Signs of the Season

The signs are all around!!! Numerous flocks of geese have been spotted and heard flying over the dog yard, the leaves are starting to turn, the mornings are cool, the smell of fall is starting to touch the air, I’ve put the flannel sheets on the bed, and today – the Sears Christmas Wish Book arrived!! The season is changing! YEAH!!!

One of the very enjoyable parts of fall around here is BLUEBERRIES!!! Our land is absolutely covered in blueberry plants. Each year for the last 3 years I’ve been raving that this year’s crop was the best – but really this years is the best! Honest! The berries are big, thick on the plants and everywhere!!! An easy hour picking will handily fill up a large ice cream pail – all within sight of our yard! I have snuck out among my neighbors (human and bears) to do some picking. We’ve been eating blueberry muffins, blueberries and ice cream (Mark’s favorite), blueberries with sour cream and brown sugar (my favorite), blueberry coffee cake, blueberry scones…I also discovered 2 recipes that I believe I will be packing on Iditarod this year – blueberry ‘fudge’ and chocolate covered blueberries! The blueberry fudge contains no chocolate, just blueberries, raisins and walnuts and I’m still fussing with it some to get it the consistency I want, but the chocolate covered blueberries are a snap – one cup semi sweet chocolate chips, melted; 1 tbsp oil; 2 cups blueberries. Drop by teaspoons onto a sheet of waxed paper and chill. I’m freezing mine and like frozen orange sections, I think they will make a nice refreshing trail snack!

The sad part of fall is that the tomato and zucchini plants that I babied all spring and into the summer are just starting to bear veggies and now they are threatened by frost. We have had a number of nights right around freezing and I know any day we will get our first killing frost. Oh well, I much rather have to buy produce and be able to run dogs!

And we have been running dogs! I’m not quite where I wanted to be at the end of August with my training schedule, but we are close and considering I’m currently working all the main string dogs plus the yearlings (over 40 dogs) I’m not unhappy.

As is ‘traditional’ in my diaries at this time of year, I thought I’d take a few moments to tell everyone a bit about the 31 ‘A’ team dogs for this season. This year instead of going ‘dog by dog’ I’m going to break them up into groups and then put a ‘fact’ list at the end of the diary entry!

The first group is the older veterans. That consists of Grover, Draco, Gus, Surge, Chester, Odie, Loki, Denali, Smiley, Kara, Kaylinn, Squeaky, Nahanni, Camilla, and Olena. These are dogs with multiple seasons of training and racing on them. They are the stabling influence in the team and most of my really reliable leaders come from this group.

The next group is the young veterans. Crunchie, Hilda, Hector, Herman, and Moses are all strong, young dogs on their second real season with us. These are key dogs in the team, all are coming into their prime and expected to be significant players this season!

Snickers, Sprite, Pepsi, Barq, Skor, and Dasher are all dogs that have had a the majority of last season under their belts, but needed a little more time before racing. This year should be a big year for the six of them.

The last group is the rookies. This year Holly, Batdog, Junior, Spot and Zackery make up that group. Zack is kind of the long shot of the group, as he won’t be 2 until well into winter, but Surge was the same age Zackery will be this winter when he finished his first Iditarod. Holly is the real shining star of this group. She combines the best of both her Iditarod finishing parents (Odie x Kaylinn) and is already a decent leader for us!

Like the blueberries this year – this is the best crop of dogs ever for the kennel!!

*Sire and dam are noted if they are other dogs from here.

That’s it for today!

Karen