Gerry Willomitzer's
Blackjack Racing Kennel
December 20, 2007
Fall and early winter
So, I am back. After some hardware issues I am now back in cyberworld and able to update this "digital rag". Fall training is pretty much standard procedure, this year with more focus on a tail-wagging team, as I think I over-trained last year. With the help of two handlers, Sandro and Kyla, I train 22 adult dogs, 10 yearlings and 13 pups. With two handlers I am quite "overstaffed", but the mission for this winter is to have more fun than ever and lots of couchtime. We are only doing one 1000-miler, the Iditarod, and leave the Quest-Iditarod back-to-back affair to others. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to run both, but for the next few years my kennel will be too small and I will be happy to just take on the logistical challenges of one of the two. In addition to the Iditarod I am planning for a couple mid-distance events in January in Alaska, plus possibly the Percy DeWolfe one week after Iditarod and the Dagoo way up north in Old Crow. By then it'll be mid-April and I'll start work on Tom & Mandy Green's log addition. Winter is almost over.
The first race of the season, the Sheep Mountain Lodge 150 was cancelled due to lack of snow. I had taken part in all three previous SML 150s, placing 3rd twice and 7th once. For 2007 I was the first one to sign-up, beating my buddy Sebastian by hours (he has a girlfriend, which distracts him from his racing life!), and would have been the first one to start. I still think the purse should have been paid out in order of sign-up. A race is a race. :-)
Every year fall training is "over-shadowed" by the last building projects. This year I invested in an old "Cornbinder" with hydraulic knuckle-boom, which makes things a lot easier. Way less monkeying around on the roof.
And "Big Red" is also handy for lifting dog boxes. I've actually come to the point where I don't even bend over to pick up a snot-rag. Big red does it all :-)
When not training dogs I spent a bit of time in the shop putting together my new dog box for the "new" one-ton Dodge. After breaking the leaf springs of the 3/4 ton despite having over-loads last winter I decided to go for a dually, so far so good. Looking for a dog box? I custom build!
More hardware improvements: Sandro and Kyla enlarged the dogyard and changed out rotten fence posts. The dogyard is now 50% larger with a large area where everyone can roam around free. Sometimes we even play soccer with the pups in there.
We have snow! The Canol Road has been a real busy place for dogteams this November and December. We went there once or twice a week to do runs up to 150 miles long, interrupted by camp-outs at Quiet Lake campground. Once there were 9 mushers and about 130 dogs at the same time. At home we are still on quad and snowmachine. In about 10 days we'll head out for Alaska, it's time to race!