January
I am using my time waiting for the ball to drop by going through thousands of pictures taken this eventful year. What a trip down memory lane. It is hard to pare down to just a couple pictures per month - especially July and August with the puppies.
January1st Dave was waking up from heart surgery.
January 27th, he was up at the ski area...
and the dogs and I were making the first sled run of the year.
February
The dogs and I did several more sled runs...
and the first skijor for the dogs and Mindy.
March
March came in like a lamb. Oregon was starting the driest year on record.
Koyuk and her intended Oscar competed in the huge Seattle AKC show. Koyuk won two,1st place Chinook Bitch classes and a !st place, Bred-by in the Working Class. Oscar completed his AKC Championship making him the first, male Chinook to earn an AKC Championship.
April
Koyuk had her third birthday.
April
Team Nookies at the Mush-Without-Slush races.
McKenzie has her 13th birthday.
May
Spring beauties.
Oscar and Koyuk tied the knot so to speak.
June
Dave and I taught sail school with very - very - very low water.
McKenzie
Cedar
July
I was determined to win a calendar contest. The poor dogs had to endlessly pose in the heat.(But they are now Ms July)
July 25 the BrownStone Cascade Peaks litter was whelped. Koyuk brought 7 beautiful pups into the world, including one that was whelped between the front and back seat of the van on the way home from the vet. I will be forever grateful to calm Karmin, my canine mid-wife.
August
Moonsong Silver (now named Mouse) was brought down from Seattle as a foster pup in Koyuk's litter.
Then there were eight.
My sister, niece, two great nieces and great nephew came from Los Vegas and Salem to meet the puppies. Mutual love at first sight. Keegan left the whelping box with numerous puppy hickies from their attempts to nurse on his chubby thighs.
Koyuk nursed up to week 8 but the puppies got their first solid food August 15th. For several days, they wore as much food as they ate.
September
September was a month of joy with very active puppies, lots of company and sadness with the puppies leaving to their forever homes.
Cedar bonding with Navy boy - now Trask.
This litter of puppies were walking and checking out their environment right from birth. On September 4th they discovered sliding down the steep hill into the muddy edge of the back pond. Some got to take several trips before I could corral all of the fast little runners for a bath.
Nookies for the vet.
Sire Oscar and Chinook Toby came to see the first puppy off to his forever home on the 20th.
Mom Koyuk and grand-mom Cedar gave Karuk (now Alaka'i) one last bath before he left.
Mazama (now Bramble) went to live with a family that has Cedar's daughter Muku. I hadn't seen her since she left here three years ago. What a treat!
Trask, Loowit (now Tule Loowit) and Pahto (now Kyrik) after one hour of Puppergarten.
October
I took Cedar, McKenzie, Koyuk and Trask on my annual fall trip to the mountains. At nine weeks old, Trask was too young and McKenzie is getting too old to backpack so we made it a day trip.
How to make a macrame leash.
Cedar, Koyuk, Trask and I got to spend a couple days at Tule Loowit's cabin. Koyuk and Cedar took Greg for his first rig ride but they were quickly joined by Trask and Tule dragging Sarah behind.
We hiked to a mountain lake where the four dogs could run free.
Trask and Tule.
Trask.
Cedar in the Autumn leaves.
November
LaPine Mushing weekend. Nine Chinooks, with Trask in the lead, made up the largest Chinook sled dog team in the PNW.
Another macrame leash line.
Team Nookies racing into the staging area.
The Brown Family welcomed it's newest member just prior to Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving with my "Brown" family.
December
The first week in December we got over a foot of snow and frigid temperatures. I got to mush the mile mailbox run five days in a row.
Cedar on her 6th birthday.
We still had snow for Christmas with my family.
Not much snow - but enough for sledding and making Frosty.
Christmas with Dave's Brown family found him still very healthy and happy.
BrownStone Lupin joined us Christmas eve.
Two days ago Tule, Alaka'i and their families joined us for an early New Years Celebration. And what a celebration! We had 7 excited Chinooks and steak scraps for treats.
This was the driest year on record. We are down over 25" of rain and the mountains are bare of snow. I spent the last day of the year sanding my sled.Maybe wet varnish will conger up snow.
Only minutes left until the ball drops Pacific time and the adventures of 2014 begin. Happy New Years.
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