It’s September!

We had our first heavy frost in town yesterday morning. Fall is well underway!

The big birch trees on the neighbour’s yard are shedding yellow leaves all over the neighbourhood. It’s dark again at night. The northern lights are back. It’s a beautiful time of year.

The tourist season is coming to a close. Many of our restaurants and tourist stops will be closing and boarding up over the next month. Everyone is starting their winter prep. Summer staff are planning their departures, others are desperately searching for a cabin, or room to call their own for the winter. Rental places are scarce year round, so flexibility and creativity is key. Others are looking for firewood delivery and wanna-be sourdoughs are looking for winter clothes so they can spend their first winter in the north.

I just had our third fire in the wood stove. When it hovers around 16C inside too long, I just can’t shake the damp chill in here and want a fire. However, after I feel the warmth of the fire, I crave more, and then suddenly it is way too hot, and Jeff is panting (kidding) (but close).

Hank Update

Hank is 8.5 weeks old now, and 12 pounds! He visited with two of his brothers, and two sisters for a short while last Friday while he got his first shots and second dose of dewormer. (Poor dude has roundworms.) They were cute playing together at 6 weeks. At 8 weeks it is just madness.

He needs a lot of sleep. After being awake for 20 minutes, he turns into a gremlin. He’ll growl and pounce and bite and hang off your clothes (or skin). Now we have an exercise pen in the kitchen, so during the day, that is where he has time outs and naps. When he turns into a gremlin, he goes in there and sleeps.

At night he is in a crate in our bedroom. He’s slept through the night a couple times, but usually needs one trip outside in the middle of the night. Jeff is the hero here because I don’t hear a thing when I’m asleep. Then I take him out in the morning when he stirs at 6 or 7.

He’s got so much personality. He learns really quickly. And he is bold and throws himself off of furniture and steps. I cringe a dozen times a day when he wipes out or runs into something. But yet he is a bit timid of the outside world still, and the noises that come with it. We’re trying to find a balance of getting him well socialized and comfortable, yet he only has had his first dose of shots and is still shedding contagious worm bits so we’re doing so cautiously. This mean he goes to the bathroom in the yard and then we walk half way around the block on the middle of the gravel street.

He is not friends with Sally yet. Sally is hissing and batting him on the head and he just wanted to play with her like she’s a littermate, which will be entirely too rough. She isn’t hiding like she’s terrified. Instead she’s holding her ground, which is important so he know she is boss.

Hank also has his own website now: https://hank.pics