COFFEE BREAK TIME

Up early and while still dark out I worked on my drop bags, bagging up chemical warmers and also getting together my drinks for the trail.  Still need to buy orange juice and cranberry.

Are we having fun yet??

Well, I was planning on a trip to town with Angie.  Would have been fun to have the drive time to visit and catch up.  Top priority shopping item:  STRAW...and lots of it.  Due to the rather wet weather we are pulling all of the straw out of the dog houses and re-strawing. I got an early start at it and when I got to Jimmy's house I found water in his house.   I have a low spot in my kennel and those houses now have standing water in them...under the pile of straw.

So, change in plans....Angie is going into town without me and I will continue to rake out all of my dog houses. There are about 6 that I have dug out and emptied and flipped.  Hoping to dry them out a bit and they will be re-positioned so that they don't again fill with water.

Coffee break is over (mush to my dismay!)  Back to work.

UPDATE...

Well, Angie just came by with the truck load of straw...8 bales.  Second bale we unloaded was full of foxtails.  Lovely....   We loaded them back up and she will return them on Thursday.  Now I am heading into Wasilla to pick up 2 bales and cram them into my Subaru.

The "clean stuff"...90 pound bales from Washington state.

Petunia is checking out the straw and gives it a clean bill of health.   Now I will fill each dog house with fresh clean straw.  It will be fun to watch their excitement.  Some of the dogs really love it when they get fresh straw.  They have to go in and out and in and out.  They will fluff it up inside their house and then lay there very contented and peer our of their houses.   Most of the male dogs will have to pee on their straw as soon as you put it in their houses...

Otter snuggled in his house

After I raked all of the straw out of the dog houses, I began shoveling snow.   With our driveway down to solid ice, it would be a hazard for Bob to hook up his team and take off on the ice.  So, I shoveled while he ran the groomer back and forth.  Our task at hand was to try and put a layer of snow over the ice.  We actually made an improvement and will work on it more again tomorrow.

ADDITION TO THE "TO DO LIST"    Clean out all of the straw that is in the Subaru!