Hello my name is Suka.

I am very cute and just 7 months old.

I am FREE!!!

Just say no to the free husky....ahhhh it's so hard!

Bomber thinks he has died and gone to heaven. Someone will play with him and not get cold paws.

She is just as fast and energetic, ok sorry Bomber more energetic, than he is.

In fact she is so energetic that she was in the hot tub, bouncing off the back door screen, and in the garden within two minutes of being let out in the backyard. Oh, and I have been putting ice-cream on my BBQ because I ran out of freezer space. I decided to use the artic temperatures as an outdoor freezer. She stole my vanilla ice-cream so I am pretty sure she went home with a suger high. Hehehe

These are the dogs on the trail today. They were faster than yesterday which is always a good thing.
We were going to catch Craig's 6 dog team but Yamik decided she wanted to go right when I wanted to go left. Our discussion about who was in charge led to me not being able to catch up.

Thanks Yamik! Bomber finally helped me out and pulled Yamik back on the trail. He is learning to lead and is doing great.

Morning Stretches... We had a LONG run today.
On the trail
The 'wheel' dogs (the ones in back) are Silver on the left and Niko on the right.
My leaders are Bomber on the left and Yamik on the right.
Bomber and Niko are best buds! The dogs worked hard today.

This is Tonto he is georgeous! As you can see in the picture he has one green eye and one blue eye. He is one stubborn dog! Redheads you know... His sister Fox is also a spitfire. He is a tank and does best in the wheel position.


This is me backwards on my sled. I really shouldn't be doing things like this - dangerous and all but I love a photo op. It all turned out ok I didn't fall of my sled at all today.

My official training for Elkford has begun. We went about 3 miles today but there was a lot of hard uphills. The trails were not packed well so the dogs had to work harder. They did great! I went with my friends Craig and Sian and their daughter Morgan. Craig had a 6 dog team, Sian had 4 dogs, and Morgan had 2. My team was pretty quick and could keep up with Craig's team no problem. I was overall happy with their performance. Bomber and Yamik definitely need some more long distance runs but I should have enough time.

I am supposed to run the same team again tomorrow. My hands stayed nice an toasty today. I was so scared of getting frostbite again (I had a close call earlier this week). I wore cheapo cotten gloves with nice warm mits over top. And my secret weapon.... hand warmers in the mitten. I am hoping to use this system in Elkford if it is super cold. I just shake up the hand warmers and put them in the mits about 10 minutes before I take off. So far so good. Ty was threatening to call me Nubby if I lost my fingers. I think he just wants me to let him race my team. :) If I keep my fingers tomorrow and have anything interesting to say I will blog again. See I'm on a blogging roll.

New Years Eve Sunset

So Beautiful!!

Two Days of Training!!

My run yesterday with the two dog team went great as far as the dogs are concerned. It was -16c outside and my hands were not happy with me. I need to figure out a better system of keeping my hands warm.

When you are sledding your hands stay pretty still similiar to snow mobiling. It is hard to keep them warm. The rest of your body you can warm up by running beside or in unfortunate times after your sled.

The dogs as I said were awesome. They love to run. Since I only have two dogs pulling and wanted to keep it fun, most of my trail was flat and downhill. I completed my run in ten minutes.

Ty took the dogs out this morning (it's -18c way to cold for me) and had a lot of fun. He did almost the same run and also completed it in ten minutes. He took one spill. Some of the trail has been washed out after the crazy amount of rain we had this summer. There is a ravine about two to three feet deep that you have to navigate. The trail has also been washed away so it's mostly creek bed - read rocky. Anyway, he was trying to stay on the high side of the ravine and leaned a bit to far, over corrected, and down he went. It wasn't a big deal he got right back up and kept on going. One thing that's good about it being so cold is you don't feel much seeing as you're numb.

His hands were a bit cold when he got back so he had to jump in the car and warm them up. But all in all it was a great run. An amazing way to start a day!

On another note I am still waiting in high anticipation to hear if I will have two more dogs to run for the Elkford race. With out two more dogs I can't compete. And that will make me very sad.

The dog truck

You can't tell in the picture but this is me coming back with frostbite. Ty calls this picture "little miss no gloves". Needless to say I was in A LOT of pain!

My team for the Elkford Race in 2009

Dog Sledding

I am currently training for the Elkford Wilderness Classic Dog Sled Derby. I love dog sledding. I think it is the most amazing sport! If you love to spend time with dogs and enjoy the outdoors than this sport is for you.

Today I am hoping to take my two leaders (the dogs that run up front) on a short down hill sprint. I will be racing four dogs in the four mile race. This race should take less than twenty minutes.

My last experience at Elkford was rewarding but it was not the best scenario. I decided to be tough like my friend Craig who is immune to the cold. Craig told me that gloves are pointless because when your dogs get into a tangle or fight you have to throw your gloves off. So why wear them in the first place? This is flawed logic my friend.

The Elkford trail is pretty much straight for two miles, turn around, come back. There are ups and down but it is a wide straight trail. The theory is this should be a perfect race for the inexperienced musher. Wrong again. There is head to head passing so when the said inexperienced musher can't convince her team to run on the right side of the trail so other teams can pass... Well, let's just say head on passing becomes literal. Four dog teams flying down the trail straight at your team who is on the wrong side of the trail. Equals cowering lead dogs who keep turning around to follow the passing team. Oh and remember our inexperienced musher (me) has no gloves on.

So my hands were in the snow, wet and cold a lot. The ending result was me getting frostbite. It was such horrible pain that I kept blacking out on my sled. It was NOT fun. Thank goodness my lead dog Yamik, bless her heart, decided to take me back to the starting line.

You would think that all the other mushers who were flying down the trail trying to complete the race would have had some words for me as I stood in their way with my cowering team. The only words they had were words of encouragement and offering help. Seriously this is why I love this sport so much!

I came in 3rd out of three. :) There were about 15 teams in my race but only three of them were purebred teams. Needless to say I won some money. When my name was called to come receive my prize everyone clapped and the officials gave me a big hug. I think they felt bad that I had, had such a bad experience. It was my own fault I really should have known better.

Anyways I am hoping that my experience this year is much more positive. I am still praying I get to borrow two dogs from my friend Craig so I can compete. I hope he pulls through soon the race is only a few weeks away.

I also hope to compete in Bootleg Sled Dog Race. I will post pictures of the dogs, my previous races, and my run today later.

Thats all for now.

I have two new recipes to share.

Strawberry Banana Muffins

I started with a basic muffin recipe and added left over strawberry sauce and bananas. Then I tweaked the recipe so there is less sugar and milk and a tiny bit more flour. At the last minute I decided to throw in some almond extract. You could probably use vanilla or skip it all together if you don’t like almond flavoring.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
¼ cup sugar
2 tspn baking powder
¼ tspn salt
½ cup strawberry sauce
2 bananas
¼ cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tspn almond/vanilla (or skip)
½ cup milk


Directions
In a medium bowl mix together dry ingredients. In a small bowl mash the bananas, add egg, strawberry sauce, milk, oil, flavoring, and mix together. Add to dry ingredients. Pour into muffin pan and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 400 for 18-20 minutes for regular size muffins and 20-25 minutes for jumbo muffins or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Remove from muffin pan and cool on a wire rack. Makes 12 muffins or 6 jumbo muffins.


Ribolitta

A few days back I was watching the Rachael Ray Show. She made something called Ribollita which is basically a tomato based soup thickened with pieces of bread. It looked really healthy, full of veggies including kale. I of course changed some things – added chicken, left out the fennel, celery, white wine, and the parmigiano-reggiano cheese rind. The reasons I left these things out are either I didn’t have them or in the case of the celery we don’t like it. The nutmeg really brings out the flavor of the Swiss chard.

Ingredients
Extra Virgin Olive Oil 2-3 tbsn
2 boneless skinless, chicken breast cut into small bite size pieces
2 carrots finely chopped
1/2 large yellow onion or 1 small one finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
Salt and pepper
3-4 sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
7-8 leaves of sage, thinly sliced
2 tspn Mrs Dash
¼ cup tomato paste
1 15-ounce can of beans, recipe calls for cannelloni, I used white kidney beans. Just pick whatever you like best. Rinse and drain
1 bunch Tuscan kale or Swiss chard very thinly sliced
¼ tspn nutmeg
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
A piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind – I skipped this too
5-6 slices of peasant bread or any kind of good crusty bread, torn into pieces
Grated parmesan for the top


Heat a large pan and add olive oil. Over medium heat add the chicken, salt, pepper, sage, rosemary, and Mrs. Dash. Cook for about 3 minutes then add onion, carrots, and garlic. Cook until soft – about 7-10 minutes. Add tomato paste and stir. Add kale/chard, beans, and nutmeg and allow to wilt down. Add stock and cheese rind and bring to a boil. Allow to simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Add bread and garnish with cheese.



In other news….
Ashton has moved on from rice cereal to avocados. He loves them. He ate a lot last night I actually had to cut him off. He is still rolling every where and getting mad when he ends up on his tummy. He actually only got up once last night. It was amazing since he was up every 1 to 2 hours for the last few weeks. Sleep is wonderful!