Beacon Blog

Crunch

March 11, Week 3

I like the color of my crunch… and I do like the color of Sable! But, I admit it—My tail is not all up about seeing so much brown around the dog yard right now. Its good times for digging though! Andrea and Tim have had out the shovels, digging trenches around us. A+ for effort! Lots of water is flowing around us… I have been trying to show them some technique to maybe speed up their project a bit. I am a good digger if I can say so myself, and as I said last week, if they consulted Rubi, she is a real pro. Rubi is more vertical though. I like to dig out a plan. And I have really been studying the landscape around here, watched how and where the water flows! Did you know that the water on land flows into the river and then into the ocean? I did a lot of kayaking when I was little and I learned a lot about water. But that’s another story. Isn’t that amazing!! When we are out running there is lots of puddles of water everywhere. I love puddles. Today, there was waves on one of them. We tried to run over there, but Tim was really telling us not to go there. I guess he does not like water all that much. I know Mille never likes it I when we are out on the expedition trail either! Every puddle we ran through though, I told Yoik that this water would go to the ocean and maybe one day end up in the Arctic where we are going. We are all connected like that! I am not sure he really gets it.  He just gets a really silly look on his face and seems to be all he thinks about is how much water he can get on anyone around him running through it. He is pretty funny that guy. A little guy with a big smile! We all had big smiles on for several sunrises a few moons ago. It was crazy around here. I had barely finished my first howl when they started walking in and out, moving tables and being very busy. First Lulu and then some other cars pulled up with people piling out. By afternoon they were making boxes that looked like those we always pick-up along the expedition route when we get more dog food. They call them "re-supply boxes.” We Polar Huskies always get excited when it is "re-supply" time; that means lots of treats and the team members are cranked up happy about it too. I am feeling a little cranked myself and crossing my paws that we might gets some taste of that cheese and butter in those resupply boxes! Time for a howler! 

Snow Holes

March 04, Week 2

Qannik says the snow we are going to run on in Greenland will be as thick as what we pull the sled in an hour—I admit that its really not all that clear to me what she means by that… An hour is as much time as about half that between breaks when we are on the expedition… I have a tough time with that the snow can really be that deep. Two miles or three kilometers deep snow! Wow! Qannik is really into snow. I guess her name means ‘snow flake’ in the language of the people of Greenland—she is pretty excited about that. She actually does look a bit like a snowflake. Fluffy and all! Pretty funny how that worked out! The snow has been melting around here. Rubi was able to hit dirt digging just yesterday. Rubi is the craziest digger. In the summer time she digs so much that her house gets all covered in dirt. You can’t get in her house then, even if you wanted to. But then, Rubi doesn’t, she crawls into these tunnels she digs out. Its cooler down there I guess. The joke around the yard is that she should get a job with NASA, becoming a professional digger. Luna says NASA is really more about the moon and everything we can see in the sky than digging into the dirt here where we live. I am thinking she is a little biased on that that cause she has this whole thing about the moon. Her names means moon you know. But she could be right. The team has a sign on their jackets that reads NASA on it. I got a good look at it up-close the other day when Andrea was putting my harness over my head – and for all I can tell that sign really does have like planets and stars on it! You can’t see the stars nearly as nicely here in the dog yard as you can when we are out on expeditions. Its like the sky is much bigger, and darker and brighter! Sometimes it even has huge lightshows going on! That’s not why the team wears the signs though.  When we get out on the expedition they dig holes every now and then and then they pull out sticks and stuff and measure all sorts of things and that’s for these NASA people. They look really excited about it too. I like digging holes too, but not so much that I get that excited. But then, I also get to do it every night on the trail. That way you can make just the perfect bed for the night. I love that: a fresh snow hole to curl in when you are really tired. No time to be tired around here right now though!! They are all running around with boxes, coming and going any and all hours of the day. One of the boxes was for me! It had my new camera in it. Did you see my filming in the Trail Update this week? That was with this camera! I have it on my head! Its amazing the close-ups I can get of Rubi’s ears with that when I turn my head. I tried to get some really good shots of the snow we run on too, so you can get a feel, that’s before it started melting though. Now, if I just had the camera I would film what my Mom Freja has been talking about in her finologies– how the snow melts on one side first and all!  It’s really true! I have to ask Chukchi and Chitwa if they can film it. They have been having the camera the last couple of days… Guess I am busy with this blog and all

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February 25, Week 1

We figured that there is a bag for each one of our paws, tails, two ears – not counting Aksel, Hershey, Lipton, Timber or my Mom Freja that is. But they were not around when the truck arrived so that worked out great anyway. Aksel, Hershey and Lipton all live elsewhere with their own plush couches, but I know Timber heard the truck coming up the driveway though he was inside the house where Mille sleeps at night with my Mom. Inside or outside, folded ear or not, Timber doesn’t miss a tail. I swear when he was out here in the yard with the rest of us he would even sleep with an eye open! Guess he developed that habit after standing nose-to-nose in camp with a polar bear or two. Like Nazca always says, “you need to use all your senses to be in the know!” Like your nose, your paws, your ears, your tongue, your tail—well, you get the picture! She would know too, she is really good with directions and seeing stuff out on the trail, and she sure is old. Not as old as Timber though. He was down in the place where all the food goes the other day and swung by the yard on his way back to the house—keeping a nose out for the food to arrive as they say. He may not have the greatest sight anymore, but he can smell! And what a wonderful smell coming out of that truck when they opened up the backend of it. I don’t think you could have crammed another biscuit in there. Well, actually, I am sure Aaron and Mille could have – they always seem to be able to find a way to load even the biggest pile of stuff onto just one sled! So, while Andrea, Tim and Paul carried the bags of crunch around, we counted our ears, tails and paws. Kinu totaled that to 161 bags! She might be little, but she sure is fast, and I guess she just goes howling for numbers. Jupiter muttered something about that she even counts out every little piece of kibble before she eats it at night – but I don’t know about that… Might just be a rumor. Jupiter talks a lot. But then again, Jupiter’s house is right next to Kinu, so of anyone, he would know! I am sure he is not counting – and neither am I! Especially not this food… It might be my favorite food ever. Each little pellet is like a piece of candy with a smell just to bark for. Makes the little hairs in my ears perk up. I am sensing it! It’s salmon says Sable. I hear there’s salmon in Greenland where we are going next! And polar bears too! They like salmon too I wonder...?