We haven't posted much lately because we haven't spent very much time at home. We've been busy with splitting firewood for next year, clearing brush from the land and having massive bonfires with it. Skiing will be good soon, as we just got some more snow and it seems that most of the trail systems nearby have been groomed to some degree. A little more snow and we'll be in great shape. This morning it was a bitter 12 below when I got up to let the dogs pee and check on the chickens. We're dogsitting for a lady I work with so we currently have 4 in the cabin. That's a tight squeeze with 480 sq. feet of living space, 1/4 of which is taken up by a bed. Our chickens have been belting out eggs at a rate of 4 a day. I am pretty impressed with their ability to stay warm. We put a 250 watt infrared heat lamp in the coop to keep them toasty and that's helped them out quite a bit.
Most people that I've talked with about chickens up here lock them up in a closed space for the winter and use a light to keep them warm. Chrissy and I couldn't handle that so we put a few towels over the doorway to the coop and cut them into overlapping strips so they hang down like the door to a walk in freezer. This seems to be keeping in the right amount of heat and keeping out cabin fever for the chickens. It took a day or so for them to figure out what a door was and how it works, but they managed to get it.
We still have our rabbit and hes started pulling his own weight a little. When I go out to check on the chickens in the morning, at least 3 of them are almost always huddled around the rabbit. This thing throws off heat like you couldn't imagine, hes got a huge ring of fat around his neck and can barely stand to be inside the chicken coop, but when he is... They all hover around, soaking up the heat loss.
I've been trying to get Chrissy to put up some photos of our newest dog Squirrel on here without any luck so far. After seeing this though, she might get motivated to do so. Squirrel is a little damien shia tzu that terrorizes Gunnar and Snorri, in a good way. She keeps everyone on their toes. She sort of found us a few months ago when Chrissy was still working at the greenhouse. An employee showed up with her and said she was following her husband home on his motorcycle, looking lonely and dejected with only a cheapy flea collar on. Chrissy obliged to take her home and put up flyers. We took her home, put up flyers, never heard anything and kept her. When you can see photos of her, you'll understand why we did. She has this pathetic loneliness about her that is pretty irresistible.
I'm headed up the Steese Highway this weekend to do some scouting for caribou with a friend. We cant hunt for another month or so, but wanted to get a headstart on things and ski around a bit. Plenty of snow up there for good skiing and we can do some ptarmigan hunting while we're out too. We saw lots of tracks when we went up last weekend with boots only, but its just too much work to hike very far when you have a foot of snow on the ground. Skis will make for a much better time this weekend.
Hopefully the temperature stays tolerable, since I have waxless nordic skis, they quit being very functional down around 10 below. They just get slick and don't get any bite on the snow to get you up hills.
Thats about it for updates right now, I'm sure I can think of more to write a little bit later.
4 above at work - Justin
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