Happy New Year

Another year has come and gone and we are into our busy season here at Peace Pups. So far this winter the snow conditions have been quite challenging here in Lake Elmore. I am very fortunate to have a trail that does not require a huge amount of snow to be able to run the dog sleds. As soon as we receive an inch or two I am down there with the groomer packing it down. We have been able to run every day for the past two weeks with only about eight or nine inches of snow in the woods while many trails through out New England are not open.

We have a new cabin tent and wood stove set up for our tours this winter and it has made life at the trail head much more pleasant. Thank you Vermont Forest, Parks and Recreation for the approval letter! Last season guests were often running to their cars to warm up after a run with the pups. This year folks have been lingering next to the wood stove and enjoying a hot beverage and conversation. The smell of wood smoke in the air and a warm place to warm your toes makes the tour site much more inviting.

Not too much else new here this season. Our health is good, all of the dogs are doing great and we have already had dozens of wonderful guests and have spent many beautiful days behind the dogs running through the woods. I'm thankful for the prospect of yet another season in the wilderness with my canine family and visitors from around the world. This is as good as it gets!

Take a Trip Without Leaving The Farm.

I had a scary few moments here at Peace Pups Yesterday. I was just coming back up the driveway at the end of my bike ride and heard a lot of commotion coming from the dog yard. I put it into high gear and flew up the hill and into the dog yard to see what was going on. Once in the dog yard I saw that Buck who is my main, go to lead dog was laying on the ground with a large amount of foam coming out of his mouth. Panic.. This is not one of my strong points with my dogs. I tend to become a tad emotional when I think one of them is in danger. Immediately I began worrying about what I'm going to do without my best buddy Buck. I ran over to him and got him to his feet, kind of.. He was staggering and seem to have lost some of his motor skills. His eyes were glazed and dilated and he didn't seem to know where he was. I ran to the house and called my veterinarian but only reached the receptionist. Both vets were on the road but she suggested I keep an eye on him and call right back if his condition got worse. I went back out to see how Buck was doing and found that he was walking much better and had shaken the foam from his mouth but when I started to approach him he growled at me. "Buck, buddy, it's me. You alright?" Grrrrr. This is one of the only three dogs I have raised from a puppy and he has never growled at me. I'm thinking Old Yeller at this point; but it couldn't possibly be rabies, all of our dogs are vaccinated regularly. Or could it be, maybe there was a problem with the vaccine? These are the kind of thoughts that flash through my mind. I went back in the house for another five minutes to grab some biscuits then back out to the yard. This time when I returned he seemed to be back to his normal self; wagging his tail and very happy to see me. I was also very happy to see him acting like himself again. A round of biscuits and a lot of hugs were in order!

I'm still not positive what happened but I suspect it was a toad and that Buck took a little trip with out leaving the dog yard. I have had other dogs pick toads up when I have been in the yard with them and they had a similar foaming at the mouth. This seemed a lot more extreme though. It's possible that Buck ate the entire toad. I spent quite a bit of time looking around his house and the surrounding yard for any sign of body parts and found nothing so I think he must have either eaten it or it escaped the yard intact. Buck seems to be fully recovered now and during play time yesterday afternoon he was running around like nothing had happened.

Hopefully Buck has learned to leave toads alone; or maybe he will be hunting for them now.. I sure hope not, I don't want to go through that again!

Summer Simmer

Wow, where does the time go?? Spring is gone and summer has been flying by here at Peace Pups. This year I decided to stay home this summer and focus on getting things done around here. During the fall and winter months I'm so busy with the dogs that I have little time to keep up with household projects.

After years of my wife doing our garden I have taken over that task. We doubled our garden space and now have close to a acre tilled and planted with every kind of vegetable you can imagine. I built a small green house and started all of my own plants from seed this year. Our berry and fruit trees are maturing and beginning to produce as well. It's so rewarding to be able to walk out into the front yard and pick dinner; not to mention how good the fresh picked food is too eat. All of our gardens and fruit are grown completely organic. I've even added some laying hens to the mix this year. No eggs yet as they are only around ten weeks old but hopefully by fall we'll be collecting fresh organic eggs. I see this entire project as a means of not only eating better but it also saving us money on our food bill. If only I could feed the dogs from the garden!

Front Yard Gardens

 The flower gardens are compliments of my wife. Since she's not doing as much with the vegetable gardens she now has much more time to plant flowers and plant flowers she has! There's not much lawn left to mow with all of the new flower beds she has tilled up but that's a good thing. One thing I don't like spending my time on is mowing lawns. There are many other things I would rather be doing so the less lawn the better.

Two skin boat kayaks were on the project list for this summer. They have been completed and we just returned from a  week of paddling and camping on Acadia Island Maine. Both boats worked very well and seemed to draw attention everywhere we went. They were a great conversation starter and I met quite a few interesting folks over the course of the week. I did see a couple of home built skin boats but the majority are plastic or fiberglass. This is a picture I took of both kayaks resting on the shore of Somes Sound where we paddled our first day.

Skin Boats on Somes Sound

As usual the coast of Maine was beautiful. We've never stayed in Acadia National Park before but I enjoyed it very much. There is a lot of traffic in July but there are plenty of hiking trails and open water where you can escape the crowds. We brought our bicycles and did several rides on the car free carriage roads. Of course I can't go to Maine with out eating some sea food and with our camp stove set up we were able to find plenty of that to bring back and cook ourselves.

Now that my one week vacation is over it's back to the garden and preparing for fall and winter. We usually begin fall cart training with the dogs around the beginning of September so with a little luck that is only five weeks away! We've had record highs here in July so I'm very much looking forward to some nice cool fall weather.

Off to do some weeding!