Dog-sledding!

For Stephen's Christmas present I bought us a half-day dog sledding tour, and the big day was Wednesday.  The dog sledding place was about 250km north, so we hired a car through our car sharing service and left at 9am from Toronto, aiming to get there well ahead of our 1:30pm booking.  Unfortunately for us, it snowed overnight...

... so we arrived to this.

Hooray, all fixed!  Unfortunately, the roads were covered in snow, and the ploughs hadn't been yet - it took us two hours to get to the freeway, which was around 6km away.  Ouch.  We eventually made it to the sled place at 1:45pm, and being as we were the only people booked that afternoon, all was good!  Lucky!

We had a quick tutorial in the basics of sledding - how to get them to move, how to get them to stop, the golden rule of sledding (never let go of your sled), and when to brake.  They harnessed up the dogs while we held the lead dogs in place - unfortunately for me, the lead dog of the other team decided that my leg resembled a tree, so my introduction to sledding involved being peed on.  Lovely.  (I imagine that Jax was really unhappy when we arrived home, smelling like other dogs and with dog pee on my leg.)

With that, we were away!  And it was incredibly cool!  We drove our own sled the entire time - one of us driving and one sitting on the sled as a passenger.

Here's a video of us sledding across a frozen lake:

Apparently they check for the ice to be 20cm thick, and then it's fine to drive a sled on.

Break time!  It was freezing cold out there - my fingers and toes were going numb - but every time we stopped, the dogs would roll around in the snow to cool down.

We had plenty of interaction with the dogs - they were absolutely beautiful :)

Here's the sled - it's basically just a couple of bits of wood with a thin mattress to sit on.  There's a brake at the back that you step on to slow the sled down, and it basically just digs into the ground.  The only problem was, sometimes we would put our entire weight on it and the sled would keep moving - those dogs have some serious pulling power.

Posing for photos with our team :)

On the trail with our team, heading home.  The dogs seriously loved to run - like I said above, sometimes the brake didn't work to stop them.  When we stopped for breaks, and they'd finished rolling in the snow, they'd jump up into the air and throw themselves forward into their harnesses, trying to get us to move again.

Run over!  Time for some water :)

We had a much faster drive back to Toronto, making it back in 3 hours.  It was a fantastic day, and we had great fun :)

Snow Day!

This morning we had some real snow - the weather bureau was still calling it "light snow" though!  I'm wondering what "heavy snow" is, considering the results.

Jax loves the snow - he likes to bite it in midair.  

This is the average snow depth (and you can see, still snowing) - it's nearly up to Jax's stomach in places, and it's over the top of Stephen's shoes.  It was AWESOME.

Winter trees :)

The cars are all covered in snow - check out the buildup on the side mirrors :)

The view down our streets.  You can't see the footpath :)

The main road near our place - the snowplows haven't been yet, and it's a bit of a mess.

Winter trees with snow - the snow falling from the sky plus the snow falling from the trees when they move makes it pretty hard to see! :)

Jax in the snow.  He looks like he's swimming when he walks in it!

Stephen tried to go tobogganing but the snow was too soft - it was pretty funny though :)  You can hardly see the toboggan, it has so much snow on it.

Stephen enjoying his seat on the park table and chairs - there's a lot of snow there :P

Stephen and Jax running in the snow.  We use the local fenced-in baseball diamond as an off-leash area because the official off-leash area has a) other dogs and b) no fences.  Jax loves to run - and when it's snowing he just bounds across the top of it :)

Catching-up

I haven't posted for a while - the Christmas/New Year period was lost under a deluge of assignments, which aren't quite over now (1 to go).  Here's a quick update though:

Christmas roast!  The roast beef is ready to go in the oven!

I tried to "fit in" by making cornbread muffins - unfortunately I used too much baking powder and they were disgusting.  Oh well!

The veggies, ready to go in the oven.  Yes, it was just for the two of us :P

Christmas dinner - roast beef with potato, sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin, corn (not pictured) and Yorkshire Pudding!  It was seriously delicious.

I bought Stephen a balaclava for Christmas - no, we're not planning any bank robberies, it's just very cold on our faces when we're running.  He hasn't been game to wear it outside yet.

Post-Christmas photos:

Jax having a bath - he hates baths.  Hilarity ensures.

Jax cuddling the couch - I don't know why he does this.

My boys, chilling out, working.  

 It's a hard life.