we’re still harvesting the bounty from the labors of the cosmos organicos garden collective so frida had her first chance to survey the splendor!
you can see ongoing work after the fire on the organic valley headquarters in the background. hopefully when we plant next year all the work will be done!
you see this face? that’s frida being super happy that i won’t let her about and half eat all the bell peppers while i’m trying ot pick them 🙂
frida is still trying to figure out what that thing is that’s always attached to my face and occasionally pointed in her direction.
thanks to a long time reader who sent us a canon point and shoot, odin and i have a camera loaded with the canon hack development kit and a script that will shoot continuous interval shots for our kite aerial photography rig! but we’ve been waiting for weeks and weeks for blustery day without storm clouds to fly the kite.
i went on a 13 miles in stiff winds and thought it was finally a perfect day to try it out. odin was at hockey so he wasn’t going to be able to go, but i gathered up the gear frida and i jumped in the galaxie 500 and went racing to a nearby hill.
frida was very happy to go for a ride in the old ford and was particularly intrigued by the colorful kite.
but alas, by the time we made it out to the hill the winds had died down with the late afternoon sun just as we arrived. hi. ho.
i sure hope we get a chance take some shots before the snow flies.
and now i know frida is happy to along for the adventure!
i’m probably already a little biased but, seriously you guys, she’s just about the cutest, sweetest puppy in the whole world.
also, playing with puppies in the grass is an excellent way to pass the time.
we were going to name our new malamute puppy freki which was the name of one of odin’s mythological wolf companions. but the ravaneous namesake just wasn’t fitting with her cute and cuddly personality. and people would ask “you named her “freaky?” when they first heard her name. and odin said he wasn’t so fond of muninn so we thought for a bit and i said, “how about frida” which is an old norse name meaning “beautiful, beloved”.
we all agreed that it is a perfect name more befitting of our beautiful and beloved puppy.
last november some very generous Friends Of Odin ( FOO! ) bought raffle tickets, entered to win great prizes and helped odin get a new puppy ( the vast majority of the tickets were purchased by long time readers of snowdeal.org most of whom i’ve never met IRL and i am still touched your kindness and generosity. thank you! ). we knew then that we wanted to get another alaskan malamute, but we didn’t know it was going to take this long to bring one home!
but after one unsuccessful breeding attempt and a long 8 week wait, kris went to go pick her up from the breeder near green bay today. she called after getting her and told us she was a veeeeeery cute puppy.
OH!MY!GOSH! she was right!
within moments of jumping out of the car it was clear she and odin are going to be great friends. she went right to him, sat at his feet and looked up as if saying, “ok, i’m here finally let’s go on an adventure!”
odin leaned down and she unleashed a flood of kisses.
odin has A Way with All Animals, but i don’t think i’ve ever seen a puppy so quickly bond with a member of her new family. very fast friends. they will no doubt be inseparable soon.
odin took her for a quick walk around the block so she could get accustomed to the smells of the neighborhood before seeing our yard and the house. she was thirsty after a walk around the block! she’s has a super mellow, curious and affectionate temperment.
and what about a name? in norse mythology odin had two wolf companions geri and freki and continuing in our tradition of giving malamutes names that nobody can pronounce we’re leaning towards naming her freki which is pronounced fray-ki with a bit of a trill. if that doesn’t grow on us odin also had two ravens huginn and muninn and muninn ( meaning “memory” ) is a close second.
i’m sure you’ll see many more accounts of Odin’s Adventures with Freki(?) in the coming weeks.
it is, of course, bittersweet that pushkin didn’t survive to see freki and died just four weeks before we brought her home. he would have done a fine job teaching the house rules.
when we got the blood results back a few days ago we knew we weren’t going to have much time with him. his vet said that telling when a dog was in pain is often difficult with his type of condition. even when they are in severe pain they’ll wag their tales and come when called and get excited to go for a walk ( even when they don’t have the stamina to walk far ). the best indication is when a dog stops doing the things they love to do.
we’ve known he’s been sick for the past 6 weeks, but very quickly over the past few weeks, pushkin has stopped doing the things he loved to do. he stopped eating anything except raw chicken thighs and even that was very slowly over the course of a day. he stopped sitting in his favorite chair. and most tellingly of all he stopped licking us. he’s always been an avid licker and notorious for sneaking in licks when you weren’t expecting it. “pushkin can’t control his licker” was familiar refrain around the house ( we always said it was because he was “grateful” for us rescuing him from the horrid abuse he suffered as a puppy ). but no more.
there’s lots that could be said about pushkin. pushkin was a great dog and a loving, constant companion. in probably 90% of the photos i’ve taken of odin over the past 5 years, pushkin is within 10 feet of the frame.
just one story about how kind and smart he was. never once did he try to eat or otherwise taunt our chickens. we told him when we first brought the chicks home that the chickens were not food AND HE UNDERSTOOD! he’d watch them run around in the yard and not give them a second thought. he’d even protect them like they were members of the family pack. he would give any cats that wandered into the yard a chase if he thought they were going to harm the chickens. he’d even come over and give me a furrowed brow if he wasn’t sure why i was laying in the grass taking pictures of them.
we did a few special things over the past week like going to the drive-in but the reality is that pushkin didn’t have much stamina or interest in doing much except laying near us in the house. we made our peace with the decision as it became clearer that it was the right thing to do. in the past few days he would even get up and walk away if we approached him, as if he was trying to tell us it was time.
we got up and made him a breakfast of bacon and odin and i took a last ride with him in the galaxie. typically, he would eagerly put his head out the window, but not this time. odin noticed that it was another thing that pushkin would normally do but didn’t do anymore.
“poppi, i’m sad, but i think it’s best for pushkin to put him to sleep. i dont want him to be in pain.”
“i think you’re right odin. i think you’re right.”
odin probably said it best. “poppi, i don’t understand. why did this happen to pushkin? he’s The Best and Most Kind Dog In The Whole World. it’s Just Not Right.”
after the ride, we came home made pushkin a breakfast of bacon and shortly after took him to the vet and put him to sleep.
odin has learned a lot of lessons this week. pets teach us about love and loyalty and letting go and, eventually, death. and most importantly of all to enjoy the time you spend with the ones you cherish on this planet because you never really know how much you have.