Don't forget to scroll down!

The top of this blog is relatively recent and there aren't any real "Yukon" pictures until all the way back in late February of 2006. So enjoy these pictures up here but scroll back a long way if you want to see lots of dogs and lots of snow.

Floors - shot one

This is peculiar - I'm posting these in reverse order. But here they are:

Floors - shot two

Refinished floors, view 2 - notice the old floors didn't look that bad under the area rug. But the finish was no good anyway. Ivory didn't mind, or at least he didn't say anything bad about it. Neither did Nicky or Annie.

Refinished floors - April 4, 2007

Before and after of one of the rooms.

Winter camping on Appalachian Trail, March, 2007

After a fashion, anyway. It was winter and there was even a little bit of snow on the ground and when we woke up in the morning it was 20º and the calendar still said winter - it was March 17th and 18th. It's the "camping" part that's open to a little bit of interpretation. We didn't sleep in a tent or on the ground but we weren't indoors either - we were in a roofed, three sided shelter on the Appalachian Trail. And the only running water was Mill Creek. I'll put up a couple of pictures and write more later.

The top picture - the dogs going into the woods - was after a six mile hike south on the Blue Ridge Parkway from Rockfish Gap. We left the car at around 4:45 and sunset was around 7:30 so it was getting late. And when I took that picture we still had around two more miles to hike.

The bottom picture was taken the next morning. It's looking down the slope from the shelter toward the creek and up the snowy south slope of the valley. It was almost night when we got down there; the creek was flowing high and wide and I'd had to wade the last few feet in water that was about eight inches deep. When I woke up in the morning my boots were frozen so solid it felt like they were made of granite. I made a pot of oatmeal for breakfast and sat it on the insoles of my boots to thaw them out.

Before we left I'd been reading about the Iditarod and I really wanted to spend some time out in the cold with my dogs. Probably my final opportunity for the first half of 2007.

Anyway, I have work to do. Have a great day,

Jay