Dog Sled Races - Part Deux

The winners are in! Bios from the Beargrease website; emphasis mine.

2008 Marathon Winner
JASON BARRON - Lincoln, Montana

Jason has a 30 year history with dog mushing starting as a five year old. He and his wife, Harmony, started their Kanabear Enterprises in 2000 and now have 45 [!] dogs in their kennel. Jason has finished 7 Iditarods [!] and Harmony has finished 3, winning the most improved musher in 2005. Their 13 month old daughter, Oksana, is already a dog lover just like mom and dad.

2008 Mid Distance Winner
DON GALLOWAY – MAKINEN, Minnesota

Don shares a kennel with partner and wife August Galloway, who he met working at a sled dog business eleven years ago. Don works full time as a health practitioner in Virginia/Cherry, MN.

333 note cuteness!

Can't outgive a giver

Great gifts can catch one unawares.

I was given this award by Melanie at Tea Leaves and urged to pass it on. First let me tell you that Melanie is a fearless knitter, a librarian so she loves to read, and drinks tea with abandon but she raises the bar for me because she thinks and speaks and cares about the world around her. Visiting one or the other of her two blogs Tea Reads and Tea Leaves makes me happy and better for the visit. So I'm passing this on to some more bloggers who light up cyber space:

Cat at Shabby~Chic Cat's Gardening 44great photographer, Dallas Cowboy's fan and gardener in Virginia

JenLemon 44who shares her 'Journal' with inspiration, peace and photos to savor. . .plus she offered the Be Brave Project which has helped me turn over a new leaf

Tammy 44 who has a Queen-Size Funny Bone, a lovely fellow Italian, brave, funny and dog lover

Chris 44whose writing is deep and wonderful, and who is no idiot

Beatriz 44a talented expat living in Italy who shares her Suitcase Contents, the loves in her life, art, cooking and the immigrant experience

Happy to share this gift with you because you make my day!

It only hurts when I laugh.

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

yoko ono

We are in the d-e-e-p freeze here in Minnesota. As I write this afternoon the windchill temperature is -25. Regarding the first photo above, when I took Pashka out that morning it was only -13 at 7 a.m. I couldn't get my key to the building to work in the outside locks so I had to keep going around the building until I found a door that would work. In the meantime, call me a mouth breather, but even my tongue was starting to feel as if I'd burned it on some soup. Frozen nose hairs and ice cream headache weather!

Good day to stay in and watch a movie. I can now recommend another: The Namesake. This is based on the novel of the same name written by Jhumpa Lahiri about a [arranged marriage] Bengali couple who move from Calcutta to the U.S., raise their children here and the conflict therein. Lahir said about her characters' themes of alienation and displacement: “Things for which it was impossible to prepare for but which one spent a lifetime looking back at … things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”
Watch for the 'bridges' motif and remember, 'the greatest journeys are the ones that bring you home.'

Mush-- its not just for breakfast anymore!

Sunday we went north to Duluth to see the start of the three-day, 411 mile long John Beargrease Sled dog Marathon starting in Duluth and running three days to Grand Portage, Minnesota and back. This was the 25th running of the race (they had to cancel last year for the 1st time due to lack of snow.) The race honors the memory and spirit of Ojibwe native John Beargrease, who with his brothers was the winter mail carrier (by dog sled & row boat) between Two Harbors and Grand Marais, Minnesota during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. He was the link to the outside world to the settlements along the north shore of Lake Superior.

We were especially excited to see the dogs and the mushers, some of whom will be competing at the Iditerod in March. There were sledders from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ireland and Finland. We saw many Siberian Huskies that resembled our Pashka so closely. We found out listening to the announcer--who had been a musher for 45 years--that the breed of Siberian came from crossing wolves with the Spitz breed. Not all dogs were pure Husky but various mixes of hounds with Alaskan Huskies.

The dogs are very eager to get going when they see the ropes and harness equipment appear. Lots of jumping and yapping!

This fashionable dog could have been our Pashka about 12 years ago; same markings and same beautiful face.

The new generation of lightweight sleds.

Flags flew for the U.S. Austrailia, Canada, Finland and Ireland. The temp was in the mid-30's with plenty of sunshine and snow.

'Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.' - Milan Kundera

Sunday Scribblings

Miscellany

Sagging shoebox, size 9 Capezio flats
I know the contents by heart:
The detritus from my scavenger-hunt life.
Tiny brass safety pins and
Matchbooks with addresses, no zip codes
Folded paper placemat from a Chinese restaurant
Carpet the bottom of the box.

Brown braid loosely tied with plaid ribbon,
next layer:
Valentine card, plastic raindrop on single rose
Empty fountain pen cartridge
John Sebastian autograph
Barbie stilettos
Grease pencil from my mom’s uniform pocket.

Class ring for smaller knuckles
Indian head nickel, no date, no use
Blue crystal beads from Budapest
Yo-yo with twisted cord
Frank Church campaign button
My dad’s shoehorn
One dime, one nickel, two pennies**
But no shoes.


**In 1988, when Erica was in first grade and Audrey in third, we left Idaho for Pennsylvania. On their last day of school I visited their classrooms to say goodbye to their teachers. Erica was cleaning out her little desk while I thanked her teacher. Looking around her room my eyes filled with tears. When I looked down there she stood holding something in her hand. In my palm Erica placed 17 cents she’d squirreled away in her desk. She said, ‘Here, Mom. Take this and go buy yourself some milk.’

I get by

with a little help from my friends.
My new agenda I follow to ward off the long winter syndrome most days, after the usual duties, includes a couple more simple and very satisfying endeavors: a little baking, a little knitting and some movie watching.

First the baking: this is Inland Empire Girl's yummy recipe for spicey Pumpkin-Chip Bread. Hers includes chocolate chips and walnuts, is moist and keeps well. Seemed to make the holiday season stick around awhile longer. I loved grating the whole nutmeg for this too.

I'm embarrassed to admit how long it has taken me to finish this dear little 'Cupcake' hat I first heard about from my friend, the other Marianne, who's just Knotminding. She got it from her friend Norma at Now Norma Knits. Let's just say it has been a challenge that involved not reading the instructions carefully or completely. Does the word 'chopsticks' make you think of anything besides Chinese food? In the spirit of all things snowman I must say that the cupcake was delicious!

The indie film Once is one I can't quit recommending to everyone, even if they don't like movies involving music, because it is somehow unforgettable. A Sundance winner it has a simple plot about two musicians in Ireland--he plays on the street and works in his dad's vacuum cleaner repair shop. She is a Czech immigrant who drops a dime in his open guitar case on the ground while he plays one evening. The soundtrack is amazingly original and haunting. My advice: run out and rent it, stay with it until the end and remember the piano.

Here's what Steven Spielberg said about it:
'A little movie called Once gave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year.'
I agree with Schpiel, as I like to call him, and I say, "Raise your hopeful voice."

So, cold enough for ya?

I took this picture on Friday when the moon was still out and the sun was coming up on a really cold day, below zero after factoring in the wind chill. Today has dawned another picture perfect Minnesota day: clear blue sky, plenty of snow and -16 when Pashka took her morning constitutional. Frozen nose hair and ice cream headache weather. Only the bravest little Juncos and Chickadees flit from branch to branch.

Today kicks off the 2008 U. S. 2008 Figure Skating Championships in St. Paul that run through next Sunday. This is how the event is described:

Saint Paul is proud to be the host city for the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January 2008. The event, held annually since 1914, is the nation’s most prestigious figure skating event. Over the course of a week the event will crown 12 national champions in ladies, men’s, pairs and ice dancing on the senior, junior and novice levels.

And Twin Cities fans are holding their breath to see how their local phenom Eliot Halverson, national junior men’s champion, will fare this week.

Dave with his usual impeccable timing has gone to San Jose for the week but I'm hoping we might be able to get tickets for some of the events next weekend. This is pretty heady stuff for a girl from the dusty southeastern Idaho potato fields.

A new week, new possibilities. . .

'So onward we go. Sometimes in circles, but more or less forward.' Garrison Keillor