Adventure!

This is my dog Chena or B.C. (big Chena, Lev's nickname) or for some reason Chena Beana. I'm not sure where I got that. In my head sometimes its the Great Mexican Chena Beana. I'm not sure why. It's not like she wears a sombrero or has a goofy mustache and she's not very bean-like, although she does take after the 'musical fruit' aspect quite well.

Anyways, she's a furry bundle of love. During the day, we hang out. I try and write, she sits and watches me.  She's a very mellow old lady (~9) but still enjoys goofing around and pulling from time to time.

Currently, we're working on the "sit" command. Whoever said you can't teach an old dog new tricks must not have been using the right type of kibble. Right now she'll sit if she knows she's going to get something to eat out of it. Otherwise, she'll hold out and wait -- though we are slowly making progress.



I got her a toy duck but she didn't know what to do with it, so I gave it to Ollie. I also got her some chew bones. She chews it for a few minutes at a time here and there, but never for any extended period of time.

In other news...

Dogsledding this week has been interesting to say the least. We didn't get enough snow for the trails to be particularly good, but we've still been using them. This can be quite terrifying as in some places it becomes extraordinarily difficult to stop. So far we've gone out twice on the trail, each time worse than the one before.

My first trip out I had an eight dog string of pretty powerful boys who simply wouldn't slow down. I was standing on the drag mat and digging my heels in but we were still going incredibly fast over snow, dirt, rocks, gravel... you name it.  The worst is the hills. It's always the hills. Like some rollercoaster out of hell. No seatbelt, no nothing. Just got a hold on tight, drag your feet in and pray for friction to do it's miraculous thing. It's 'by the seat of your pants' mushing.

The good thing is (supposedly) I will never face a trail like that on a race, ect. The bad thing is the trip seemed incredibly long and I got really nervous that if I needed to stop or slow the team down (for whatever reason) that I wouldn't be able to. My stomach clenched up, which was a first for me. The bad thing also was the trip was deemed usable so we went out the following night.

I probably didn't get out onto the trail until 10:30 and by then my eyes were already dragging. Apparently long distance mushing is all about sleep deprivation. Well, no thank you. I was driving Lev's racing team. They'd already been out the night before so they were easier to manage. Still, I wouldn't call the trip 'fun,' but I'll certainly remember it.

anyways, nap time.

Other stuff

Listening to: Sarah Jarosz
Reading: The Book Thief
Following: The Vogel Family 
Planning: A trip to Nova Scotia
Dreaming: Riding a bike across the USA
Writing: The Story of Caroline Burke

over and out.