Birthday Girl McKenzie

CH "PR" Frontier Rain Dancer McKenzie, CGC, HIT, NA, NJ (McKenzie) is celebrating her 11th birthday today. Joining her are daughter "PR" BrownStone Lupin; CH "PR" Moonsong Cedar River Touchdown, CGC, WD (Cedar);  "PR" BrownStone Iditarod Koyuk, WD (Koyuk); and son CH "PR" BrownStone Willamette, CGC, HIT, WD (Willy).

Forever young, McKenzie is still the first to bring a toy to play.

Storm

Last evening while enjoying a good book outside in the 80 degree sunshine, the earth shook - boom!  What the....?!? The temperature instantly dropped. I turned around from my western blue sky view and this was what I saw to the east:  

Fifteen minutes later just as we sat down to dinner, the winds picked up and power went out.

What a wonderful opportunity to uncover the fireplace table and eat alfresco.

The dogs enjoyed the novelty of a non-TV dinner.

 The sky became our evening news.

A Beautiful Day with Dad and Iris

If you are reading this and are also a blogger on Blogspot, you are aware that the cyber powers blocked access to your ability to blog unless you downloaded Google Chrome. Then once you did, you lost your access to e-mail as you knew it; all your blog settings; lost all your favorites; have a new program to figure out with new formatting; and no cyber-power human to swear at.

Well - with that off my chest, I can get to the fun part: a story of my beautiful day with Dad and Iris.

My sister and Iris's children have done an amazing job of making sure Dad and Iris have someone with them 24 hours a day. Sunday, I went up to spend the day and take them on an adventure.
Being Earth-day, the huge garden centers pulled out all stops to draw crowds. Ma Nature was at her showy best for the occasion.

After a long drive through the lush farming, countryside, we first went to a garden center celebrating their 75th anniversary.

I can't say dad was too excited about looking at new and unusual flowers but Iris and I were enthralled. He did, however, enjoy the homemade ice cream in a garden where all of the furniture and pergola doubled as planters.

We then took another long country drive to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival. Seems all of Portland and the Willamette Valley inhabitants also had the same idea.  The festival had simple fair rides, arts booths, "cow" and "dutch shoe" trains full of children being pulled by tractors around the fields, food vendors... 

Mt Hood watching over the brilliant fields

The festival was actually a county fair in a spectacular setting. Imagine the splendor of 40 acres of tulips all in bloom - breathtaking but marred by the crowds and lines everywhere. We waited in long lines to get our authentic Dutch lunch and a place to sit and eat. Iris and I then left dad at the shaded table while we walked to get a closer look at the fields. (There were even lines for that.) I took this picture and we quickly retreated to dad, finished our strawberry lemon-aid and head home.

A well deserved rest for dad after a very long day.

I too now need a nap or chocolate - AARG cyber powers.

Breeding Notice

BrownStone Chinooks and Moonsong Chinooks are proud to announce the breeding of CH "PR" Moonsong Cedar River Touchdown, CGC (Cedar) to GRCH "PR" Moonsong Mukilteo Bluejay, CGC (Jiggles)
All paws are crossed for a large litter of BrownStone Spring Fling pups to be whelped June 15th.

Takotna/Muku Birthday Update

Unfortunately my computer was in it's uncooperative mode when this e-mail was first sent. Fortunately Muku's family re-sent it. But better late than never and well worth the wait. Muku is a beauty.Hi Kay Lee,
Oddly enough, Muku was also sick on her birthday as we weren't taking any photos of her that day. We think she ate something nasty down at the beach...but all is well now. We're still not quite spring yet here, bu don't have anything like the snow you have! We do usually encounter snow on our trail runs, but nothing around our place. We bought Muku a backpack so she can carry her own stuff on our longer runs. I don't know if you could say she likes it, but she is used to it now, and knows we're heading out somewhere fun when I put it on her.

Muku and Ben's birthdays are only 3 days apart so we took some photos of them together...unfortunately Ben's hats wouldn't stay on her head.

Muku with her lynx the day she was whelped.
Ben, Muku and lynxHope you get some warmer weather soon, although it looks like the dogs are enjoying all that snow. Deavah, Brad, Ben and Muku.

The Mountain is Closed

Today was the last ski day of the season. Patrollers enjoyed scenic breaks between hauling everything off the hill for summer storage.

The sign says "please clear unloading area". While Dave spent his day receiving, sorting and packing patrol items, I got to ski. Unfortunately, most of my pictures turned out grainy and missed showing the beautiful day with snow capped mountains in the background.I met up with Lupin's family -sans Lupin. Klara is all set for her ride up the lift. The family on the way down the run.Kerstin skiing with Klara.Anna skiing with dad.Spring snow is "glick" - basically slick, ski grabbing, glue. Always-ready-to-serve patrollers offered wax jobs to suffering skiers. The day ended with a celebratory dinner and brew. Thus ended another good year at Willamette Pass.

Sleepless

I was going to title this entry "Sleepless in Seattle" but I am home and still seriously lacking sleep.
This week, within minutes of the vet's call saying "It's Time! She is ovulating." Cedar and I headed out for Seattle. Rushing around and gathering last minute things I felt like Desi when Lucy famously said: "it's time".

Oscar was beside himself to see Cedar again

Marleen and I have been planning the breeding of her handsome, athletic Oscar with sweet, beautiful Cedar for almost a year. Cedar came into season on April Fool's Day while we were crowded in the motorhome with her boys at the Mush without Slush.This week Cedar and I got to stay in Marleen's beautiful old Seattle area house. Morning coffee with a view of lake Washington and the Olympic Mountains while the dogs raced about the yard - life is good.Alas, inexperienced Marleen, Oscar, Cedar and I could not quite manage the logistics of canine mating (not for want of trying). That afternoon we took the two of them to a repo vet for an unsuccessful turkey baster job. The vet told us to keep them calm and apart until the next morning. Yeah, sure! Every cell in Oscar's being was aware of Cedars hormones. He had whined and howled all night the night before. Now for an afternoon and night they had to be kept apart?!

Oscar on one side of the doorway gate...coy Cedar on the other

Friday the 13th morning the vet found Oscar not quite mature enough to produce adequate sperm. She felt Cedar's window of fertility was near to closing, if not already there. Marleen and I were totally crushed as we threw all my stuff into the van for a trip north to see if Cedar could be bred to one the Moonsong boys. Fortunately, Jiggles found Cedar still fertile and she happily complied with the breeding. Pleased with himself, Jiggles went back to his crate; Carie went back to work; and Cedar and I headed south.

Willy, McKenzie and Koyuk were so excited to see us home - especially Willy. Both of his girls still smelling of hormones kept him quite noisy and occupied all night. Of course all of the dogs don't want me out of their sight so for now I am also sleepless in Eugene.

Paws are crossed for a successful litter to be whelped the second week in June.

Guard Dogs?

Chinook dogs are about to be given full recognition as an AKC breed. AKC has decided to group them with (be shown in confirmation competition against) guard dogs. Not sled dogs or other northern breeds like Huskies or Malamutes - guard dogs like Rottweiler's and Doberman Pinter's.
This morning I received these wonderful pictures of Lupin - guardian of Klara.

The Wait

Two things I am terrible at: waiting and dealing with computer problems. I just endured two and 1/2 days without being able to get to my e-mail and hours of phone calls to India and the Philippines. My other burden right now is waiting for Cedar to ovulate. We will head to her date with her handsome stud, Oscar, as soon as she does. Until then, the computer is still not 100% working and Koyuk is ovulating. How do I know? Willy has not been further than 2" from her during the past 24 hours. Poor boy is tormented.
I searched my photos of Cedar for this blog. This one struck me with the most humor. Smiles are nice while I wait (and listen to Willy's whines and moans.)

Mush Without Slush video

Cedar and Koyuk were too interested in flirting with the boys to sit for a picture by themselves. Jill Wilson, a fellow musher and friend, created an amazing video of the Mush Without Slush weekend. Being tech-knowless I could not figure out how to post the video itself to this page. The next best option is for everyone to copy/paste the following URL and watch it on Youtube. The start of one of Team Nookies runs is right at the first. We are the red rig.
Check the video out and get hooked on dog powered sports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1wUUq-DJdI

If it is Snowing, it Must be Wednesday

We awoke to snow. It must be Wednesday. After a weekend of record rain, blizzards and flooding, Monday's sun was more than welcome. After hanging laundry to dry, I surveyed the backyard storm damage.Still snowing - still Wednesday.

Mush without Slush

Friday, Team Nookies loaded up in the motorhome and headed over the pass for the 2nd annual Mush without Slush race. Eugene got a record 3" of rain that day. We drove by flooding rivers and through a mountain blizzard. Marlene drove all the way from Seattle with her two Chinooks to join us in the very wet Oregon desert. Saturday morning the slushless mush looked like a muck mush. Cedar "camping" Team Nookies racing in the rain. Poor Koyuk came into season and had to wear panties. Poor Oscar was crazed. I opted not to add him to the team. Nearing the finish line.There were some large teams and some small teams. Bored Huskies waiting to run. finally on the trail - a finish by the nose
Sunday we awoke to snowand the winner is - weighing in at 50 pounds...Oscar and Cedar on the courseWe had 6 Chinooks at the event. By the time this picture was taken, both Cedar and Koyuk were in season. I had to hold them back from the males.Returning over the pass, we again hit a blizzard. Cedar and Koyuk were more than glad to run about in the Oregon rain forest once we finally got down out of the slow going snow and ice."About time mom. I really did need to pee"