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Gerry Willomitzer's
Blackjack Racing Kennel
Newsletter - October 15, 2004
Hi everyone,
I would like to start this newsletter off with an excerpt from an email I wrote to a
friend in late September:
"...got Hillside Chicken today, all dumped in front of my [walk-in] freezer, so I
started hand bombing into that thing, 10.000 pounds. Strong winds. I was inside the
freezer putting down a block, all of a sudden it gets dark, door slams shut, silence. I
was f$%^ing locked in, noone around, noone scheduled to show up for 3 hours, and the one
was Leslie who goes straight from the car to the house and would not have started looking
for me until dark or later. I was in a f#$%ing t-Shirt (and pants). The mechanism to open
the door from the inside broke off two years ago and I never fixed it. Slight panic.
Managed to open the f@#$ing thing with my leatherman after a few minutes. Man. I'll fix
the door opener tomorrow. (I can see the newspaper headline: "Chicken Gerry frozen to
death in his own freezer among 25.000 pounds of product. Corps sold at 50 cents a
pound". Man.
So much for the thrill of running a "meat business". Sometimes I start to wonder... With the weather cooling down the local mushers start to think "meat", and business is starting to pick up. This year I also carry straw, which mushers use to line the doghouses. (I should put a bail in the freezer so I don't have to sit on a hunk of frozen meat next time I lock myself in.)
When I have nothing else to do I usually read (as there is always something to do I don't get to read much). I am currently reading "One second to glory - the Alaska Adventures of Iditarod Champion Dick Mackey" for the second time, which speaks volumes. The book is well worth reading, not only covering the dog mushing aspect but all facetts of Dick's life in Alaska. He was one of the pioneers of his time. The book is available through the Iditarod website.
A few more weeks and my handler will arrive. I am still working on the "staff housing", a 14 x 21 cabin built out of square logs. I decided to build with the square logs because it is so much faster than the full-scribe method which we have used on our first two cabins. Left to do is installing the door, propane lights and paint the window frames. Not to mention that there is no kitchen table, sink, cupboard or anything else in it yet. The woodstove is installed, so he won't freeze to death.
By the way, there is no danger of freezing right now. A few days ago we had 9 degrees C (about 50 F) at 5:30 AM! I don't run dogs in that heat so they had a day off. It's been quite mild, with temperatures just around 0 degrees over night. The snow on the mountains hasn't come down yet, but should do so soon. Last year we had snow around October 20 and it stayed. I was on the sled by early November. The year before I used the sled the first time on January 19! I don't even want to think about that possibility.
We had a few severe storms in the last two weeks, so I had to bring the chainsaw on a few training runs to cut fallen trees. You don't want to run into a deadend caused by a downed tree with 16 dogs yanking on a Polaris 250!
Last weekend I drove up to Fairbanks in Alaska to the annual Sleddog Symposium put on by the Alaska Dog Mushers Association (ADMA). This event always gives me a nice break from fall training and is my annual vacation from the dogs. Pierre and Isabel, my crew for the Dawson checkpoint for the 2005 Quest took care of the dogs while I was gone. More on the symposium next time.
Cheers, Gerry