Today was a long day. We had extra help in the dog yard, in the form of Ben, the boyfriend of the daughter of a friend of the boss. How’s that for degrees of separation?

Ben is very cool, and wants to learn about mushing, so he’s volunteered to come over and help us out from time to time. Today we took advantage of the extra body, along with the good weather (sunny, in the mid-thirties), to scrape out the accumulated mud, straw, and other assorted…stuff…that collects in the bottoms of the dog houses. Since it’s been cold here for some time, a few of the houses presented the extra challenge of having the muck frozen solid. We used paint scrapers to peel out the gunk, and then used it to fill in the various holes the dogs dug over the summer, and we now find by falling into them through the snow cover.

On a completely different note, I’ve mentioned before that the lighting here is amazing. That same day, the sun broke through the cloud cover for about 30 minutes before it set for the day, and lit up parts of the bay.

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It started snowing early this morning, with wind gusts up to 50mph. It was totally overcast, with no view further than 1/4 mile. All in all, a mildly depressing day. So why not make a video?!

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The boss returned from Juneau on Saturday, and brought 4 inches of snow and 4 sled dog puppies. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

First things first, the puppies!

And now, snow!

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The nights (and days, thankfully) have been clear up here for the past week. Last night, I took my contacts out, then went outside to check on something, and I could make out the Milky Way overhead. It was a generally whitish, blurred stripe among many whitish, blurred dots.

Not coincidentally, it has also been dropping below freezing almost every night (To Scott: Yes, IT’S COLD). We wake up to frosty, crunchy grass, and slippery deck stairs. In fact, when I take out our current invalid, Opal (recovering from spay surgery), I have to go down the frozen deck steps on my butt, so I don’t get yanked down 6 steps by a sled dog on a leash. Face first.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to walk a sled dog, let me give you an idea of what it’s like. Imagine tying yourself to a car with a 6′ to 15′ piece of rope. Put the car in gear, and hold onto the rope. Now, try to stop the car by pulling on the rope. That’s a small sled dog. To simulate walking a bigger dog, have someone hit the accelerator while you hold the rope. Fun!

Anyway, it’s getting cold here. The proof is on my car:

The sun rises a little after 8 now, and sets almost exactly 12 hours later. That’s an hour less daylight than we had 3 weeks ago. This is where the sun sits at around 10am right now:

Tomorrow, I think I’ll setup my hd camera and capture the sunrise. Hopefully it won’t be too cloudy.

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Skippy and I just prepared a supplement to the sled dogs’ regular diet: boiled salmon. Here’s the recipe:

Take 3 to 4 whole frozen salmon. Chop them up with an axe. Put them in a big vat, and cover with water. Place the vat on a large propane burner (for you outdoor folks, picture a knee-high Dragonfly). Bring to a boil, and use a giant potato masher to stir.

Salmon bones turn soft when they are cooked, so we can use the whole salmon.

Now, I like eating salmon. But there’s something about this particular soup that really turned me off. In fact, I might not have dinner tonight. Maybe it started with being sprayed by frozen salmon chunks as I hacked at them in the driveway. Or perhaps it was the consistency of the frozen salmon itself, since I’m so used to fresh salmon. Or maybe it was the smell of cooking salmon, combined with the visual of their heads and tails floating around in a pink stew, peeking through a yellowish, oily froth.

Yeah, that was it. Blargh.

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