What happens when I'm at work

This happened last week, but it's still worth mentioning!

Apparently when I'm at work and no one is home... the elk come for a visit!

I heard the dogs barking around 9:30am and looked outside to see this.

And this!

Someone was curious and came right up to the cabin!

There was probably 40-50 of these guys hanging out.

Messin' up my driveway and meadow... sheesh!

I really had this weird feeling that I was being watched all morning...

They stayed all morning and even started napping!

The view from the loft.

After the novelty of having 40-some elk in your yard was over, I was eager for them to get on their way. I couldn't let any dogs out while these guys hung out and even though I was home sick I needed cabin company!

So they eventually left when Pooh Bear! started her screeching - apparently that noise is elk deterrent!

Extreme sports have nothing on Skijoring!

God I love skijoring. I think it's the adrenalin rush you get when you are *almost* out of control and speeding down the trail. And then when you get it together and stay upright after almost falling or you narrowly miss running over the dogs, it's a even bigger rush!

We headed out today on our 8km skijor, I had Ripper and Pooh Bear! in harness, and Loki and Esther - the shy guys - running loose. I did have Esther harnessed up just in case Ripper or PB pooped out, you never know... and I was not wanting to ski up that hill on the way back alone!

Are you wondering what the heck I'm talking about when I talk about the excitement? I think this little video explains it pretty well. You may not get the feel for how freakin' fast we were zooming down that hill or how narrow that stupid hill is which makes it impossible to snowplow and slow down, but if nothing else it's entertaining!


What's even more entertaining is watching said video of yourself and realizing how much you scream and laugh and basically never shut up! Thank goodness the dogs are used to it and pretty much ignore me. :)


Loki waits and waits, and the POUNCES on these guys when they get close. Or he gets run over.

Ok, so what dog in their right mind would LAY DOWN IN SLUSH in the middle of winter!??! What dog in their right mind would CONTINUE TO LAY IN SLUSH UNTIL SHE STARTS TO FREEZE or until you yank her out of the water?

Where she is laying is total water under the snow. Over to the right, where there is no snow, it's nice n' frozen! But nooooo, let's lay in the water when it's -15C out! Who does that? But wait. Maybe she's following my lead, look where I am, also in the slush. Plus I'm taking pictures. Oops! What a pair we make!

Pooh Bear! That's who! At least she's got personality.

Look at my ski in this photo, ha! This is what happens to skis when they go through slush and then start to freeze. I found you gotta move FAST and knock that slush off or you're pretty much screwed.


They also get REALLY heavy! What makes it even more FUN is when the dogs attached to you could care less whether you have cement blocks on your feet and they attempt to pull you. Skis with frozen slush on them and dogs pulling = Stacie flat on her face.


The culprit who could care less whether he dragged me on my face or not - Ripper. This is the way our relationship has been for 5+ years. It's probably payback for all those gloves and socks and a million other things I took away before he could swallow them.

This is us going through the ice and slush, but mostly ice. I figured out how to avoid the WET stuff on the way back. Stay on the ICE not the snow. Snow=slush. Oh, and if you've seen Talladega Nights you'll know where I'm getting my accent from:

Pooh Bear was acting like she was going to DIE going over the ice before this, hence my comment about us "making it out aliiiiive!" She was literally on her belly, clawing into the ice and shuffling along at first. On the way back here she definitely got the hang of it even if she was wayyyy over to the side.


But she lived to make it back home, yay!!! :-)


Esther nose, hahaha! I love this shot. That is what I see when I'm on the ground with them in case you're wondering.


A wee bit icy. Nothing a few hours hanging over the wood stove won't cure! (the pants, not me)

Icy PB!


The beautiful and elusive Loki!

Pooh Bear Therapy

For Hire: Pooh Bear! Therapy (aka: PB!T)

*Are there days when you're feeling a little bit down, in a bit of a low mood, or just in need some cheering up? Well, have we got the answer for you!


Our fully-trained-in-therapy-even-though-she-has-no-clue-what-it-is Pooh Bear! model is there to annoy the hell... help you through your difficult times.

Had a bad day? PB!T is there to DEMAND your attention.
 
Have a drinking problem?  PB!T is there to distract your hands from picking up the bottle as she forces you to pet her every waking moment. Even when you pass out on the couch, she will be there the second you flinch to get some attention make sure you're ok. When you're passed out on the floor she will stand over top of you for HOURS until you regain consciousness (be careful not to move too fast if you have long hair though, she has a habit of standing on it).

Stressed out at work? PB!T is there to greet you after a long, difficult day.

Isn't it time you gave in to the Power of the Pooh Bear!?? Stop spinning in circles, PB!T will do that for you!

Even thought at times it may look like she only cares about HERSELF, it is really YOU she is trying to please. She will keep at it until you are happy. No, really, she will seriously keep at it. I don't think you're understanding me, she has stamina, she will keep at it until you snap!

But you'll forget about all your other problems because she will be so in-your-face, you will not be able to concentrate on anything else.


One of our many satisfied customers.

Call for prices. All major credit cards accepted. Payment plans available.  Pooh Bear! insists that YOU come visit her however (she doesn't like to fly) so please check Air North for flights to Whitehorse. When you arrive, Pooh Bear! will find you! It's the Power of the Pooh...


*apologies to poor Heather for being the model for depression in this post, but really, you know what you're in for when you visit and the camera comes out. You did sign the disclaimer, remember?

Vote for this totally, extremely earth-shattering important cause!

I need to know what colours you like.

It's important. It's ground-breaking and the world will stop on a dime if you don't vote y'know. Ok, not really but indulge me pleeeeeaaase! In case you haven't heard me blather on about it on Facebook, I'm taking a web design course (Part 2, go me!) and am LOVING IT! Right now I'm in the "criticize-every-website-you-visit-because-for-5-minutes-you-actually-think-you-know-what-you're-doing!" phase of things and MY GOD. Have you looked around on the internet lately?

Yeah, there are some crappy sites out there. Here is one of them: Yukon Yahoos 

Yes, I have to take credit for that horror show. I liked it at the beginning of the project when I-didn't-know-what-the-hell-I-was-doing-and-creating-a-header-in-Photoshop-made-me-pee-with-excitement. But I can't stand to look at it now. Mostly it's everything about the design but also the fact that it's not even the complete site. I uploaded it when I wasn't quite finished the real project and never went back to fix things. Oh well.

Problems with that site:

• I was going for a "wood grain" background but it came out looking like a 1970's couch.
• Orange? And red? Really??
• The generic white dog mushing thingy... just... blahhhh...
• too lazy to go back and add videos to the VIDEO page

The good news! I did like my photo pop-up thingy, it's just a bit wonky. I also liked... what else was there? I was sure there was something else.... hm. I guess if I have to think that hard, it's a bad sign.

So that site will be up and running and replace this thing eventually, but I need ideas, colour schemes, logos, etc!  If you have any suggestions - like what colours do you think go well with this site, us, the dogs, me, my theme (whatever that is, and NOT brown for dog-crap please), let me know in the comments.  I may or may not listen, may or may not take total credit for your suggestions, but I can't guarantee anything!

Here is one thing that annoys me - advertising on sites, especially the cheesy, generic Google ads. I was searching at work for tables and table carts to purchase and came across this site, Banquet tables or Google Ads? You decide! There are ads in the middle of this page and a gigantic ad box at the bottom. The fact that there are ads that make the page way longer annoy me. There is some info at the bottom that their consumers might just be interested in but they have to scroll down past competitor ads for the same product first! 

Anyhoo I'm getting carried away. Good thing this week's assignment is to pick a website and criticize it, haha. I think I inadvertently found my site. 

Here is another project that was fun to work on (FB people have seen this). We were asked to replicate a real estate site from our text book. Here is my version of that site and be sure to read carefully! :)

http://courses.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~szaychuk/assignment_1/index.html

I had a dream I failed this assignment! ha!

Oh yeah, and my poll (the damned reason I started this post but got sidetracked) is on the sidebar.  Happy Voting!

Trail packin'!

New snow, yippee! The glorious white stuff has been pretty sparse this year up until now. But the SNOW GODS are now making up for it! It's a freakin' winter wonderland out there now.

Sorry for the crappy picture quality, apparently I inadvertently chose the "grainy" setting! Damn new fangled technology that I just can't be bothered to take the time to actually figure out!

This was a bit tempting, a broken down gigantic truck with a huge load of wood just past my driveway!


Heading out to pack the trails, thanks to Darrell's sweet trail groomer that not only packs the trail but levels it out as well. This will be nice for the "land of anthills" around here.


Packing trail on the river


The lovely snowy Mendenhall


George was having a blast, I had 7 maniacs running with me exploring the river as I packed trails.


Trying to find new trails through all the meadows, it was rather confusing at times! But the willow-whacking was a great workout.



We found an open meadow, yay! I love when it opens up like this, was a nice spot to make a big turnaround loop.


Kuna pulls up the rear. It was a good weekend, these guys got almost 20km of running in. In those 20km, only Jack and Harris were actually working dogs in harness for 5km on our skijor yesterday. The fresh, abundant snow made for some tougher skijoring for all of us.


Heading into one of the many meadows, it's really hummocky and bumpy! It looks like there's no snow, and there wasn't much the FIRST time I went out packing trails. I expect a very different scenario next time!


This was pretty funny to see, after about 10km, all the girls (Gracie, Ivy, Lucy and George) were just trotting in behind me, no attempt anymore to run all over and up the banks of the river. Just enough energy to follow the skidoo. Tired dogs, yippee!

Things I thought I'd never see...

The two biggest beeyotches in the yard, Gracie and Ivy...

... sharing a pillow?!?

Has hell frozen over? Have pigs started flying?


Ahhhh, I see... dog food in the cabin right across from said pillow = baaaad idea!

In Ivy's defense, I think she just really likes that pillow. Someone else, on the other hand, has ulterior motives. I need some outdoor storage eh?

New Year's Eve fun

The New Year's Eve celebrations took place at Steph's brand-spanking new beautiful and cozy house this year! We head out to the giganto bonfire pit as we get closer to midnight - there were rumours that there were going to be midnight fireworks in the neighbourhood!


Bonfires at -30C, why not??!



FIRE!!!!!!


You tend to get rather close to the fire when it's -30 out.

And you tend to do other weird things... is this just a Yukon thing or...?

Notice it's the HUMANS howling, not the dogs so much.

Steve and Heather attempt the 2-person wave. Um, not so successful according to Dave's reaction.

Or maybe it stalled out AT Dave! Bad Dave.


Photo as seen through the lens of too many rum n' eggnogs.

Near midnight, we headed up to Stephanie's gigantic porch that overlooks the whole Yukon (ok, I exaggerate a bit, but you can really see a long way!!).  There were fireworks ALL over the place. We saw about 4-5 different light shows. Granted, they were far away, but still pretty cool!

Jen, Steph and Dave (aka: Kenny) "ooh" and "ahhh"


Steph is probably laughing at Steve's one-man wave:

Wheeeee!!!

Then he gets all serious - "watch the fireworks and stop taking pictures!"

I can't... I just have this need to document every freakin' minute - sorry, I'm a blog-a-holic. Perhaps I need to attend bloggy rehab.

Here's a wee video of our lovely view and various firework shows! Ok, it's pretty black so you kind of just have to use your imagination and look REALLLLY hard for the fireworks.  I think Steph's comment at the end of "this is like being in the nosebleeds at a concert!" was spot on! Haha!



Following the fireworks and midnight crossover into 2010 is a BIG GROUP HUG!

As seen from as far as my damned arm could reach over top of us!

Kenny says:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Happy 2010!

Wow, 2010! Happy New Year from my pack to yours!

(click on the picture for a larger view!)