All the BOW details, with pictures of course!

I can't believe it has been so long again! It has been busy since our BOW weekend. I had so much fun it ought to be illegal! :) The first class I took was on how to fillet fish. That might not sound all that exciting to some, but I LOVE to eat fish. This is a great way for me to be a part of bringing home the fish for dinner without having to do the fishing part! It was a lot easier than I expected! Now I can't wait for fishing season so that I can have some more yummy salmon! Sorry, no pictures of the salmon, but they were GORGEOUS Copper River Reds - the sweetest salmon you can possibly get! Oh my! My mouth is watering again just thinking about it!

My next class was dog mushing. There were two instructors, Kim Trickett from Yellow Snow Adventures http://yellowsnowadventuresmd.com/ and Anjanette Steer, wife of Zach Steer who lives not far from camp. Zach ran both the Yukon Quest in February, placing fourth http://www.yukonquest.com/, and then the Iditarod in March, placing 14th http://www.iditarod.com/. I was so impressed with these ladies and especially with the dogs! I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I certainly didn't expect the dogs to be sooooooo sweet and affectionate! It made sense the more Anjanette explained. One of the main things they breed for is that desire to please. It really shows through in the dogs! They LOVE to run, but they also LOVE to be petted and loved! Since they are handled by so many people preparing for the races, they must be thoroughly socialized from the time they are born. It takes a lot of hands to get harnesses on, booties on and then hooked up to the sleds. Then you need to hang on because those guys just LOVE to GO!!! What fun! Those dogs are world class athletes! They are absolutely amazing! Some of them race as long as 8 yrs which is practically ancient in some breeds. I could have driven a small team, but there were so many women who had signed up for the class and since I had not signed up (I was just listening in), I didn't drive them. Anjanette did invite me up to visit and see the dogs at their home (which is not far from us) and go for a ride then. I plan to take her up on that offer! Anyway, I know ya'll want pictures, so here they are. This is two of the four teams they had going that day. Kim was running 5 dogs (mostly young dogs that were just learning - helped keep her team from going too fast for newbies) and the others were running four.


Kim coming back into the staging area after one run.

Some of Kim's purebred Siberian Huskies, not the norm for sled dogs. Most of the competitive dogs are the Alaskan mix. Here are three of the purebreds and two mixes.


My two little sled dog wannabes ;) Maybe Rodney will get his dream of an all-Basset sled dog team yet! But I seriously hope not! Ellie is sweet, but one Basset is enough for a lifetime for me!


After mushing I was ready to get myself a dog sled and a couple of Alaskan mix Iditarod retirees but that was before I went snow machining in the afternoon! Oh my! What fun!!! I got to ride one of those sleds on the trailers and we went waaaaaay out in the boonies for a gorgeous afternoon ride! :) March in Alaska is the most beautiful month yet and we had a picture perfect day to be out there. Here's a picture someone took of me when we stopped for a break.

Here's a picture of our instructor demonstrating the elegant way to roll your machine. ;) She was watching to see if we were ok and the powder grabbed the left front ski. The snow was waist deep off the trail. A few winches properly applied and it came right out of there without a scratch.
I tried hard to talk her out of her personal machine (because she'd been talking of upgrading) but she didn't seem interested so Rodney got on Craigslist looking for something to fit me. The next day we were on our way to check out this new toy: http://www.ski-doo.com/SkiDooPublic/_Static/archives/archives_2007/EN-US/Snowmobiles/Freestyle/The.Basics/Overview.htm
It was an almost new machine for a reasonable price. I'm even more sore now than I was after that weekend! :)

I know there is something else I wanted to write about, but I can't remember what it is! The weather has been beautiful lately, sun shining, up in the 30s every day, my Christmas cactus has decided that it can also be an early Easter cactus and even my violets are appreciating the longer days. Yes, we get solstice along with the rest of the world. ;) I know I said it before, but I do believe this is my favorite month yet up here! There's snow on the ground so you can really play, the days are long enough to get out there and do stuff, the temperatures are lovely and that sun just shines like crazy! :) Yeah, loving March in Alaska!