clean Snowmobile
Challenge (CSC) that is hosted every year by Michigan Tech and sponsored
largely by SAE International. This years event was the 10th annual event.
The event started out in Jackson Hole/West Yellowstone and then in 2003 was
moved to the MI Tech Keweenaw Research Center up at the Houghton County
Airport. Around 5 or 6 years ago I went to the event on one of the days (it
is a multi-day event) and found it interesting, but they were busy with some
performance testing and I really did not get a chance to look at the sleds
up close and what I did see was kind of weird. Many of the sleds looked more
like a piece of space junk than a snowmobile. Other than the track, skis,
handlebar and windshield, the sleds had all sorts of tubes, pipes or other
contraptions sticking out of them and while I realized that these were all
experimental machines, it was hard to picture them being used in any manner
for a production sled.
So I was interested to see what this year would be like
and was amazed at how far things have come in the 5 to 6 years I have been
absent from the event. All of the sleds look like regular snowmobiles from
the outside, yet they all have some very high tech things under the hoods
and some of them have some high tech things under the seats. I went to the
event on Monday, which turned out to be a good day to go. All of the teams
were there and performing last
minute setups for the technical
inspections. There are two categories for the competition, the sleds
that run off of internal combustion (IC) and the sleds that run off of
electrical power and are zero emission (ZE) sleds.
Not to downplay the hard work
that the teams with the IC sleds have done or to make light of the huge
strides that have been made in the IC sled arena, but I was actually most
interested in the ZE sleds. I am sure that there are those that will argue
this, but I feel that the ZE sleds are really the way of the future. It may
be a decade or two before they are available to the general consumer, but I
know that they are very close to being applicable to the research community
for use in areas like Antarctica and Greenland, where they want to try and
keep conditions as undisturbed as possible for their studies. Personally, I
would not be surprised to see ZE sleds available to the consumer in under a
decade. Maybe I am just dreaming here, but technology moves so fast (someone
would have laughed their head off had you told them 10 years ago that cell
phones of today would have 1000's of times more computing and storage
capacity than the highest end personal computer of that day) that I believe
current estimates for progress are almost always outdone by reality. I guess
we'll see. Another reason why I am excited about the ZE sleds is the
performance that they will be able to achieve. Electric race cars and race
bikes are already blowing the doors off of IC cars and bikes and to have a
sled that has all that torque right out of the box, through the whole power
band and needs no gas or oil, plus to have that power available to you no
matter what elevation or weather conditions you are in and to never have to
worry about the engine blowing up, well, that sounds pretty awesome to
me!
There were several ZE sleds in this years CSC and it
seemed like each team with a ZE sled was looking for different performance
traits from their sleds. Some were setup with speed in mind, while others
with endurance and others with a blend of the two. Here is a picture of the
ZE sled from Clarkston University in Potsdam, NY. You really can see the
time that was put into the design of this sled to not only make it work, but
make it look good. You drop the hood and you would never know you were
looking at a sled that ran on electric power and produced zero emissions.
Even the power supply for these sleds is cutting edge. Clarkston uses
special lithium
ion-polymer battery packs. Here is a shot of the
new power packs compared to the old. I cannot remember the difference in
power, but know that not only are the new packs smaller and lighter, but
produce more power.
Speaking of power, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
had both a ZE and IC sled in the challenge. Their
ZE sled makes 100 hp and has a top speed of 75mph, which they were
hoping to get even more out of. The sled is more setup for speed and has a
run time of around 20 miles right now, but it will recharge in around 60-90
minutes depending on the available power to recharge it. Plus I was
surprised to find out that the ZE sleds are not way heavier than an
IC sled and come in around 650-690. Still heavy, but not way heavier!
Most of the ZE sleds were direct drive, meaning they had
no "transmission" in the form of a primary and secondary clutch
like a typical snowmobile would have. Although the team from McGill
University in Montreal Canada had a
ZE sled that still used clutches in it's drivetrain. As mentioned, all
the sleds, including the electric ones, looked like regular sleds when the
hood was closed. Some of them fancier than others. Here is the ZE sled from
the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology with it's hood
up and with it's hood
down.
The main limiting factor with the ZE sleds is the battery
performance. That is improving with technology such as lithium ion. I can
remember my first cordless drill would take 12 hours to charge and then go
dead trying to turn in more than 10 screws. Today my cordless drill will
recharge in about 60 minutes and sink 100's or screws. We still have a ways
to go before the batteries will be able to power the sleds for what a
consumer is looking for, but like I say, I have no doubt that day will come.
In the mean time, the teams do have to come up with some inventive ways to
store all the batteries needed to power the sleds. Here is one
shot of the battery packs and here is another
bank of batteries. That second one was the U of WI-Madison and contained
128 28 volt Milwaukee Tool Li Ion battery modules. Someday rather than
having the cc displayed on the side of the sled, you will have the voltage!
As mentioned, the CSC was not all about ZE sleds, in fact
there were 5 ZE sleds and 11 IC sleds, so the majority of the competition is
still with the internal combustion sleds. Most of the sleds in the IC
competition start out with a production 4 stroke and go from there. The
University of WI-Madison's entry was based on the Polaris
FST platform. Others were also based on the four stroke turbo
technology, while others like the
sled from U of WI - Platteville utilized a 2004 Rotax 600 SDI,
two-stroke engine. All of the IC sleds employed a catalytic
converter to improve emissions, but that was not all. This years spin on
the IC competition was that the sled had to run on flex fuels (bio fuel
combinations). The teams did not know what the percentage the bio fuel would
be, but the range would be from E10 to E85 (10-85% ethanol) and the sled had
to be able to recognize what the blend was and automatically adjust it's
fuel management to perform with what ever the blend was.
Not only did most of the IC sleds have to be able to
recognize and run on an undetermined flex fuel mixture and have lower
emissions than a base stock sled, but they all generally perform better than
the base sled as well. Most have work done to them to lower weight as well.
I'm not 100% sure which
sled this was, but I believe it is the one from the University of
Waterloo in Waterloo Canada and is a Yamaha 4 stroke sitting in a MX-Z
chassis, with a turbo charger.
The hometown
entry from Michigan Tech was based on a Polaris FST. One of the
interesting things they did was to turn the heads around and have the intake
in the front and exhaust in the rear. That allowed them to redesign the
exhaust system on the sled. The MI Tech sled also had some custom parts like
lightweight A-Arms. My last series of shots is of the sled from ETS. It's a
French-Canadian team from Quebec and I did not interview them, but did take
some shot of their custom paint job. Here is the right
side panel, the left
side panel and the front
of the sled.
As mentioned, I was really impressed by not only what these
sleds can do, but also their looks. There is some very important technology
coming from these events. I got the chance to talk to Jay Meldrum who is the
Master Scorekeeper and the one who is sort of the main organizer of the
event for the KRC and he said that the ground breaking direct injection
technology used in the 2009 Ski Doos was a result of technology born at the
CSC. The DI idea was not born at the event, but the team from the University
of Idaho were the first to make it work on a snowmobile and Ski Doo was so
impressed by what they saw, they utilized it in their production sleds and
several members of the Idaho CSC team that worked on that sled are now
working for Bombardier. So it's gone from a gathering of some students and
their experimental contraptions to a competition of high tech, ground
breaking, technological wonders and I hope I keep getting invited back,
because I sure want to keep up with things to see all the latest ideas to
improve our activity/sport. My thanks to Jay for inviting me up to see
things this year.
The second topic tonight is the latest episode of the
Huck and Millie show. They sure are a couple of great pups. They are pretty
much fully housebroken. Neither has had an incident in the past 2 days and
Millie is incident free for the past 3-4 days. In fact I believe that in the
past 10 days or so, she has only messed the house once or twice. I am not
expecting them to be incident free from here on out, but it is nice to know
that they are very close to the point where we will never have to worry
about them messing the house again. Some other milestones for them is to
fully understand what "no" means. They may not always heed that
request, but they understand what it means and do stop whatever they are
doing about 85% of the time with one saying of the word.
One of the other things I have noticed with them in the past
3-4 days or so is their bonding with us. When we first brought them home,
they would play with us and had a certain level of attachment to us, but for
the most part, Nora and I were just another vehicle to have fun with. In the
past several days I have really noticed them growing more and more attached
to us and making us a big part of their world. I feel like we are now
considered a critical part of their life and it just feels like we are one
big family now. Or in their eyes, one big pack.
For the most part, they still have just two speeds- off
and full speed.
Although in the past day or two I have started to see some middle ground.
They have had a few moments where they were content to just sit and take it
all in. They have been having lots of fun exploring the property. The snow
piles are shrinking, but some of them are still very large and they seem to
really like to climb
on top of them. They are getting bigger, but are still small enough to
be able to climb into some pretty small spaces. On Tuesday, they were
particularly rambunctious and found their way underneath the wood pile. Not
the pile of wood that was cut and stacked for us to burn, but the pile of
wood that consists of logs still 8 feet long and anywhere from 8-24" in
diameter. They climbed way inside, finding a spot where the logs did not
come together very closely. I actually got worried and started calling them.
Within about 10 seconds Millie appeared, army crawling out from inside the
pile. I kept calling Huck and could hear him rustling inside the pile and
then even heard him whine. It was at that point that panic set in. I was
worried that in his rush to get out, he took a different way and was now
stuck. There really would be no way to safely get down to him. We could have
brought a logging truck in and lifted the pieces off with the clam shell,
but if the pile shifted even slightly, it could crush him. After what seemed
like hours, but was really only about 20 seconds, he appeared out of the
pile, army crawling on all four to freedom. Needless to say, they do not get
to go down into the pile anymore!
One of the more harmless confined places that they like
to play is inside the
stairs to the deck. In fact, Millie will climb all the way underneath
the deck and romp around. Poor Huck is a little bigger and does not fit as
well, so he will climb up onto the deck and try and follow
her around from up there. It's really a funny sight to see. They are
getting around better and better and are getting very coordinated. It seems
there are very few places that they cannot go and are even good at scaling
vertical faces of snow. They are also discovering that their snouts are
a pretty good tool for discovery. They have picked up on the scents of
animals that roam the woods near our house and here they are sniffing
out a squirrel's tracks. I am also proud to report that we have two
Labrador Retrievers that actually retrieve! To be fair, Burt would retrieve
a stick thrown into the water all day, but other than that, neither Burt or
Baileys was much interested in playing fetch. The instinct to fetch is alive
and well in Millie
and Huck. I think it is so cool how that is just in their blood and does not
need to be taught. I just tossed the ball and both will run out, pick it up
and bring it back. They do not seem to have a strong fixation to fetch,
which I am fine with. I have known some dogs (mainly labs) that once you get
them started fetching, they will not let you stop. I hope to not have dogs
like that. A game of fetch is fun a marathon- not so much.
On Wednesday evening, Nora and I headed down to the
Keweenaw County Courthouse in Eagle River and took the puppies with us. I
figured we could take them for a walk down that way and Nora said we should
take them over to see the deer
herd. It's quite the herd they have down there this year. I have never
seen so many deer in that spot since I moved here. I would guess that there
are at least 100 yarded up and maybe more. Huck and Millie took a keen
interest in the deer and were content to watch them move around for at least
10 minutes. The deer seem to be fairly used to automobile traffic and we
were able to get nearly eye
to eye with one. We did take the puppies for a walk and ended up near
the beach. The wind was blowing pretty good, so we did not linger in the
exposed area of the beach front too long, but I did snap a shot of the still
ice covered lake.
Before leaving town, we swung by the falls to have a look at them. With the
warm weather of late, the creeks and streams are starting to run pretty good
and that combined with some lingering ice at the falls made for a
neat view.
The last main topic of discussion for tonight was my
rides with Skylar this weekend. He arrived on Friday afternoon and once I
was done with work for the day, we took off for a ride. There are several
things nice about spring riding. Among them is the warmer temps and lack of
other sleds, but also the fact that is stays light out until almost 8 pm.
That meant that even though Skylar and I did not head out to ride until
around 2:30 in the afternoon, we could still get in what would be considered
a full day's worth of riding.
The snow is very set up and even the steepest of hills
are not much of a challenge, so the main thing to do now is to just explore.
It is very difficult to get yourself into a pickle out there, so you can go
just about anywhere you want without fear of not returning. We did hit the
trail for a brief time and found them to be in excellent
shape Friday afternoon. There had been almost no traffic up here during
the week and the groomers were able to get out and fix things up from the
busy weekend we had. Here is a shot of Skylar
and our rides.
One of my missions for the day was to try and find my
lost helmet cam. The day that Teddy picked up his new sled, a bunch of us
went out and rode and I lost my helmet cam. I knew the spot where it was
most likely to have come off- a spot where we ran out of trail and just
picked our way through the woods for a while. I figured that with some of
the snow melted, I might be able to come across it, so we headed for the
spot, but were not successful in our search. I have not given up the
search. I doubt I will get back out there on a sled, but will so a search or
two via ATV.
There is still a considerable amount of snow in the
woods. Some spots more than others, but at the low end, we came across about
2 feet still on the ground and at the high end around 3 feet still on the
ground. Here is one of those spots with at least 3
feet still on the ground. As mentioned, you can go just about anywhere
you want and here is Skylar
getting ready to drop into a steep river ravine we had to cross in our
travels Friday afternoon. Our explorations on Friday led us to some areas I
have never been and we also discovered some routes I was hoping to find this
season. They will be nice to be able to use in the future, but will also be
saved for the right situation where I know I can take someone though and
have the spot remain a secret.
At times on Friday we were traveling in spots that no one
had been in several weeks. We have not had enough snow in that time to fully
cover any tracks and these spots had no tracks at all. Other areas were pretty
well worn and with the snow still being very firm, both Skylar and I
were glad to have ice scratchers. Kind of weird to be using them off trail,
but they came in very handy! On the way home Friday, I had my drive belt
basically explode. Amazing how they can just
disintegrate. Thankfully it was not too cold and I had a plastic bag to
put all the pieces in and we were back on our way in about 10 minutes.
There was talk of the gang getting together to ride on
Saturday, but then that never came to be, so after going to town to pick up
a spare belt and some other items, Skylar and I headed out on our own for
Saturday's ride. We did pick up about 1 1/2 to 2" of new snow Friday
evening, so that was nice for getting from my driveway to the trail. The day
was heavily overcast and just seemed like one of those lazy days. That was
reflected in our riding Saturday as we took a mix of trail and bush up to
Lac La Belle, had lunch and spent about 2 hours talking with owner Troy. We
then took the bush all the way back from LLB to our house. Along the way we
passed by a friends camp out in the woods and snapped a shot of one of his
out buildings still covered
in about 3 feet of snow.
We made it back safe and sound Saturday evening and had a
nice dinner with Nora. We watched some of the video from out west this
weekend too and with all the talk of high marking, Huck decided he would
give it his own try and put his
own high mark on the bank of snow. We figure with a little tuning and
maybe a few more dog powers, he will be able to put a mark at the top!
I can add that the trails on Saturday were in worse shape
than we found Friday. Not as bad as they could be, but they were pretty full
of moguls, with the exceptions of the west LLB loop. I guess most folks are
not heading down to LLB and are sticking to the main trail, because the west
LLB loop was flat and white, while the main trail was bumpy and getting
dirty. I wish I could say how much longer our trail system will hold up, but
things can change in a hurry this time of the year. The sun is getting
stronger and stronger and just when you think you still have at least a few
days left with decent snow on the trails, it is gone the next day. Our
weather looks to be above freezing through Wednesday, with some rain
starting up Monday night or Tuesday and continuing into Wednesday. There are
then signs of a rather large snow storm for later Friday and into the
weekend. In fact some ideas are for the biggest storm of the season, with
1-2 feet of snow possible. Still a long way off to have much faith in, but
will be my main focus this week. I am ready for the snow to go, but one more
day with powder over the hood would be nice too!
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD-
March 15-
It sure seems hard to believe
that it has only been a little over a week that we have had Huck and
Millie bless our house with their love, energy and entertainment. With all
that has happened with them in the past 8 days, it seems like they have been
with us a lot longer. In fact, the memories of what it was like to have a
still household are fading fast! No complaints though. They are a bundle of
energy, but are good for their age and a ton of fun. Just now as I was
typing, I heard the TV go quiet and then the pitter patter of paws running
up the stairs and then a few seconds later, Nora ask if one of them had the
remote and sure enough one of them had grabbed the remote, causing the TV to
change channels or turn off and then they ran up the stairs. You just have
to laugh and the stuff they do.
They still only seem to know two speeds, full blast and
off. When awake, they just go and go and go. They just cannot sit still for
one second. They do sleep and when they sleep, they sleep hard. I think you
could light their tails on fire and they would not care a bit. It is during
those quiet moments that both Nora and I will scurry to get things done that
we need to and then get ready for the supervision to resume once they awake.
We did take our
first family picture this week, it was actually for our adoption
portfolio, but still the first shot of all of us together. We took a few,
but in every one, the dogs were looking at the camera, it was Nora and I
that had the problems in the others.
It has been a week of firsts for them too and I am sure
that this coming week will also prove to be a week of some first for them.
We had some snow and a lot of wind earlier this week and there was no school
on Wednesday, so Nora got to stay home and after their morning romp, they
started to quiet down and get ready for their nap. So we introduced them to the
bed. We had debated whether or not we were going to let them up on the
bed and figured that sooner or later they would find their way up there, so
we broke down and let them up. We only let them up there when we are napping
and they still sleep in their "night-night" (crate) at night, or
when no one can be with them on the bed. Nora and I are being very careful
to not let them do anything now that we do not want them to do the rest of
their lives. We did not mind having Burt and/or Baileys on the bed at times
and will be OK with Millie and/or Huck too.
It also seems like every day they find some new adventure
or thing to do to keep themselves occupied. One day it is to climb under a
chair and play and the next it is to climb
the stairs and play. They now have no problems running up and down the
stairs, so I have frequent visitors stop by when I am up here working. The
other day, Millie came up and laid down right across my feet, it sure
stirred up some memories of Baileys as that is exactly what she would do
every time I sat down at my desk to work. They have more similarities to
Burt and Baileys, but also have their differences and are and will always be
treated as their own selves. I was a little worried that I would fall into a
trap of comparison with them and Burt and Baileys, but it is not happening.
I see the similarities occur when they do, but I do not compare them or
judge them to Burt and Baileys at all. That has actually happened without me
even trying and I am glad it happened that way. Burt and Baileys were super
special dogs and hold a place in my heart that will always be filled by
them. Huck and Millie are their own selves and are finding their own special
place in my heart that will be theirs to keep forever.
As mentioned, they do have their quiet times and sure are
cute when they slow down. They enjoy going into their night-night to take a
nap or to go to bed for the night, which I am also happy for. They have
never messed their crate and really identify it as their special
place to go to lay down and rest. We had been just putting some soft
towels in there for them, figuring that if they did mess in there, then it
would be easy to clean the towels. With them never messing the crate, I got
them a nice bed for their night-night and they like it.
The other day, they were exploring the woods behind the
cabin and discovered where a squirrel has made a home in the snow and spent
a good 15 minutes with their heads
stuck in the snow, trying to get at what ever it was they were smelling.
I have a feeling that this is going to become a no-squirrel zone pretty
quickly!
Another one of their firsts this week was to discover how
nice it is to lay in the sunshine on a cold winters day. It was still cold
out on Thursday and after they came in from being outside for a while, they
went over by the sliding glass door in the front and laid
in the sun like a couple of old dogs.
I have been having so much fun watching them explore and
discover all the things around them. They have about a dozen play toys and
that number seems to grow by a couple every few days. But it is not always
the store bought toys that fascinate them the most. Sometimes it is not
even a toy at all. They played with that broom for a good ten minutes
and finally I had to go in, so I had to take it away and put it up where
they could not get at it. For the most part they are really good. They know
their names and are somewhat housebroken. I say somewhat because they still
have the occasional accident. They have never gone poop in the house- ever,
so we are pretty much just having to soak up some pee off the laminate
floors every once in a while. They do go to the door to let us know they
have to go potty, but then every once in a while, they just squat and pee
without any warning. Even though it is not too big a deal to clean up, it
will be nice to have them fully house broken.
We took our first walk today. It was in the mid 50's and
sunny and just a
perfect day for a walk, so we drove out to a country road that is about
2 miles long, is a dead end and only has one house on it, so it does not see
much traffic. Even though we knew we did not have to worry about cars, we
still hooked them up to leashes. That was a new experience for them, but
they took to it pretty well. We walked about 1/2 mile and then turned around
and by the end, they were tired. They both fell asleep on the way home and
once at home they took a nice long power nap. It felt really good to be
walking with dogs under foot again. I know I am looking forward to having
some partners for exploring the woods up here again. it's been too long
since I went exploring on foot.
Before sitting down to write today, the pups woke up from
their power nap and were full of energy. They romped inside the house for a
while and then we went outside and they ran around the cabin for about
another 30 minutes. With the snow so setup, they can just walk right across
it and go where they please. They really like sticks
and trees and that is good, because we have a lifetime supply of them
just on the other side of the door for them.
In other news... I briefly touched on our weather, but we did
have a bit of a storm up here Tuesday and Wednesday. It snowed all day on
Tuesday, but we only picked up an inch or so of wet snow. The main event was
suppose to hit on Tuesday night and that is when the main brunt of the snows
did hit, although we did not get as much as was thought. I had predicted
6-10" for the general area and we picked up around 4.5-5.5. So we were
close to the low end of the range. Had the storm tracked about 50-75 miles
to the east, we would have picked up about 10-12" and had the lake been
open, Wednesday we would have seen another foot of lake effect occur. We did
see lake effect fall all day on Wednesday, but only picked up an inch or two
more. The winds then kicked in late Tuesday night and continued into
Wednesday and at times blew over 50 mph. That was the reason for the snow
day up here and it was cold too. Single digits all day on Wednesday and we
made it to 10 above on Thursday. So my front
of house shot from Thursday was still a very wintry one, and included
Huck and Millie for the first time too.
A while back, I had made plans to ride with friends on
Thursday, so I was hoping that we would have seen more snow fall with the
midweek storm, but we did get enough to freshen things up a bit and at least
give the appearance that we had some fresh
powder to bust. In reality, we had about 4-5 inches of snow on top of a
hard pack base to play in, which is better than a hard pack base only. With
the snow so setup, you can go just about anywhere on it with a sled and we
tried just that on Thursday. Most of our mission on Thursday was to find
some hills to climb and we found them. I got bored climbing them straight
up, so I started side hilling them. At one point I bit off a bit more than I
could chew, or perhaps a bit more than the sled would stay upright on and
ended up getting tossed off the sled and thrown down the hill around fifteen
feet. The sled ended up just about upside
down and came to rest against a tree. It did not hit it, just came to
rest against it. Pretty neat how those EFI's can run while upside down!
I also had made plans a while back to ride on Saturday.
The plan was for me to ride up to Phoenix and meet up with the others and
then ride the backcountry the rest of the day. We did break the freezing
mark on Friday and there was sunshine and quite a bit of traffic too, but
the groomers got out Friday night and we also dropped back to below freezing
and my ride up the trail to Phoenix on Saturday morning was on a
really nice trail. Flat
and rock hard. I was glad I had ice scratchers to keep things lubricated
and cool.
My riding partners on Saturday were Bruce and Dan from Rt
12 Arctic Cat. Those are the guys that were generous enough to give me the
M8 to use for the season, so I was glad to be able to repay them a bit by
taking them out into
the woods for ride. We mostly rode north and found our way to Lac La
Belle for lunch. Then it was back into the woods to ride some more. The
manager at Lac La Belle Dave had told us about a snowman he and others build
out in the sticks a few weeks back, so we made it one of destinations to see
if it was still standing. We made it and it was. The lost
snowman of the Keweenaw.
On the way back we took the trail part of the way and the
bush part of the way. The traffic this weekend was heavy. In fact it was
busier up here this weekend that at any other time all season. Combine that
with the fact that the temps actually found their way to 55 degrees on
Saturday with clear skies and that would be enough to take the perfect
trails I was on Saturday morning and turn them into a mess. I was actually
surprised to find them in not that bad of shape Saturday evening. They were
by no means perfect, but a little 6
inch chop is about all we found in our travels. It got to below freezing
again last night, but made it into the mid 50's again today, so I have no
idea what the trails look like now, but there is still plenty of base, so
with traffic dying off during the week and some grooming, they should be
able to make somewhat of a recovery. We look like we will remain warm until
around Wednesday and then cool off. No new snow to speak of, so things will
not be great from here on out, but should not be a disaster either. The
warmer temps actually were about the best thing that could have happened to
the backcountry- short of a dumping of 12+" of snow. The warmer temps
softened up things out there and I can say it was nice to be able to stop
and sit comfortably and chat! This winter has been too cold. We did not have
too many rides when you could stop and chat and not freeze your fanny
off.
So it looks like spring riding has arrived. Quite
honestly, I feel like I have gotten my fill. I feel that I do not have
to ride the rest of the season, but should the opportunity present itself in
the right circumstances, then I would get out. In fact I am sure that our
group will be getting together for that one last spring ride before we gas
up the ATV's and take them out for the first ride of that season.
With spring right around the corner, it is also time to
focus some attention on the Laurium Glacier. I will be starting up the
guessing contest for when the giant
snowdrift that I have nicknamed the Laurium Glacier will be melting.
That will start tomorrow at around 9 am in the Misc. section of the General
Discussions. So start your calculations now and have your guess ready!
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD-
March 11-
Togwotee 2009, Chapter
2-
Day three started much the way that day two did, with a monstrous
group and plans to try and break into sub groups. We started the day riding
in some sunshine, much like the previous two days, but then clouds rolled in
and it started to snow a bit. Not heavily, but still nice to see the flakes
falling. Dave, Brian, Al, Dave G, Bob and I did break free from the main
gang for a while, while Rick filmed the Yamahas. I had my helmet cam going
and we played on some hills ourselves. Nothing too big, but lots of powder
on them as well as some trees. I suspect the trees is what kept other off of
them and allowed us to be able to have the untracked snow to play in. We did
have a few stucks and here is a shot of Brian's
Green Kitty stuck in the snow.
We hooked back up with the main group for a while and
ended up going by this old
cabin and outhouse. I have been past that cabin several times, but I
took a pic of it to illustrate how much snow is down out there. When you are
riding, it is hard to tell, until you come across something like that and
see that you are riding across 4-5 feet of snow, even though it may be
pretty packed down.
We were able to find some fresh fields of powder though
and Dave even made a 3
leafed clover in the snow. I asked why it was not four leafed and he
said he should have made one of those too! We played on some more hills and
then started to head back as one giant group when one in the group started
to have troubles making it up a hill that also needed a bit of a sidehill to
get up as well. Dave drove up to help and got the sled and rider out of the
pickle they were in, but then decided to ride down into the bottom of the
hill where a snowed in creek bed sat and ended up sticking
it pretty good himself. Here is a
shot from up top.
Day four started out with clear
skies and a bit more of a chill in the air than the other mornings.
There was snow in the forecast off and on for the day and that is exactly
what happened. At times it would be coming down heavily and at other times
the sun would be out. Typical mountain snow showers. Rather than go out as
one big group, the
boys from the Keweenaw as well as Lefty and Chuck decided to just head
out on our own. Lefty is a guide for another lodge out there, so we
entrusted ourselves to his talents and he showed us a great time. It was
nice to be in a smaller group for the entire day and not have to worry about
getting back to a rendezvous spot at a certain time. Plus with the smaller
number we had, we were able to get around much better.
We had a mix of hill climbs and boondocking and even a
bit of jumping on our ride Wednesday. We can't forget about the
stucks either. However, I think that was Brian on his way up to help
Matt out of a stuck and not Brian stuck. At one point we came across a creek
that needed to be crossed. It was still flowing, so you had 4-5 foot tall
banks on either side of it so you did not want to end up in it. One of the
ways across was just to ride up to it slowly and then bunny hop across it,
which is what Al, myself and a few others did. The other way was to side
hill above the creek and then get to a spot where the snow covered the
creek and cross there. At least in theory you would cross there. Here is a
shot of Lefty and Brian digging
out Lefty's sled at the creek crossing.
At one point during the day it really started to come
down. Here is a shot of me
in the heavier snow squall. Here is Lefty
and Bob and here is Matt
helping Chuck out of a little pickle. We did find some fun hills to play
on. Some of my favorite ones are almost like ski hill runs. The are not
straight line shots up, but also are not sled wide shoots through the trees.
So you do have to have a bit of technical ability to work your way to the
top, but also can tackle the really steep terrain because there is enough
space to run at full throttle. Here is a shot of one of those ski
run type play areas. Here is a shot of Pat
heading up one of the hills and here is Matt
stuck watching Pat climb. This particular spot gave us both the high
hole and the tin horn doe the day. Pat got stuck way up high on that climb
and then once Matt got unstuck, he rode up to help Pat get unstuck and had
his sled roll on him. Had Matt not been able to grab his sled after two
barrel rolls, it would probably have been the death of his sled as there was
a steep slope and a lot of trees where the sled was rolling into. It was
also the end of the day, so those two episodes pretty much sealed the deal
for the trophies for the day.
Day 5 started out with a
bit of fresh snow on the sled and some snow
in the air. Not a ton of fresh snow overnight, but what is at the lodge
is not always representative of what is up in the hills around the lodge. I
know that we have had just a few inches of snow fall while at the lodge, but
then have found snow over the hood in some spots not too far away, but
higher up. That morning, Brian found Dave
doing a little bit of last minute tuning to his sled before the ride and
Dave was very adamant the whole trip to point
out that he was riding just a "600". Of course few were able
to buy into the fact that it was just a stock 6. As that was going on, Rick
and Deb from Dobson Entertainment rode by, so Brian snapped a shot of them
heading to the cabin to get ready to ride.
We all went out as one big group again, but ended up
splitting into smaller groups once out there. We were able to find some
spots with some pretty good snow in them. By Thursday, it had been snowing
off and on for 2-3 days and the lodge had picked up around 3-4". As I
mentioned, you are likely to find some deeper snow out there than the lodge
gets and we did find some pretty
deep stuff in spots Thursday. Matt found a spot where one could jump a
creek and with the soft snow to land on the opportunity to get some decent
air was there. So he got Rick to get over there with his camera and the
jumpers in the group took turns getting some
air. As you can tell, Matt got a bit higher than I was anticipating in
that last shot. Here is a
video of Matt taking another jump.
With the deeper powder, it did afford for some stucks. Here is Al's
900 buried in the snow. Ahh, but it's not what you might think. It was
not Al at the helm of his own sled. It
was Brian. For that one, Brian got the high hole and for letting Brian
ride his sled, Al go the tin horn.
The last day of riding ended up being one with most of
the Keweenaw Boys as well as Lefty and his buddy Mark all going out as one
group and the others going as their separate group. Our group was even
smaller than the day before, as Matt, Pat and Chuck decided to go with the
other group. So we were even more nimble than on Wednesday. Lefty led us
again and we went and played in an area that I actually spent a whole day in
with the guide Carter my first trip out there. The area has tons of little
paths through the woods and occasionally they break out into meadows of
differing sizes. We spent more time in
the woods than the meadows. There were some rather challenging hill
climbs through the trees. Here is a
shot of Dave stuck and here is my
sled stuck on a different run. Here is a pic showing the
path I took before getting stuck.
The highlight to the ride on Friday had to be a
little ravine that Lefty took us into. Things were going pretty well
until we reached a point where a
fallen tree blocked our way any further down the ravine. Rather than try
and turn 7 or 8 sleds around in the ravine and ride out, Lefty and a few
others at the front of the pack did a
little reconnoitering on foot to find a way around the tree. They found
a way, but it did include a
nearly vertical drop of about 30 feet with a 90 degree turn at the bottom to
avoid hitting a big old pine tree. The first three sleds made it down OK
and here is a shot of Dave
and I making out our wills before we headed down the hill. Here is Bob
getting ready to take the ride. Everyone made it down OK and one of the
rewards to taking a path that only someone with a few screws loose would
take is a meadow with
some untouched powder in it.
We actually found quite a bit of fresh snow on Friday's
ride and I would have to say that with the size and members of our crew
along with the snow conditions, Friday's ride was the best of the 6 days.
Lefty did a great job leading us through the backcountry and as long as you
knew when not to
follow him, you did just fine. All joking aside, to follow him and watch
him ride with just one arm is really something. He does things better with
one arm than about 95% of the riders I have seen with both arms.
I was really happy how my
sled ran out there. I did end up making some modifications to it. I was
put in touch with Dustin from SLP and he recommended one of their Y-pipes,
pipes and exhausts, as well as some V Force 3 reeds and a high-flow air
intake. I did not ride the sled here in the flatlands with the mods on it,
but can say that the HP it made out west was equal or perhaps even a bit
more than it made here at home stock. It carried me to make some high marks
and quite honestly if it did not leave the high mark, it was not the sleds
fault. I am actually pretty excited to see how it runs back here with the
thicker air. Not that it needed any more power for this elevation, but more
power is never a bad thing!
Time was running out on us on Friday, but we found one last
area to play in and Brian managed to get his sled stuck. Actually we gave
him a hard time about riding a green sled and bring a
tree hugger. Here is a shot of Bob coming to the rescue, well
sort of and here is one of me
on the M, getting ready to head back to the lodge after a six day romp
in the hills of northwest Wyoming.
All in all, it was another great trip. A few things could
have been different to make things better like a smaller riding group, but
we managed. The snow was not the best that we have encountered out there,
but was still ample enough to have lots of fun. I would like to extend my
gratitude to Jeff, Ben, Rebecca and the rest of the crew at Togwotee
Mountain Lodge. We were all taken care of extremely well, including being
well fed and well watered. I just can't imagine someone going out there and
not having fun.
Back home, we had a storm last night. It ended up giving
us the low end of the expected totals, but will freshen up the trails and
backcountry. I have some plans to ride, so was hoping for more, but will
make the most of what we have. There is still around 3 feet of snow on the
ground up here, so there will also be some fun spring riding to be done. My
fingers are getting a little numb, so I think I will sign off for now.
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD-
March 10-
Going to get a start on the
Togwotee 2009 trip recap tonight. I am not sure if I will be able to tell
the whole story in one sitting and believe that the past few years it has
taken two entries to cover the entire trip. I was hoping to get an earlier
start, but went to the eye Dr today and they put those drops in that dilate
your pupils and mine are just now starting to get back to normal. Looks like
some reading glasses are in store for this old Buck, but that is the reason
why I went to him in the first place. The small print got too small for me
to read! Nothing wrong with my eyes, other than normal wear and tear and a
bit of far sightedness.
Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous journal, things went
well out west. Snow conditions were not the best, but still good and combine
that with the awesome terrain and it is pretty much impossible to not have
fun when you go there. Like Dave once said, if you go out there and don't
have fun, it's your own darn fault and he is right on. We have had fun with
powder over the hood, 6" of fresh, a foot of mashed potatoes and hard
crust. This year we had a few new riders to the group and a few regulars
that did not make it. We lost Luke and Ken and gained Bob and Pat. We also
gained a dozen or so more somehow, but not to our specific group, but to the
gang that all heads out with our group. The first day of riding found us
with something like 20
in our group, which is basically beyond the size that can be handled
realistically when riding off trail.
The solution is to basically break off into smaller, more
manageable groups and go play, so that is what Dave and I did pretty much
right off the bat. We found a nice hill to play on and took turns heading
for the top. It is actually a hill that we used in a previous year with the Tetons
in the background. After playing there for a while we decided to head
back to the main group and see what they were up to. Seems they found a nice
cornice to drop off of and were filming some footage of those daring enough
to drop off it. Here is a shot of Matt
dropping off the cornice. I don't think it was on that particular spot,
but on another drop, Nick overshot the landing a bit and landed on the flat
and not the downslope and ended up breaking his back. He did not find out
until the next day when he went to the hospital and actually ended up riding
the rest of that day, but the poor guy, for the second time in 3 years he
was out after day one. Here he is sporting his
tricked out back brace. Matt also ended up re-injuring a torn shoulder
on the first day and had to nurse things a bit the rest of the week, but was
able to ride every day. Even Dave had a casualty on day one, but it was not
with his body, but rather his sled. He busted
his steering post. They rigged
up a tow for his sled and luckily he has some good welding skills and
was able to borrow a welder back at the lodges shop and got things repaired
and the weld held the rest of the trip.
Day two provided us with even more in our
group, I think we were up to something like 25 and again we would split
up into smaller sub groups to try and make things more manageable. On the
way down the trail one of the sleds had a belt give out, so some of us
stopped while he replaced the belt. The rest of the group continued up the
trail and so those of us that stayed behind knew we had to make up some
ground, so we got into race
mode and then hit the trail and hooked up with the rest of the
group.
Once we were to a play/filming
spot, we broke up into the sub groups and had fun playing on the hills
and making some high
marks, while others
looked on. Here is a shot of Lefty making a climb as another recovers
from a mishap. Here is a shot of Dave
(I think) putting his mark on the hill and here is a shot of me
looking on. I had given Brian a camera to use and take pictures for me
on the trip, so some of them I do not even know who they are of and this
next shot is one of those, but it is of someone
stuck. I know who the two characters are in the next shot and they are Chuck
(on left) and Matt taking a lunch break.
After lunch, it was back to playing and here is someone
heading up the hill to play. It looked sort of like Dave on the sled,
but it did not look like his sled. I guess we can call him mystery rider #2.
Here is Lefty, Al and
Dave G taking a break. Here is a shot of Bob
heading up the hill and the more I look at it, perhaps he is mystery
rider #2. We had some interesting stucks as well. Here is Dave on his cat
that must have gotten spooked, as it tried
to climb a tree. Here is a shot of Al
and I taking a break, while they pulled Dave's
cat out of the tree and here he is all
ready to go. That was not the only stuck in that spot though. Chuck's
sled augured
into the mash potato snow.
Back into the play spots we took turns making high
marks on some hills. Here is a close up shot of Dave
heading up the hill and here he is turning
out and if those two were not enough, looks like Brian took a third of Dave
heading up for one more try and a fourth of him making
it past the trees, but not taking out the high mark made by a certain
person:).
After tracking up that hill, we moved over to another one
and being all proud of myself for making the high mark on the last one, I
headed up to be the first to put a mark on the next one. As I reached the
top to turn out, I glanced down to make sure my turn out was going to go
where I wanted to and at that same moment hit some mashed potato snow and
ended up coming off my sled! I tried to reach for the brake, but it was too
late. I tried for the rear bumper, but all I got was a slippery grip on the
snow-bunje I store back there. So down my sled went all on it's own, with me
sliding down on my belly behind it. Most of the guys were there to witness
the spectacle and Brian got a shot of me
taking the walk of shame down the hill. You can see the path my sled
took and the mark in the snow my otter slide on my belly did. The sled made
it to the bottom of the hill just fine and I got picked up about halfway
down the hill. Here is a zoomed out shot of the
hill and me walking down it. It was quite the moment for me and for the
group. Lots of laughs and joking. We also had our two awards, the High Holer
and Tin Horn and that little dilly won me the Tin Horn for the day. In fact,
if you were to be able to look up Tin Horn in the dictionary, you would
likely see a picture of me in that situation. Just in case Webster is
looking to add that to their publication, the gang was sure to make sure
there were plenty of pictures
and video taken of
the moment. Al got
stuck on the same hill and claimed that my sled heading down on it's own
was such a sight to behold he lost his concentration and got stuck. So I
guess I get credit for his stuck as well. For what it is worth, Al almost
had the same thing happen to him (have the moment on video tape) and I was
able to redeem myself by putting a higher mark on the hill and staying on
the sled all the way down!
Well, it is getting late and I want to make sure I get
this loaded before I get too far past my bedtime, so I am going to sign off
for now and pick this up tomorrow. With a little luck, Nora will have a snow
day and can watch the puppies while I write during the day. One way or
another, I will finish the trip.
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD-
March 8-
Well, the
Togwotee 2009 trip is history. I am back home, safe and sound. It was a good
trip and we all had another great time out there. I am actually not going to
be covering the trip in the entry. I have a bunch of pictures to sort
through and stories to organize in my head, so I plan to write again this
week. Perhaps even cover the entire trip in 2 entries like I have in past
years. This entry will actually be the Huck and Millie show. We picked them
up on our way home from the airport and needless to say it has been a pretty
crazy past 24 hours for Nora and I!
We have been almost a year without a dog and Burt was so
good that having him around was almost like having another human around.
Very low maintenance and a very regular schedule for things, so it was not a
lot of work to have him around. Not that Huck and Millie have been a bunch
of trouble, but unless they are sleeping or in their crate, they need
constant supervision to make sure they are not getting themselves into
trouble and that is something that Nora and I have not been used to having
to do is all.
I had a nice uneventful trip home and actually arrived
about 35 minutes early into Houghton County Memorial Airport, so that meant
that we could get over to pick up the puppies that much earlier. Nora was
waiting for me at the airport, so we just shot straight from there to pick
up the puppies. We chatted with the owners of the parents of the puppies and
played with the parents for a while and then headed home to show Huck and
Millie their new home.
They were a little apprehensive at first, but it only too
about 5 minutes inside the cabin to start making themselves feel at home.
Here is a little advice, if you want to ease the apprehension in a puppy,
just give them a treat. That seems to put their mind at ease and after they
had a little treat, Nora took turns taking pictures and video of their first
moments home. Here is a shot of me
getting a super close up of Huck.
Some of Nora's friends gave her a little puppy shower at
work and so the pups got some toys and treats, plus we did keep some of the
toys that Burt and Baileys played with when they were younger, so we broke
them out to give the puppies something
to play with and help them feel at home as well. It's staying light out
later now and we had plenty of daylight left to let them roam the property a
bit. The snow is so setup, that they could just walk
right across the top. A little scary in a way because they can also just
run off into the woods on the snow and we humans still sink in, but they
were good about not straying too far. As the evening wore on, it was clear
that they were getting more and more comfortable in their new environment
and one of the signs to me was that they ate
and drank without any reservations.
One of my main concerns was that they would not feel
comfortable in their crates. I learned with Burt and Baileys that crate
training is the best way to go and Nora and I had decided early on that Huck
and Millie would be create trained. I remembered learning from Burt and
Baileys dog trainer that you can actually climb in there and they will
likely follow and that will help to ease any anxiety about the crate, so
that is exactly what I
did last night. It seemed to work because they had a good night. They
only cried for about 10-15 minutes when we all went to bed and then other
than having to get up in the middle of the night to go pee, they slept the
whole night. Huck even goes in there during the day if he wants to get away
and take a nap. Right now we are letting them both go into one crate, but
have two and will let them each have one as they get older and larger.
They sure do love each other and love
to play with each other. I'm not sure if Nora was as strong into the
idea of getting two as I was when we picked them out, but now that she sees
how they play together with each other and entertain each other, she thinks
it was a good idea to get two. It seems like they have two speeds: Full
Throttle and Off. There really does not seem to be much of an in between
with them right now. I cannot remember if Burt and Baileys were that way as
well. Seems to me that they did have a bit of an in between, where they
would be awake, but not having to go full speed ahead. It does not matter to
me if they do not develop a mid range to their lifestyle and all I can say
is that they sure are cute when they are at play and even
cuter when in the off position. Here
is more proof. Towards the end of the evening, they did start to tire
and slow down a bit and Millie showed her
cuddly side. Huck likes to be held too, but also just likes to go off on
his own to rest in peace when he gets tired. Here is a shot taken about 5
minutes later with both Millie
and I sound asleep.
As mentioned, we had a really good night. They fell
asleep pretty quickly and then at about 12:30, Nora heard them stirring and
got up to let them out to go potty. They did their business and then climbed
back into their crate and slept the rest of the night until about 5:30 when
I heard them stir, so I got up and let them out and once we were back
inside, they did not seem too ready to go back to sleep, so I let them play
a bit and what transpired was a full blown tug of war. First with the
stuffed bunny and then with one of their
new toys from Nora's friends. I'm not sure if they woke Nora up or not,
but they were quite animated with their actions, making the puppy growl
noises and such. Here is one more shot of the battle
royal that went on for about 10 minutes.
They played for a bit more and then decided to take
a bit of a nap. The nap did not last too long and then they started in
on a new puppy game that they invent on their own. After a while, Nora got
up from bed and took a turn watching them so that I could get some work
done. We also got some rawhide treats from the son of one of Nora's friends
and they sure did enjoy getting one to
chew on today. The rawhides are still in once piece, but some how I get
the feeling that the days that they last for more than 10-20 minutes are
pretty limited.
So all in all, I think the first 24 hours has gone very
well. They came to us well on their way to being house broken. For the most
part, they know to go to the door to give us a signal that they need to go
out to go potty. We have had a few mistakes inside, but if this is as bad as
it gets, we are in good shape. They are learning their names as well. Millie
seems to be the most responsive, even seeming to know Huck's name, but Huck
responds to his name more times than not. They are also learning the work
"no". I suppose because they have been told it a few dozen times
in the past 24 hours, but I know from experience that it is best to set the
ground rules as early as possible and to be consistent and they road later
in life is way easier.
The one thing that just cracks me up about them is the
sliding glass door. They are getting a bit more used to it, but in the house
we picked them up from, a door was a door. A solid wall that swung open and
then you walked out. This new thingy that you can see through and slides out
of the way sure is weird. They have run and walked into it several times
and also get fooled by their reflection in it. However, they also have
learned that the sound of it opening means it's time to go outside! I think
we have ourselves two smart pups. Question is, how long before they outsmart
us?!
Good night from the Keweenaw..
-JD-
