Spring time in Alaska

Can you believe it is the Middle of April ?!? Even for Alaska this is impressive. We have received over a foot of snow this month alone! I have been taking advantage of the SUN and the SNOW and the WARM TEMPS. It is like mushing in paradise. I have been giving the race dogs a little rest before their busy tour season and been focusing on the PUPS and the OLD BOYS. It’s been a blast. Telesto(12), Comet (12) and King(10) feel like the studs of the yard again. And Polaris(13 mos.) and Pluto(13mos.) are gaining confidence. They trained with the race team all fall, but were dropped after the miles became to long and fast. Nova (9mos.) and Pulsar(9mos.) are learning the joy of mushing. And building a solid foundation so that they can do some tours this summer. They were part of the “lucky puppies” the pups born 7/7/07, that many of you held this past summer.

Ahhh they grow so fast. No puppies this year has left me jonesing for my puppy fix. Guess I can wait a couple weeks until I get to camp.

Speaking of which, I am wondering if we will still be going down on the 3^rd of May. An avalanche knocked out the hydropower plant in Juneau, they don’t expect it to be running again for a month. This poses two problems: Juneau is running on the diesel powered plant until then, that means electric costs 500% more and if there is an avalanche at Shettisham, that isn’t very far from Sheep Creek, we can’t move up there until Avalanche danger is gone. We’ll have to see.

Jim is off bear hunting in Galena. He snowmachined from Manley (300 miles + ) and I haven't heard from him yet. Hopefully he'll get us a nice bear rug for our new house that god willing we close on THIS WEEK! I am holding down the home fort, Rationing the firewood so don't have to cut it again, but winter won't go away so I'd better warm up the saw.