Published July 26th, 2008
in General.
We’re off to compete in the North Shore Dragon Boat Festival today. We had practice and the parade of teams last night. Team Gunflint is made up of 22 people of the Gunflint Trail and their friends. It was a bit breezy last night in the harbor of Grand Marais and right now it’s pretty breezy again. Maybe we’ll all get lucky and the winds will die down before our first race at noon today. Last year we took 2nd in our division but were just a few seconds shy of having a time fast enough to compete in the overall finals, known as the palladium race. We are going to try to make that race this year. Our crew is a lot of fun and very competitive so we hope to have a good chance.
Time go get outside get dog chores done and pack the truck for a day in Grand Marais. If you are in the area and are looking for something fun to do today, come down to the harbor and watch 20+ teams of 22 paddlers compete in the North Shore Dragon Boat Festival.
Published July 25th, 2008
in General.
I got this photo in an e-mail and wondered what the heck kind of dog is this? Turns out it’s a Komondor dog, and I thought it was a mop!
I googled Komondor dog and this is what Wikipedia had to say:
Females are 27 inches (69cm) at the withers. Male Komondorok are a minimum of 28 inches at the withers, but many are over 30 inches tall, making this one of the larger common breeds of dog. The body is not overly coarse or heavy, however, and people unfamiliar with the breed are often surprised by how quick and agile the dogs are.
Coat
Its long, thick, strikingly corded white coat (the heaviest amount of fur in the canine world) resembles dreadlocks or a mop. The puppy coat is soft and fluffy. However, the coat is wavy and tends to curl as the puppy matures. A fully mature coat is formed naturally from the soft undercoat and the coarser outer coat combining to form tassels, or cords. Some help is needed in separating the cords so the dog does not turn into one large matted mess. The length of the cords increases with time as the coat grows. Shedding is very minimal with this breed, contrary to what one might think (once cords are fully formed). The only substantial shedding occurs as a puppy before the dreadlocks fully form. The Komondor is born with only a white coat, unlike the similar-looking Puli, which is usually white, black or sometimes grayish. However, a working Komondor’s coat may be discolored by the elements, and may appear off-white if not washed regularly. Traditionally the coat protected the Komondor from the wolfs bite. The wolf wasn’t able to bite the dog through the thick coat.
Temperament
The Komondor’s temperament is like that of most livestock guarding dogs; it is calm and steady when things are normal. In cases of trouble, the dog will fearlessly defend its charges. It was bred to think and act independently and make decisions on his own. It is extremely affectionate with its family and friends and gentle with the children of the family. Although wary of strangers, it will nonetheless accept them when it is clear that no harm is meant. It is very protective of its family, home and possessions. It will instinctively guard them. The breed has a natural guardian instinct. An athletic dog, the Komondor is fast and powerful and will leap at a predator to drive it off or knock it down. It can be used successfully to guard sheep against wolves or bears. An explosion in the coyote population and a reluctance to use poison baits has led to a renaissance in the use of the Komondor as a flock guardian in the United States.
Sure am glad I don’t have to brush that thing. And I thought Willie’s coat was tough!
Published July 24th, 2008
in General.
Sorry about the title, but as I write this the Toby Keith song “Whiskey For My Men, Beer For My Horses” is playing on the radio. In our case it’s “water for the dogs” since Mother Nature has been blessing us with nice weather (warm temperatures and no rain) which translates into a dusty dog yard at feeding time. To mitigate the dust we move the sprinkler around it for about a 1/2 hour when we get home. I have all but given up on Mark trying to get real grass in the triangle in front of the cabin, so I think it’s better use of gas to put it on the dog yard. I came home early today to met Don McKeever of McKeever Well Drilling who FINALLY replaced our hydrant. (Don’t even ask me about the crew that actually drilled our well that were supposed to show up two weeks ago).
After the guys fixed the hydrant and headed down the road, I fired up the generator and did the watering of the dog yard. While some of the dogs hate the sprinkler a few of them seem to like it, like Athena. If you click on the photo you can also see that Scooter is hiding in his house and The Noodle is laying next to his loving the water too. I think the fact that he is 1/4 German Shorthair Pointer has something to do with that! What’s surprising about Athena liking the water is that our infamous Butthead is her grandfather and he HATED getting wet, especially his feet. Her mother, Innoko, was Butthead’s father so I guess she got her love of the water from her father Ceaser.
I need to say a special thanks to Don McKeever for coming out this afternoon, it is greatly appreciated. Although he didn’t give us the best news…his advice to us; “don’t drink your water until you get a well test”. I showed him a canning jar of water that we took out of a bucket we had filled a couple of weeks ago and it has “floaters” in it and he thinks it might be some sort of algae. He suggested that we bleach the well and then get it tested to make sure, but will more than likely be just fine. But you never know. We have been drinking the water since the well went in last October, and we haven’t felt sick, so hopefully we’re fine. As I seem to be saying a lot lately…wish us luck.
Published July 23rd, 2008
in General.
While beaver might be cute to some people, they are rodents to us. Look at what they have done to our road. A beaver dam broke and nearly washed out the road. Mark has been a mighty beaver hunter as of late before they make the road completely impassable. (Sorry about the quality of the photo…it’s the lack of a flash again).
According to Wikipedia
Beavers are semi-aquatic rodents native to North America and Europe. They are the only extant members of the family Castoridae, which contains a single genus, Castor. Genetic research has shown the European and North American beaver populations to be distinct species and that hybridization is unlikely.
Beavers are best known for their natural trait of building dams in rivers and streams, and building their homes (known as beaver lodges) in the resulting pond. They are the second-largest rodent in the world (after the capybara).
They are also known for their “danger signal”: when startled or frightened, a swimming beaver will rapidly dive while forcefully slapping the water with its broad tail. This creates a loud ’slap’, audible over large distances above and below water. This noise serves as a warning to other beavers in the area. Once a beaver has made this danger signal, all nearby beavers will dive and may not reemerge for some time. Although this happens rarely, a frightened beaver may attack a human.
Fossil remains of beavers are found in the peat and other superficial deposits of England and the continent of Europe; while in the Pleistocene formations of England and Siberia occur remains of a giant extinct beaver, Trogontherium cuvieri, representing a genus by itself.
Beavers have webbed hind-feet, and a broad, scaly tail. They have poor eyesight, but keen senses of hearing, smell, and touch.
Beavers continue to grow throughout life. Adult specimens weighing over 25 kg (55 lb) are not uncommon. Females are as large as or larger than males of the same age, which is uncommon among mammals.
Wish Mark luck in being a Mighty Beaver Hunter.
Published July 22nd, 2008
in General.
Zena and Carstenz (mother and daughter) are hopefully pregnant. If they aren’t they sure are getting fat! Although we did think the same thing about Tucson in May and she didn’t have any puppies. In the last couple of days both of them have started to get pretty wide around their ribcages. They haven’t moved further down yet, but we are expecting that by the end of next weekend, both will be waddling around their respective puppy pens which we moved them to on Sunday afternoon to get them used to their new surroundings before the puppies comes. While we don’t think we have to worry about Zena being uncomfortable since this will be her fourth litter, this will be Carstenz’s first.
We always worry we will forget a female out in the pens away from the rest of the dogs at feeding time, but with these two loudmouths I don’t think we can. When I went to feed last night, Carstenz was louder than the other forty dogs in the dog yard! She certainly won’t let us forget.
Abby Prom and Troy Groeneveld, we will keep you posted on Zena’s belly. Abby gets the honor of naming the puppies since Zena is “her dog” in the BL.A.C.Klub and Troy is anxiously awaiting as his dog Pingo is the father of the puppies. Anne and Jim Schuller, we’ll keep you posted on Carstenz as you get to name her litter since The Princess didn’t produce!
Stay tuned…August might find us increasing our kennel size…hopefully!
Published July 21st, 2008
in General.
It’s a good thing I got outside and enjoyed the late morning and early afternoon. By 4:00 when Mark came home from loading the last of the freezer parts on the trailer to take to the dump this week, there was thunder off in the distance. It took a couple of hours to start raining, but it rumbled off and on for quite a while.
Roxy was a happy dog as Mark took her with to Duane Ege’s sawmill where he had the freezer parts. A big thank you again to Duane for helping Mark load up the heavy pieces with his fork truck! While Roxy was a happy dog going for a ride, she was a pooped dog when she got home.
The gardens are finally starting to look nice. We had a beautiful summer day during the day yesterday with temperatures in the 80’s and the sun shining. The garden next to the sauna is almost complete, I just need one more bag of mulch around the Bleeding Hearts.
I took advantage of the warm weather and a lazy Sunday afternoon enjoying a Danielle Steel book in a lawn chair laying in the sun. I was only out there for about an hour, but my stomach, which hasn’t seen sun since last summer is a little red.
It’s back to work for the week and a busy weekend with the Dragon Boat Festival next weekend. On Saturday night we met a couple of new paddlers from last year and something tells me it’s going to be a blast having Jim, Sue, Brenda and Jackie on our team along with Bob Baker, Sue and Sheri Prom, Mark Darling, Steve and “wild woman” Kathryn Ramberg and a few others. While we more than likely won’t win, we hopefully will make it into the finals this year.
Published July 20th, 2008
in General.
It’s such a beautiful day Off The Beaten Path that I don’t want to be inside for long to write. Sorry…
We had a great time last night at the Howling Wolf celebrating Kathryn Ramberg’s “special” birthday. The band was awesome and it was great to hang out with Mike and Sue of Voyageur, Bob and Shari of Gunflint Pines and many others. While we got to sleep in this morning I feel for the four of them who being resort owners had to get up early to work.
Time to get back outstide…have a great day everyone!
Published July 19th, 2008
in General.
We are a day late in wishing a Happy Birthday to the Mini Hawg Slayer, Jessica Berg Collman. Jess turned 12 yesterday, spending the day with her mom log-rolling and hanging out on the beach on Seagull Lake. Jessica has gotten into log-rolling as we have log rolling world champion Jenny Atkinson living in Cook County who is giving back to her sport by teaching classes at the municipal pool in Grand Marais. According to Jess’s mom Julie, Jenny says Jessica is “a natural” at the sport and when she gets on the log her feet are “a blur”. Last year mom and dad bought her a pair of special shoes for the sport and this summer her dad made her a rolling log to practice on at Seagull Lake. We haven’t seen her rolling yet, but might get the chance in a couple of weeks during Fisherman’s Picnic weekend. Jenny is going to be giving demonstrations in a pool set up on the street in downtown Grand Marais.
We have busy weekends the rest of the month. Tonight is a “decade” (can’t tell you which one, but it’s the big one) birthday party for Gunflint Trail friend Kathryn Ramberg. Her favorite band, Shadowstone will be at the Howling Wolf tonight. Next weekend we are paddling again in the North Shore Dragon Boat Festival with the Gunflint team and the last weekend of the month is Fisherman’s Picnic. We could go into town every weekend as there is always something going on, but we’d never get anything done around here.
Speaking of getting things done around here, it’s time to do some dishes, finish dog chores, eat breakfast and get back on my hands and knees to week the gardens. Last inght I finally notice my first bloom on the peas so hopefully we’ll be eating fresh peas out of the garden soon. The lettuce is looking like it’s getting ready to start being harvested and our tomato plants are starting to get more than one bloom on them. Hopefully we won’t get a hard frost before we get tomatoes!
Published July 18th, 2008
in General.
I received this in an e-mail from a good friend who happens to be a recovering alcoholic and thought it was just too funny to not pass on. Leave it to Cliff Claven.
In one episode of ‘Cheers’, Cliff is seated at the bar describing the ‘Buffalo Theory’ to his buddy, Norm. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the concept explained any better than this.
‘Well you see, Norm, it’s like this . . . . A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers’.
As SF wrote back when I forwarded it to him…”Now I know why I’m so smart”!
Published July 17th, 2008
in General.
On Tuesday night driving home with Mark, I mentioned that I hadn’t seen a moose for quite a while on my commutes in and out of town, but last night I finally did. For those of you that know the roads Off The Beaten Path, I usually look for moose on both sides of the big culvert when you get down to the bottom on No Name Hill, but last night I didn’t until I got just passed it and thought I “saw something”. I hit the brakes, pushed in the clutch and put the truck in reverse and lo and behold there was a cow and a calf! Of course I couldn’t get my camera out before mom took the little one into the safety of the brush, but I finally saw a moose again! We do live on the “Moose Loop” and we have been seeing moose tracks, but no moose.
Also last Saturday when we were on our way to the Cook County ATV club BBQ at Steve and Mary Kay Fleace’s, we saw some pretty big bear tracks in the trail just down the road from us. While we know the wildlife is out there, we just haven’t been seeing much of it this year. It must be because it’s been so cold in the morning when we are heading into town that the wildlife is holed up staying warm.
We’re hoping that since it’s been so cold this summer that we won’t have a warm fall. While most nights this summer we COULD have been hooking up dogs to run, our days have been too long and we need a little time to relax. We’re hoping that once the days get shorter and we will have time to hook them up for a run after work that it won’t be too warm. As I say ALOT, wish us luck!
