Bough Cutting and Traces of Snow

  We have talked about cutting balsam boughs for the local wreath making business for a few years now and finally actually did it this year.  Of course, we got a late start, so only made a few loads (so far), but have discovered that it is a bit of work to get full loads, but it is good outdoors work that you can do at a pace you set yourself.  Once you know what you are looking for (telling balsam apart from other kinds of pine), and find a good spot with a good grouping of trees, its not too bad.  After a couple days of cutting, you do start to see balsam in your dreams and you look for balsam automatically when you are just out driving around or running dogs, but its some extra money that we can, of course, always use.  We've been bringing the two best behaved (stay close and always listen when called) little house dogs, Brute and Spike, along-good exercise and a fun time for them.  We tried taking Thunder, our main leader/house husky, with, but he likes porcupines too much, having found one on each of the two days we took him out, and naturally getting a noseful of quills both times!

Our second load.

Our next (last) load-a bit bigger.  You can see our "helpers"-Brute and Spike sitting on top. 

Sometimes there's neat stuff out in the woods-this is an old Chevy truck that had a homemade camper on it.  probably a hunting camp a long time ago...

A porcupine calls the camper home now-you can kinda see him here.  He scurried underneath before a good pic could be taken.

The line we had to wait in to sell the boughs on Halloween.

  In other news...we are finally starting to see traces of snow occasionally.

This pic was taken during our first 20 miler of the season on Thursday (Nov. 1st).

  So the countdown to sleds has begun!  Bring on the snow!  We're always hopeful for the 1st of December...


An interesting piece of machinery we've seen twice now on our runs that we've been doing in Hurley, Wisconsin, which has been a nice area to get longer runs in with the truck. Its some kind of trimmer that the utility company uses.  The photo sucks, because it was too close to get a full picture of, but you can see the cutting blade on the end of its telescoping arm.

If we ever have a Zombie Apocalypse, I want this machine!

Fall Update

  Training is going great this year!  Weather has been cooperating nicely, with temps. in the low 40's almost every morning and not too much rain, so less mud training.  We've been able to hit a high of 16 miles so far-further than we've ever gone during dry land fall training.  This is our first season doing most of our training motor assisted (off the truck) and it seems to be improving speed and performance.  Some of the training has been using a four wheeler, without the motor running, as we have had trouble getting it to run reliably, but running a bigger team (16) with it, they're not pulling nearly so much as in past seasons with a golf cart.  We have also changed our feeding this year, starting last spring, and are feeding no kibble.  They've been getting a combination of Eureka Race Mix, which is a blend of beef, kidney, chicken, fat, fish, eggs, bone meal, oil, and vitamins/minerals, and chicken and venison.  Looking to add extra beef fat when necessary.  We add a little cooked, steamed rolled oats as well, for a bit of bulk.  This new feeding regime has added energy and enthusiasm, as well as cut way back on waste (poo) and improved coats, too.
  Looking forward to winter and sleds, as with our improved training we will be able to start out with much longer runs on snow than we have ever been able to, and have scouted some new routes that should make the longer distances easy to achieve and a lot of fun, with camping being one of the new things we should be able to accomplish.
  Jeremy's race plans are looking pretty good, getting a couple sponsors/supporters that are helping along the way and its great to see the main dogs doing so well, especially the young dogs and yearlings.  Hopefully they prove themselves even more once the snows on the ground, and we can finish respectfully during their first full season.  The main goal, of course, is that everyone stays healthy, happy and complete this season strong and willing. 
 

Just a short post to say that fall training is in full gear right now, as well as Elliot's eighth grade football season, so we're very busy here at Ravenwood Kennel.
A little video of the puppies at 12 weeks old:

A few pics of last years pups in training:

Breeze(pup) in front, Scooby behind.

Rain(pup) in front, Aspen behind.

Storm(pup) on the right, Traveler on the left.

Cloud(pup) to the right, Thunder to the left-seems that Cloud is a natural leader.

Lara(yearling) in front, Cherry behind.

Salt(yearling) to the right, Hail to the left.

Not to be left out, Elliot warming up for his first game-he's a natural athlete and really does well. 

Puppies First Outing

Warning: LOTS of pictures...
We took the pups to the lake yesterday for the first time.  They are eight weeks old and we would like to condition them to enjoy water and maybe swim when they are grown, too.  I don't know if we accomplished anything.  We brought along their mom, Breeze, too because they know her and she does swim some.  On hind sight, it wasn't a great idea to bring her.  The pups were obsessed with following her around and she doesn't listen to us all that well.  She was running all over the place on the rocks and they had a hard time keeping up with her so they were panicky a lot and cried most of the time.  She only got in the water once and since they couldn't keep up with her on shore, I don't think they ever saw her swim.  We brought the pups each individually in the water, and they are good swimmers, but the stress that their mother caused them did not set them up to enjoy themselves at all.

How they traveled to the woods/lake.

Running around on the trail to the lake.  We had the little house dogs along, too.

Starting the steep descent down to the lake.

There are puddles in the rocks which made for wet puppies before they ever got in the lake.

They were all trying to keep up with mom, but as you can see, with only one pup here, they had a hard time of it.

Front to back: Opie, Donna, and Jax.

Breeze, Tara, Juice in the water.

Jax, Opie, Gemma, Clayton, Donna

Clayton.

Juice.

Juice.

Juice and Jax.

Spike-house dog.

Shorty and Brute-house dogs.

Tika-house dog.

Spike.

Juice.

Gemma.

Gemma.



Opie.

Donna.

L.-R.-Tara, Jax, Donna, Clayton, and Spike in the background.



Fall Training...

Has officially gotten underway!  We've had some pretty nice weather to get started in.  Of course we're looking forward to even cooler temperatures as fall progresses, but we'll take what we can get.  The dogs are extremely happy too.  Our main goals with these early runs is to get our mature leaders back in the swing of things and give all the pups- six in total, who range from a year to a year and a half-time in lead to see who's comfortable up there.  So far we have liked what we've seen and should have a few more leaders ready to drive the team a bit faster down the trail this winter. 

First run on August 9.  Two eight dog teams off the truck.

Teaching the pups to hold the lines out while stopped just might be the most challenging part.