Sweaty pets

Pretty flowers all over my meadow... love them!

Just the other morning at 5:30 am a momma grizzly bear and two cubs(big cubs though!) walked through the meadow. What a sight to see! They mosied on through, didn't hang around for more than 5 minutes, which was good. One cub was looking kind of playful too as it seemed to bounce up to momma bear and then run away....it was quite entertaining even though it was 5:30am!

Here I am implementing "Operation: Keep Dogs In Meadow!!" (due to bears and porcupines and elk... it's a busy summer around here for wildlife!)

Lucy the biggest porcupine lover in my yard is occupied with something less spikey.

Luckily she is super easy to distract! :)

Frolicking... but not too far! Get back here Gracie-in-the-meadow!

Cherry-picker Lucy hangs out far away. That's how her little legs get her to the ball fastest! George is back there, but her main goal is to jump on Harris' head and bite him (lovingly) to show him who's boss.

The ball is under my foot here . They can really focus when they want to. There were 6 heads in total surrounding me, haha.

Playing ball does the trick. These little maniacs are totally addicted. Sleds? Skis? Snow? Eh, whatever! Let's move to Mexico so we can play ball all year!

Mohawk boy Harris. I wonder why my cabin is so hairy?

Yep, that's pretty hairy. And I've *tried* to brush him but these guys don't seem to like to sit still for a few minutes for a brushing. And since it's not MY favourite activity, I let them get away with it.

And my new (stolen) idea for a new business:

Lots of this stuff around here in the summer. Care to buy a bottle? :)

Yeah, kayak fishing

My first kayak fishing adventure:

Oh man what a BEAUTIFUL day we had! Dave, Heather and I did the "lazy fisherman's" fishing, in fact we could probably write the book on that after our day of fishing last week. It involves arriving at their place around 10am (or later), finishing packing up (lots of gear needed!), going for breakfast in town, grabbing some food/drink at the grocery store for the day because some of us (ME) suck at getting prepared for things, heading to Canadian Tire to buy a PFD because some people (ME) don't own one, losing Dave in the store, annnnnd finally! Heading out of town.


Annnnnd then, getting to the lake, unloading the kayaks, taking care of pet dogs who snuck in the truck(ok, not really) to join us on the trip, and packing up the kayaks, getting Stacie set up in her kayak, even though she brought absolutely NO fishing gear (doh!), and lastly... making sure you have enough sour wine gums in your pockets and water to survive on should you capsize and have to spend the next 30 days fending for yourself in the wilds of the Yukon.

(excuse the overexposed photo, I was so excited to hop in the kayak, I didn't check the camera settings! Wheeee!)

Doesn't take much to get me excited these days.

So! We got on the water at 3:00pm. Ha! Now that's my kind of fishing. Thank goodness it's light out... well, all night!

Me paddling away from Dave & Heather... c'mon, LET'S GO FISH!!!!!

Behold! The magical, beautiful, awesome fishing kayak.


Behold! My set up. I have, um... crocs and water. And sour wine gums... just in case.



Ahhh, peace and serenity on the beautiful lake... and Dave stealing all my fish.



This is what happens when you catch a fish and have no pliers or net or any way to set it free from the hook. You end up placing the rod in the kayak and holding it with your FEET, while taking picutres, AND paddling over to Dave, who is set up to the hilt - yelling "DAAAAVE!!!! Hey DAAAVE!! Frick, why can't he hear me, he's like just around the corner!!! Argh!!!! DAAAVE!!! Damned you wind!!!! DAAAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"




There's my little precious. A pike who Dave released... probably because the fish was too big of a monster and Dave didn't want ME to get the biggest, baddest fish. Actually this was probably more of the friendliest, most non-confrontational fish. He came along for the boat ride without much of a fuss.


How comfy does that boat look??

Speaking of weird photos!

I call this "Crocs n' boat via acid trip"

I think by this time the sun was starting to go down. Which means it's still deceptively bright out but getting a bit cooler.


When we got off the water, some SEVEN hours later (it's addicting I tell ya), we sprinted to the truck to put on more clothes and didn't realize how freakin' cold we all were. I knew it was cold when I put my frozen bare feet in the lake when I stepped out of the boat and it felt WARM! Yukon lakes rarely feel warm.


Yep, it's definitely darker out. Dave and Heather paddle towards me to get to the last bit of fishing grounds before we have to head home.

True hermit-dom!

So due to all the freakin' PORCUPINES, we are all on lockdown at the homestead. I'm seriously thinking of fencing off the whole lot o' land just to keep the critters out and so we can have our freeeeedom! I'm going nuts, so are the dogs.

Is it winter yet? *sigh*

Yesterday Jack was out for like, FIVE minutes, and was withing range for me to see him for about 4.5 of those minutes. I called him when I didn't see him and he came back with quills on his back, in his face, under his chin... they were mostly broken and not really "IN" him. I think he came across a porky carcass. Still annoying though, he fights like a possessed demon when he sees pliers anywhere near him! They're totally out to get us, those quilly buggers. Not that I'm paranoid or anything, but I know they're peering in the cabin at night... the whole herd of porcupines, hoping to poke yet another dog... or five. Or a human.

Then I'm at work and find a quill sticking out of my pants today. It's totally a porcupine conspiracy!!!

On the plus side, there's hardly ANY bugs out? What is with that? I'm half expecting the apocalypse.

In other news... ooh, I did run across a BABY elk the other day on the highway! I didn't actually "run across" it, that would be bad. I was on my bike, and momma elk and baby were up a hundred feet ahead of me on the shoulder of the hwy. Not a great spot to be for this wee baby who was the size of a medium dog, soooo tiny! So I waited as to not freak them out riding up close to them and they darted off into the woods, then back out across the hwy... which they made it safely across despite the plethora of RV's zooming by. Saturday was highway patrol day for me. I then had the pleasure of herding the trio of horses away from the shoulder of the road too. All of this within 2kms!

That beats the day I went for bike ride the week before. I went about .5km and ended up coming home with a random husky-mutt. His mini-doberman buddy followed for a bit too, but didn't come right back to the homestead. I had to bush-whack back to my place so they didn't follow me on the road, came back scratched and bitten and sweaty... not the bike ride I had intended on having.

Why can't I just go out for ONE uneventful activity?!?!?!

And my laptop is being problematic again, argh. That's the reason for the lack of my online presence right now. You'd think it would enable me to get more done around the cabin, and that's sort of true due to our long days, but now I also waste significant time reading books like "Eclipse" (damn you entertaining vampires!) and watching numerous movies via satellite and staining my deck and stacking wood and yanking snow fencing out of the trees. Ok, I've been pretty productive. Next weekend is drywall weekend Part 2! The excitement literally never ends.

I have many blog updates, lots of photos, new websites to unveil (hopefully this decade) and lots more for your reading pleasure, but it'll have to wait! Maybe I can start selling porcupine quills for laptop fund-raising??!! :)