our first white christmas!
we were at a friends christmas eve party and we looked out the window to see it was snowing. the snow continued through the night and we awoke to 10cms of fresh white stuff!

what a great way to celebrate christmas. A memorable christmas for sure, experiencing something that was so different to what we are used to.

this picture was taken from our back door.

first race for the season
i entered the team into our first outing at 100 mile house in central BC, Canada on January the 8 and 9, 2005. We are going to compete in the 12 dog, 20 mile class.

This will be a good experience for the team, especially the four yearlings because this will be their first race. Only 2 weeks to go now, we are tapering the training for this event. Not sure what will be the final line up of the team yet. One of the dogs will have to sit on the sidelines as we have 13 dogs in the kennel for a 12 dog race.

Wish us luck!

the new sled
well i am lucky to have an engineer as a boyfriend. well most of the time i am not sure that its such a good thing LOL. it sure comes in handy with building projects. He is building a steering sled that i am excited to get a chance to drive. It is almost finished, just needs the basket and the finishing touches.

The steering system works through a bracket system which is simple and reliable. The bracket system is supported by cable steering. The basket length will be able to be changed. The attachement points of the stanctions to the runners will be able to be shifted between 2 different positions. This will allow the sled to function as a sprint sled as well as a mid distance sled.

I am really excited about this feature because when i am running with no weight in the sled eg like a sprint i will be able to be further along the runners, closer the middle, the optimal position for my weight to be. When i have a load, such as gear needed for a distace run i will able to have a longer basket to fit everything in and still be in a comfortable driving position.


if you would like to learn more about this sled design you can email me at bestsurfiechick@hotmail.com

still raining
well we have had a lot of rain here and the snow is melting away. i actually saw the ground yesterday and that was sad. making it hard to run on the home trails so we drove out to wells today. the forecast was for snow last night and this morning at wells but it was raining there too. we went out on a rain and even though it was a little wet it was still fun.

the dogs really did run well today, a good solid, trouble free run. i was most impressed with sitka today who ran in lead for most of the run, this was her biggest challenge in lead with 8 dogs behind her and the longest run. she led for about 15 miles and then she seemed to be getting tired. Not wanting to push her too much i decided to swap her with another dog.

the trail at wells was pretty good, it was just a bit slushy. we ran up to the summit of bold mountain and then back down again, approx 20 miles. there is not too much to say when it all goes well!

poor trail conditions - rain and ice
things were not looking good when it starting raining heavily last night. i was just in town, sending off some last minute prezzies to family back in Oz when the rain starting coming down. It was very disappointing to see. the rain is what winter is like in Australia, well in Ballarat especially, just miserable.

i had intended to do a short run today with a 10 dog string just to see how they work together. i put together this team last night because i was trying to scope out which dogs would be best for the first race we are intending to do. we are planning on heading to 100 mile house to take part in the 12 dog, 20 miler in early Jan. the trail was not looking so good, with a slippery icy crust. i decided it was not worth the risk of injury, i didnt want any of the dogs throwing a shoulder because that is an injury that would take at least 4 weeks to heal.

so instead i let the dogs run around in the yard. i call this "playtime". they are just running around and saying 'hello' to the other dogs. of course all the boys are busy peeing on as many things as they can! it is just a mental pick me up and good for the dogs getting comfortable with each other. i find it is a really fun time where i can just watch the dogs interacting with each other and just being dogs. there was one little issue with a yound female, Sitka, she is very dominating and needs to mature more. she started a fight today which i was not at all pleased about. i will just have to keep on working with her and letting her know what is acceptable and whats not. she is working really well in harness now and even looking great in lead, i just need to work out these aggression issues she has towards some of the other bitches in the yard.



sitka looking all cute with jeff