dogs – Lappland Nature Dreams

06.01.2022

Our First Winter Season

Since the preparation of our first winter season took so much time there was unfortunately no time left to update the blog. But we hope you follow us on Instagram or Facebook to regularly see new photos and videos of our daily life.

Before we go on with an update about the start of the winter we would like to wish you all a happy new year. Take all the good memories from the past with you and go into new adventures and experiences with hope and happiness; so 2022 has no other chance than to become a good year 😃🎉🥳

As you may know Corona slowed down our plans of building up the kennel for adventurous longer tours with dogs and guests but anyway we wanted to start the business and decided to offer half day and day tours this winter.

While the snow ❄️ was waiting for the new year to come the cold 🥶 was present already in the early winter. From mid of November until first week of December we had low temperatures of -20°C, many days much colder with -30°C to -35°C at home what means even colder on the trail. Since there was not much snow isolating the ground we were a bit afraid of freezing pipes in the dog food kitchen the whole time. It looked quite good… until the last day of this freezing period. Coming out to prepare the dog food the bad surprise was waiting: no water 💦 in the dog food kitchen and guest toilet 😬 that meant a lot of work to defrost the pipes before they break. Since it was below -30°C and Raffi was working in the dog food kitchen while Yvonne had to go to Arvidsjaur we put on the electric heating in the main house and additional heaters in the dog food kitchen. While Raffi was trying all tricks you could find on the internet (beside a warming cable in the pipe) like putting salt or rödsprit into the pipe, the use of electricity seemed to reach the maximum amount of what was possible… and in the afternoon even all electricity ⚡️ was gone for some hours 😖 and that meant also that you couldn’t heat the main house anymore. These typical old heating systems in Sweden are possible to use with fire wood (what we do most of the time) or electricity. Sounds as if a lack of electricity is no problem. That was what I was thinking before we moved here and I learned that even when you are heating with wood you need electricity for the pump because otherwise the water is not transported trough the system. Ok, so take some blankets, let the water run to prevent it from freezing in the main house too and wait for the electricity to come back 😏 at least the electricity was back after a while and Raffi went on to defrost the pipe until half past ten in the evening… with no success so far. But the measures were taking effect over night and in the morning we had water again 😀 but this was just beginning of December and more cold days were supposed to come.

But you are probably more interested to hear something about the dogs 🐕 and tours. Already the first weekend in December we did our first tours with guests. The trails were bumpy and difficult to drive because there was so few snow that it was difficult at all to find trails you could already run on. But the guests were motivated, no question about the motivation of the dogs needed 😉 we had some nice tours with a glimpse of sun ☀️ and yes, cold temperatures most of the time. Since Christmas the high season is on and we have tours every day – except the resting days for the dogs of course. The dogs are doing a great job, always motivated and happy. One week ago our puppies had their first birthday, so officially they are no puppies anymore. And indeed, they are neither looking like puppies nor can you see a difference in the work. But they stay our „puppies“ until we have the next ones 😂

With the new year also the snow found its way to us. With snow and wind the trails were gone several times the last days. So, Raffi got up early in the morning to prepare the trails to make it a little easier for the dogs and me on tour. But I can just repeat: the dogs are so motivated that they also jump through deep snow like it’s nothing to search for the trail and pull a sled at the same time.

Today they have a resting day and beside taking care and cuddle dogs we have time to shovel some more snow out of the dog yards, from the roofs, etc. 😅 then we have some more busy days before it gets a bit less next week and we hopefully can prepare more trails and maybe do another private tour for us.

For all who are waiting for pictures… they follow now 😉 and if you want to join a tour, just take contact and we arrange it.

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26.09.2021

Autumn Impressions

No words needed …

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22.08.2021

Lapland’s Beautiful Nature

When we decided about the name of our company it was important not only to mention our dogs but also our close connection to the place we live and the beautiful nature around us.

Some weeks ago you already got the first impression of the berry season, now everything is full of blueberries and also lingonberries are almost ready.

Do you remember the young golden eagle 🦅 that lives in the area? Today after berry picking we saw him again. Not in the nest but flying through the forest. Very impressive how eagles manage to fly between narrow trees 🌲 unfortunately he was much too fast to make a picture 📷

But another one was much more patient… a reindeer with great antlers stopped for us to be photographed 😉

And a few days ago “our” moose mum and one year old moose child came for an evening visit…

Last but not least some photos of our dogs, showing there emotions short before start of the training run: 8 year old Lumene is fully concentrated and waits for the starting command while puppies Rafiki, Zazu and Mufasa as well as two year old Mose are really excited and let you see and hear this 😂

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27.07.2021

Holiday Part 2

You are probably already waiting for the report of our second week of vacation… so, here you are 😉

Of course, the water 💦 for the dog food kitchen was still a big part of the work. But finally all new pipes were in the ground and now our yard looks like a potato field 🥔 But who cares, soon it’s covered with snow ❄️ 😂

But there were also some easy tasks this week, berry picking for example 😋 the “Gold of Lapland” – the cloudberries are ready as well as my favorite beside strawberries – the blueberries.

Our new grill kota is obviously an interesting place, within 5 days it was two times visited by a moose even if it’s only a few meters from the dogs 🐕 what is he doing there? Barbecue? 🥓🍗🍔

On Friday I did a little journey to the Norwegian border to pick up our new family member “Mose” – that means moss. Before that I did several phone calls because it’s still not so easy to enter Norway when you live in Norrbotten. But if the former owner or any other person brings the dog over the border you have to follow a lot of new and quite complicated rules. After all these calls it was still not sure if it will work but we decided to just try it. And in fact, the border was the smallest problem 😉 Sometimes it seems to be better not to ask or think too much 🙈

On the next day it was cold enough to do a short training run, so Mose could stretch out her legs after the journey. Now, it’s unfortunately again very hot 🥵 but in two days it will be better.

After all the work during the last two weeks we did a short hiking trip 🥾 on Sunday, exploring a potential husky trekking trail. While we were walking we heard an eagle crying… and shortly after we found the nest with a young golden eagle 🦅 almost ready to fly out. What a nice end of the week 😊

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18.07.2021

Active Holiday

Since one week we have holiday now… and no, we are not laying on the beach 🏝 enjoying the sun ☀️ that’s anyway not our most favorite kind of vacation, we prefer active holiday 💪😉 but honestly this week was heavier than a whole month of “normal” work 😬

Last weekend the play toys for big boys were already parked…

On Monday Raffi and our neighbor company Nito Last AB started to dig for the water 💦 to our new dog food kitchen. They were digging and digging and digging… after a whole day they finally found the main water pipe with a T-cross, one to the main house, one to the yard – either to the old fountain ⛲️ or to the barn. Both options meant that the pipe must be close to the old “guest house” so we thought we could avoid digging the whole way but just find the old pipe and connect the new one. Great idea 💡👍 Two more days they were digging, first with logical thinking, later with a detector that clearly stated the way of the pipe but even in more than five meters depth there was nothing 😲 in the end we decided to go back to the old plan and put a new pipe over the yard… so, today they (almost) finished this part of the project. The dirt water pipe is still to do but that part is much easier and almost all way already prepared. And the inside work can wait until all outside tasks are done 😉

At least we don’t need to cut so much grass for the next weeks 😂🙈

Beside digging we also prepared the new dog cages. First we had to make the ground even, then put the dog houses in place. The dog houses we built already during the last months so they were just waiting to be used. And it’s much easier to put the dog houses in the cage before the cage is there because they are too big and much too heavy to get them through the doors. After this was done we put big logs around the cages and then the cage elements. Two of the cages will be “jumping cages”. They will have some additional planks on top to prevent dogs from jumping or climbing out of the cage like e.g. Stella already did when she couldn’t wait to be put on the line for training 😏 now, there are some smaller jobs left: finishing the jumping protection, make door locks/openers and fix the food bowl holders.

Last but not least we built up our grill kota. Another challenging project: first of all the quality of the material was quite bad, so after a complaint to the seller he promised that the manufacturer will send somebody on Thursday to build up the kota – as compensation. On Thursday the manufacturer called me that they can’t come today but will come on Friday. Meanwhile we had already prepared the ground. Friday morning we put all parts on place waiting for the guys to come. At 5 p.m. I got a call that they unfortunately can’t manage and that they can check on Monday if they can come next week… are you kidding me? 😳 Ok, we didn’t want to put all parts back in the garage to protect them from rain, so we started to build it up ourselves. Generally not a big thing, but instead of a written instruction with the delivery the seller send a link to an online instruction with nice animation videos. Not really comfortable to check your phone while working on the one hand but more problematic that a lot of parts of the kota where not exactly like the description and animation. The bottom, the corner pieces, the door, the benches, the grill… almost all steps you had to make changes and could guess what is the correct way, some parts were even missing completely. So, we checked pictures from the manufacturer to see if we are correct. At the end we could finish the building process yesterday evening. Now, we only need to finish oiling it. Yesterday night and today it was too much rain 🌧 so, we will do that within the next days. Also the surrounding and decoration will be made in the near future. But after nine days of hard work we had to spend 2-3 hours relaxing with a barbecue in our kota tonight 😋🌭🥗

Let’s see what the next week will bring 😉

By the way: the dogs are doing fine. Joël wants to go for walks with them every day again and again… good for the puppies to learn to walk on the leash 🐕🐾 and Joël’s most favorite thing on the yard is the “brumm brumm” – the atv. He loves to join a ride and next week colder temperatures are promised, so maybe we can go out together for training with the adult dogs 🐶

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01.06.2021

Never Ending Story…

Oh man, does it only feels like work is never ending???

Look at this…

After a whole weekend of work it still seems like the wood pile is not getting smaller. Ok, maybe that’s because it was not only wood work. Also using half a day to get to the city to buy some more building material, go on with ceiling and floor in Joël’s room, cutting bushes in the free run, etc.

But let me tell you a bit more about the last few weeks: after some warm days end of April it was colder again and at Pentecost – believe it or not – we had 12cm of new snow over night, most in Sweden as you can see on the picture that I stole from Glommersträsk’s Instagram account 😉

So the cold days we used to build new dog houses, meanwhile 3 of 5 are done 🙂 We also made plans about the old house on the yard that we first thought to be the guest house later. But now we decided to use it as bakery (what it is already now), as dog kitchen and medical room, guest toilet and food and equipment storage. But for this we need to put water in the house, so more work on the yard to get water and dirt water pipes connected. And of course, we make plans for a new guest house. But since we anyway had to postpone the longer tours for one season we thought the innovations above are a good step in between 😉

We also got the delivery of more elements for the new dog cages. One we could already add because we prepared the ground last autumn. Three more are waiting for ground preparations that were postponed due to the slowly melting and fresh snow. But within this month the new cages will be ready I guess and also the grillkåta should be in place (maybe the painting will take until July). Except if we are using too much time and energy for our wood pile 😉 We will let you know and show you pictures of the results 🙂

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06.12.2020

Where is the winter?

Today is the 6th December… not only „Nikolaus“ in Germany but also WINTER ❄️❄️❄️ but it seems that the one who is responsible for the weather is on holiday 🏝🌊☀️

+1° is much too warm for December 😬 The snow is wet and heavy and the swamps still not frozen… where is the real winter? 🥶❄️☃️

Anyway, Raffi was searching for new trails, first with ski 🎿 then with dogs 🐕 and you can be sure he liked the second alternative more 😉

In the meantime Luna and Stella were allowed to stay inside with Joël and me so that they are not too sad about staying home. Even if they are doing great in front of the sled we need to keep in mind that they are not grown up yet and deep trails are not good for their bones and joints. But as soon as the trail is harder they can join again 😊

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19.11.2020

When dogs trick their human

A bit late but I need to post it, even if it was already some days ago…

Since the snow was still not here Raffi decided to start building the next cozy element of our free run. A tower for the dogs to look around and of course a place to sit and cuddle.

So, he took some trees to start with the basic poles and added the roof base. While working up there Barolo wanted to play and Raffi was throwing a piece of wood for him. After a few seconds Barolo was back and – of course – wanted to continue playing. When realizing that Raffi is up there and will not throw something the next minutes he invented a new game: trick your human 😅🐕🙈 not difficult for him to let the ladder fall down and watch Raffi sitting up there 🤣🤣🤣

Now we need some more construction wood to go on with the tower but eventually we postpone it to after the winter because today the snow was coming back and we hope for more to go out with the sled soon ❄️🐕🛷

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10.11.2020

Believe in your dreams

Oh, that was difficult. I wanted to find a headline that sums up the content of the text but that doesn’t give Corona another place to get big. So, no name of that in the header. But my second idea was to write „stay positive“ until I realized that this word is also very much occupied by the current media reports and can have the opposite effect… so why not staying with our web page headline word „dreams“?

At the moment, of course, it’s not easy to let your dreams come true. Especially if you plan to work in tourism business the crazy situation in the whole world stops or at least slows down your plans. As long as we don’t know how everything develops we can’t go on with the building of the kennel and the guest house but nobody can force us to give up our dreams. We still believe that we can welcome you on our tours in future and we will use the time we have to make the best out of the situation.

For today that just meant to enjoy the time with our dogs at our new fire place 🔥🐕😍

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15.10.2020

Too much energy

The colder the temperatures get the more energy the dogs have. And if running is not enough anymore they find new ways to spend it… make order in the free run for example 😂🐕🐾

But actually it’s a quite good idea because there we will start with the sleds and some of the branches and roots of the bushes needs to be taken out because otherwise they will kill your brake pad right at the start. For those of you who have never been on a dog sled: the sled has two brakes, one metal brake and one hard plastic/gummi brake pad. The first you use when you are standing or when you need to break really hard (e.g. reindeers in front of you), the latter is to brake softly to avoid that dogs feel every bump in their back, you use it almost all the time. That is why the brake pad usually is down on the snow all the time while the metal brake only touches the snow if you step on it. The disadvantage with the brake pad now is if there is something in the way like a root that is standing out of the snow the pad can hit this and rip off or you can be stopped really hard and crash into the handle bar (the part you are holding the sled usually at the height of your ribs). Both not so funny. So, good to have strong helpers in the yard 😉

And even if there was no time to prepare the camera and it’s just a photo from the mobile phone we don’t want to hide the beautiful morning colours from today 😊

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19.09.2020

Feeling free

Yeah, yesterday the free run for the dogs was finished 😃 not really finished if you think that we want to build a shelter with a fireplace and a tower for relaxing hours with our dogs and guests. But fence and doors are done, so the dogs could enjoy a long free run with a lot of cuddles or just chewing on some wood sticks 🐕🐾😋

And hopefully next week the kennel elements will be delivered so that we can finish that part of the project too.

Today we used the nice weather to get some wood in the shelter and cut the bushes on the yard – winter isn’t far anymore 😉❄️☃️

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01.09.2020

The adventure begins

Today is the day! The first day of our new life 😃

The trailer was packed already yesterday so that we just had to put our last bags with cameras, computer and food as well as the dogs into the car and could start the journey in the morning. Originally it was planned to stop in Arvidsjaur for the paperwork and then go on to Moräng but since there were quite a lot incidents of theft and burglary in the area the last days we decided to go to the house first, park the trailer there and then go back for the paperwork. Some useless driving but better than to risk all our stuff 😉

And by the way, I almost forgot to tell you another typical Lapland story: knowing that we will need a trailer for moving we booked a one-way-rental from Kiruna to Arvidsjaur already in July. But don’t believe that safes your plans! Five days ago we got a message that there are unfortunately no trailers available in Kiruna but they changed the booking to pickup in Malmberget – you don’t know where this is? Ah, just 1,5h one way from Kiruna, so not far from what we booked 😒 and not to forget that we pass by the rental station in Kiruna quite often and there are always at least five trailers standing there. But asking at the station didn’t help because they couldn’t do anything, everything works via internet booking 😬 really customer-friendly 🙈

So, in the end we cancelled the (changed) booking and thankfully borrowed a trailer from Mats.

In the afternoon we finally arrived, happy to have our own home now.
The dogs already enjoyed running on the yard, not all free and at the same time until we have a fence around but good to stretch out their legs after a long car ride 🐕🐾🐕

Ah, and we had a very special welcome short before Moräng. A white reindeer with its white calf – that’s a sign for luck 🙂