Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

In our neck of the woods there are no trick or treaters and one has to create the right atmosphere him/herself.

With pumpkin and little glowing ghost decorations around the house, we lit up candles, made a moose meat pie and watched the Interview with Vampire. Scary evening! :)

Hope everyone´s having a great spooky and safe time!

Katerina

A Few Howls from the Kennel

With the aproaching Halloween weekend, it´s getting darker, more grey and more frosty.
The dogs have perked up a bit again, as the runs get cooler.

Jachym is working harder than ever on finishing two new dog houses for the new dog lot, so we can move Rizey´s puppies to the pen (which is now occupied), before it gets colder again.

We are expecting a late tourist season guest from Greece, to join us on a 3day Nordic Husky Farm Adventure Program, after the weekend, and right after that, we are picking up Helena at the airport!

Helena is not just a dog handler to join the Kipp d´Amundsen team for part of this winter, but she is a close friend of mine, since I was a child and she was a baby :) We´ve been through a lot together and Helena has handeled for me at races and helped me out at the kennel a lot, in the past. I can´t wait to welcome her in our Swedish home!

These are all the latest news and happenings at the kennel. As you can see, I have finished one big task, a burden I´ve been carrying for long - the updating of the blog, since beginning of August! With this post, I am brining all our readers and followers up-to-date with the latest brags, musings and the adventures of the daily life in the woods :)

I am also working on the evaluation of the team and we will soon be posting the current list of athletes to our website, with the sponsorship info and availability.

Race plans have been plotted and I promise to keep you all posted about our 2010 plans and goals!

We also have a few cool fundraising projects and sponsorship program, which I will soon write about.


Here is a video Jachym recorded yesterday, of the whole dog yard howling with the anticipation of a training run:

And that´s all for the latest howls from us --

Have a Happy Howl-oween!

A Little Comparison

What a difference in weather! The first snow and temperatures well below zero (sometimes hitting the -10°C mark) came at the beginning of the month, and suddenly it feels like spring is back here again! We are back to watering the dogs frequently during training runs, as the temperatures climb to as much as +5°C during days.

This is how it looks now, October 27, 2009:

While this was taken 2 weeks ago (October 15th):

Time Change

Yeah, believe it or not, the Autumn is here officially for a month already, and this weekend the time changed to winter time (or savings time, as the Americans call it).

For us here at the Kipp d´Amundsen kennels, this brings three major things - getting up into darkness, running dogs in darkness, when we do longer trips, and doing many of our outside building projects with the assistance of a special lamp with two strong 500W reflectors, to "stretch out" the days.

This is usually the time of the year when we get at least a little bit of the first snow, so the darkness doesn´t feel so dark, but not this year.

With the time change, we are entering the darkest period of the year, the two upcomming months will be full of nearly constant darkness. If anyone thinks it doesn´t effect you, believe me, it does. We might be in more "advantage" than other folks, as we keep ourselves quite ocupied with training the dogs and making plans for races, etc., and the snow on the ground helps greatly.

While surfing on the net, I came across an interesting chart on Rick Kratzke´s Whitetail Woods blog post, about the daylight savings time.

Wishing all of ya around the globe a positive mind during the times of dark!

New Weather Forecast Feature on the Blog

I´m totally in love. Jachym found this awsome live weather forecast, which shows a beautiful picture of what the weather is like at the moment, and what´s forecasted.
It has details such as windows lit up at night, there are falling stars, you can see airplanes crossing the sky on a clear day. You see how windy it is, the rain, snow fall, fog, everything.

With this weather forecast, I can only look at my screen and see the current temperature, humidity level, the time, and much more.

If you wanna download it, click on the image and set it up for your computer and location (they didn´t have Vedjeön in their list of locations, but Jachym wrote them and asked to ad it and they did!).

If you ever wonder what our current weather is, or what´s the forecast, just go to our blog and check the sidebar.

Puppy Update: The "I" Litter @ 3 weeks

This is one loveable, sweet to the core, bunch. Whomever started making plush huskies, they had our "I" litter in mind, as models :)

They are still fairly tiny, but they sure have courage and athletic skills, as they climb over the pool and wonder out of the room, into the hall, and a few even dares to steal the cats´ food. Hmm, wonder who cuold´ve tought them to do this (right, Mouse?!).

The cheekiest of all are Inali (the little fox as we call her) and Ikiaq. The girls are generally more active than the boys, at this point. I guess the boys are preparing for a tough life of someone, who grows up with five sisters.

The first born - Indian Summer

Ikiaq

Iceman

Inukshuk

Inali

Iluq

Little blue-eyed Inuit

And as a bonus, here comes what we call the "cookie monster". This is actually Inali. She doesn´t seem to be puppy with a bad apetite :)

Puppy Update: Northern Exposure LItter @ 5 weeks

Here comes my regular weekly puppy update. Since we have two litters at home, the "CH" litter outside, and a fairly large pool of dogs to train nearly every day, I´ve decided to make the updates of the Northern Exposure and the "I" litter at the same time, from now on, as things are pretty busy here right now.

The Northern Exposure litter entered the sweet and adorrable brats phase, and they are very cudly and demand our contact. They became like glue-sticks, whenever I wash dishes or cook, they would all pile up on my feet and fall asleep.

They have super friendly attitudes and we can´t wait to start taking them for daily walks in the woods.

Rizey is a great mom, I would say exactly like her mom Magpie. Sweet, soft, protective, yet playful, and extremly tolerant to her babies. They can do pretty much whatever they want and get away with it. She adorres and spoils her kids rotten.

Holling

Maggie

Eddie

Joel

Sunset

at 15:08 pm today

The Winter Stock

Fifty kilos of moose meat being cut, sliced, portioned, packaged, labeled and put to the freezer.
We will survive the winter!

I will post some of my favourite moose recipes in the blog, throughout the winter. Don´t forget to check back for new posts!

Light and Darkness

Days are getting shorter and shorter really rapidly now. We lose about half hour to one hour of light every week. With the upcomming change of time, we will experience even more darkness during the days.

Today Jachym captured some really nice moments of light meeting the dark, in the dog yard.
Some of the images are almost spooky.

Northern Exposure Litter @ 4 weeks

Rizey´s kids are slowly getting used to spending time outside. The recent warm-up is an advatage in this case, as it is hard to get the small ones used to the cold, during this time of the year, when they have been raised indoors.

At four weeks, their little personalities are already written all over them, so let´s see if they resemble of their namesakes :)

Holling

So far the most calm and quiet, very laid-back puppy. He is way bigger than his siblings and is very leggy already. Nothing seems to bother him and he takes the poking from his brothers and the attacks of his evil sister with a totally cool head.

Maggie

aka the blue eyed monster is pretty, smart beyond imagination, and bad. I mean BAD. She is evil and rules the three poor guys since day one. So much for a poor tiny little girl, growing up with three pushy brothers, who has to fight her way through the day. If Chuchinka from our "CH" litter was bad, than Maggie is the devil´s own. She has me totally wrapped around her paws (a typical devil behaviour). I can´t help myself, though. The smart, evil girls usually make my team as the top dogs :)

Eddie

Sweet little Eddie, who waggs his tail even in his sleep. He is always smiling, always comming up with some comedian performances. He doesn´t really care for a cuddle, though and he is a tad reseerved towards new things and situations at this moment. A definite sweetheart.

Joel

From all four, Joel (or little Joey, as we like to call him) is the one who is an exact copy of his namesake. Sweet, charming, adorable, yet a bit moody, perhaps having a tiny bitsy of "little man complex" and, oh well, a little grouchy. He gets himself into trouble often and easily, and the only one he doesn´t really have a weapon against is Maggie. If you know the Northern Exposures show well, you will see the exact resemblance!

More pictures of the brats here:

http://picasaweb.google.cz/kippsiberians/KippDAmundsenNorthernExposureLitterAt4Weeks#

The Inuits and Indians

It´s been already two weeks since Mouse and Nugget´s babies were born.

They sure love their mama and often create a shawl or other accessories, on her :)

These guys must be the tinyest puppies we´ve ever had. They are not skinny at all, but they are just really small. It comes to me as a surprise, because both Mouse and Nugget are fairly big dogs and none of their ancestors was small. I assume, they will be just growing slowly and steadily, similar to the "G" litter, from which their dady comes.

With every litter, one learns something new, especially as to the way they grow, develop and mature.

With this update, I finally have announcement of the theme and names we picked fot these little polar bears. While this is time for the "I" letter, we searched names not only starting with I, but that would have one theme in common and be suitable for future sled dogs! Always a challenge we both love :)

So here I present to you the Kipp d´Amundsen "I" Litter, named after Inuit and Indian words and meanings:

(as always, in act of apereance as they were born)

INDIAN SUMMER Kipp d´Amundsen

I´ve always wanted to name one of our puppies with this beautiful name, and since our little "Summer' was the first born of the litter, born outside on a beautiful sunny autumn day, I could not resist

IKIAQ Kipp d´Amundsen

Ikiaq means "red spruce" in the Inuit language. I searched for names to reflect the red coat of this girl, and this name came out as pretty, natural and unique option.

ICEMAN Kipp d´Amundsen

Ok, this isn´t really neither Inuit, nor Indian name. We had many ideas and options, but the name Iceman kept on comming back to us. Partially in honor of his grand-cousin Ice (our Cheyenne´s brother, who was a wonderful and very beautiful dog that ended up in not very good hands by my big mistake, which I will never forgive myself for), Jachym and I decided this was the right name for this little polar bear resembling guy.

INUKSHUK Kipp d´Amundsen

There´s no need for much explaining of this boy´s name. Inukshuk is a notoriously known symbol of the Inuit people, "the one who shows the way". It became an icon in today´s world and many nature lovers and hikers build inukshuks along the trails all over the globe. Needless to say, inukshuks became a symbol of Canada, over the past few years. With an honorable name like this, we hope our little Inukshuk will become a great part of the team, helping others to find the way, and mabye, you never know..., even becomming a leader :)

For more info about the name and meaning, go to Wikipedia.

INALI Kipp d´Amundsen

You should be careful, what you ask for when naming your dogs! Inali means grey fox in the Cherokee language, and oh-boy - is she ever a smart, fast, cheeky, foxy little gal, already this young! She even manages to climb over the pool, in which the litter resides.

ILUQ Kipp d´Amundsen

Iluq means frost in the language of the Inuit people. Our "frosty" little girl is also one of the last few decendants of an acomplished litter of working siberian huskies from the old Czech bloodlines, where her namesake Iluq, was a main race leader and influential stud dog for many years.

INUIT Kipp d´Amundsen

The smallest girl, the last born in her litter, got the simple, but mighty name of the people of the North. Same as her sibling and twin, Iluq, Inuit is also named in honor of her namesake from the same acomplished litter from the old Czech bloodlines she carries.

Something we didn´t know when we named the puppies, had occured later - Inuit is clearly showing us that she is gonna be a blue-eyed dog. While we don´t care about the eye color in our dogs at all, the Inuits believed, that the blue eyed dogs could see the wind.

Dog Yard Building Project - Part III

Winter came and briefly reminded us that next time it will be serious. As soon as the snow and freeze left, we headed on to the next phase of our building project - the one we really need cooperation of mother nature. We started putting up poles for the fence around the two lots.

This all looks nice, fast and easy, but in reality it isn´t. When you hit a stone, you have to start all over again.

At any rate, Jachym worked out a miracle today, while I was out training dogs, and finished off the first side. Now we need a bit more luck and hope the temps won´t drop too low!

Dr.Fleischman and his friends (littermates) are 3 weeks already

Rizey´s puppies, aka the Northern Exposure litter are chubby and big so nobody really believes us they are just 3 weeks! This litter is exceptionally advanced, which I assume, has a lot to do with the fact that they were born on a 69th day. They opened their eyes as early as at 7 days (!), started to walk well at 2 weeks, and they bark and how on regular basis, too. They developed quite strong teeth before they turned 3 weeks, so we are already feeding them with our special Kipp d´Amundsen Kennels Puppy Formula.

Most recent photos of the brats: http://picasaweb.google.cz/kippsiberians/NorthernExposureLitter3WeeksOld#

Holling

Maggie

Eddie

Joel

And who´s the most naughty, you ask? That´s simple - who´s the only girl in the litter? LOL

She already eats at the table, grabbing dinner gently from my fork, sitting on my lap and looking very important. Yeah, yeah, another naughty girl who cought my heart, I know. This blue-eyed torpedo sure knows how to wrap me around her paws!

More about the little personalities of the four brats in the next puppy update next week.

Icey Run

It is quite icey on the trails at the moment. We either need more snow or some thowing and then have the ground freeze, ideally, before the real winter snow comes.

While the dogs run well and have no problems with feet, I have to be extra careful and make sure they don´t slip on ice, or lose their balance on tight turns. The atv is not very easy to control too, so I was glad to have an extra passanger with me, on the past few runs.

Soon I´ll have a full fall season report ready and information about who´s running in the main string this year, etc. Stay tuned!

Training Pics

Another one of Jachym´s training start series:


Two wonderful Buck daughters Star (left) and Galena, leading the team dynamically.

I promise to take the camera along for one of the next runs, when the weather is nice, and do some "other type of scenery" shooting :)