Search for a cabin, four paw drive, rabies, Norsk Information Gene, Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Our hunt for a cabin continues... this has the positive side that we end up in some locations where we've never been before. Kin's four paw drive is finally coming into it's own, as on this occasion at this altitude the skis stayed in the car's roof box, and he's faster than me. The orange lead in the picture is a plastic lead that's 16 m in length and in this kind of terrain you just let it run behind him, then if you need to grab him it's possible, but otherwise he's free to roam, as there's still snow up here there are no sheep yet. Picture is taken at about 690 m, had to go up to about 750 m for skiable snow... oh and this is (according to the cabin prospectus) one hour's drive from my house (it was 1 hr 15 mins, which was fairly close).


The week before Kin and I had taken a walk from the house down into town and back, on the way back some kids wanted to meet him. He was fairly warm and had some slobber around his muzzle. Now Kin has become somewhat reserved when meeting kids, if they 'charge' him. If the kids stand still and he goes to them, all well and good, but he's not happy when they swarm him. They tried to swarm him, and he backed away. They then decided that as he had 'foam at the mouth' he obviously had rabies, which is why he didn't want to meet them!

Now back to four paw drive. Kin is no better when I am on paws than when I am on skis, he still tries to go in front and seems to enjoy 'T-boning', and generally getting in the way.  For a Newfie, he's wonderfully agile, but still need to be very careful about picking routes. Was trying to steer him down a safe gully, across a stream bed, when I slipped and did a wonderful glassade, on my arse, into the aforementioned stream bed... as Kin gave me a surprised look and saunted by - after this I became somewhat less focused on steering him!


We were having a wonder around the area where there is a cabin plot available. We bush wacked on one side, from the car at 500 m up to 740 m, then spoke to some locals who pointed out that the road to the secret  military installation (at least that's what the sign says), unlike on the map, it actually goes on for another five km, up to 906 m, on the other side of the hills, so up Kin & I went to explore.

We got up to ~ 869 m before the snow became too heavy going and we turned back.

Great area to visit; place is a little gem, but because of geometry, would run out of ski areas to explore quite quickly. 


Area is the south side of Ørsdalsvatnet, in Bjerkreim, road that goes into Lauperak. Incidentally for those who are in the Stavanger area, the hill that we wondered up is the one with the large radio mast on the summit (Gaupelemfjellet), that can be seen covered in snow when you drive on the E39 towards Vikeså.


On driving out we had to follow the three dead end roads to their ends. One of which goes through a farm and then you wonder if you are on the farm's private road as it goes to a gravel road, through fields... This brings you here:

With a stunning view along Ørsdalsvatnet, and this vessel:

Which at first inspection appears to be a shelter deck trawler (on a completely land locked lake, with no access to the sea), but on closer inspection is a tourist boat:

Which leads me to the Norsk Information Gene, as proposed by Pete McAulay, this is a gene that Norwegian's are born with so for instance they know that down this unlikely looking road there will be a boat that travels the length of the lake once a week between these times, this is why no advertising of this service is required!


Meantime the search for a cabin continues...

Bullying, injuries, great day, big dogs - Nurhan's take

Nurhan's take:

Late season skiing is normally really good. Snow is a good consistency, weather is more stable, sun doesn't go down until after 22:00 hrs, and as you can see from Mel in the above picture, it's generally warmer. Here Kin is trying to hypnotize her so she gives him, her food. It wasn't a great success... in fact, despite the fact that he has quite a number of kilos on her, she does have a tendency to bully him:

Not that he really seems to mind.


This was a short trip from the car and had him tied to a tree whilst we ripped up the surrounding slopes.

This pic is Kin, & I on the way back to the car (Pics from Mel). 


Kin still runs under the skis, so you have to be really careful, which does limit where we can take him. He was clipped with the metal edges of the skis on a paw back at the end of March, this then caused him some problems which necessitated a trip to the vet, lotions and potions.

And meant that I either had to put a cone on his head (cone is so big that he can't fit through doors! Or

He didn't like the 'anti lick' wool sock and despite the addition of duct tape, it didn't take him long to remove it!


Now on last Saturday, Mel, & I had gliders, and skis in the car (and of course, Kin). There is a paragliding course ongoing at the moment and I normally can tie Kin up at the hill that they are training on. Sadly this time there were cows in the field. Cows and dogs don't tend to mix well. When I noticed the cows (on the other side of the fence), Kin & I turned back to the car. The cows came as a herd to the rather insubstantial fence. Cows have a tendency to trample dogs (and their owners, if they are in the same place - and are best avoided). We took a trip up to the main take off, but it was too windy, so we decided to head up the road and go skiing instead. We did ask/taunt May if she wanted to come, and we were kind enough to send her pictures of us, in the sun, in the snow.


Next day Kin stayed at home, in the garden, and May, Mel, David, and I went on a longer ski trip.

And my jaw is still hurting from the grinning. Perfect snow, found some steep downhills to carve turns on, great weather, and not least good company. Kin was in the garden for almost eight hours (on the Friday before he'd been in the house for almost ten hours alone - neither time did it seem to be a problem for the little chap).


Felt knackerd when I came home but had to take him out. At one point he managed to disappear, and when he came back, you generally make a fuss, so he associate's coming back as a good thing, sadly it was only after I started to pet him and he'd rubbed himself up on me that I realised he'd found something worse than shit to roll in (I have no idea what/where he rolled but it was seriously unpleasant). Got him to swim in a lake, didn't do much to change the smell, did think about taking a dip to get smell out of my trousers, but decided against it on the grounds that the shoes would take too long to dry out (oh and it was only +6 deg C). Got back to the house and then had to wash him, which generally takes an hour, then had to have a shower. So very late dinner! - This kind of thing could be made hilarious in a comedy serious, less funny when you are tired & hungry!


Lastly Øyvind, & I have been trying to get a play date for our dogs. He has a two year old Great Dane, who currently weighs in over 80 kgs. They have met once before, but that was when Per was looking after Kin. Øyvind and I were talking dogs last week and he showed me the below picture of one of his friend's dog:

And people think Kin is big! Then we had a look at 'George', the world's largest dog, another Dane, who really isn't far off the size of a horse!

Screwed, strange sense of foreboding, made for the purpose: Kin's take:

Kin's take:

Trip into the small hills, no snow in sight, pity as I like rolling in it, and grabbing my human's legs when he has these strange plank things on his legs, that seem to make him fall over a lot - especially when I try to grab his legs...

Well that's it, now we're screwed... sometimes I wonder why I follow my human as a lot of the time he really goes to strange places.

 

Still on the plus side it means that we get to find another route.

I don't understand why my human insists on only using two legs... I keep having to stop and wait for him, or go back and try to find him.

I'm  little bit skeptical as to what my human is doing in my garden.

Can't see what my human is trying to achieve, but I have a strange sense of foreboding... still I'll go dig another hole in my garden as this helps me to think...

And then I can go inside and work on my wall mural, before having a relaxing snooze. Talking of which, I've taken to sleeping outside, and I've found this really great place to sleep when it's windy and raining:

 I could almost believe it was made for the purpose!

Expectations - Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Now Newfies aren't the correct dog if you want to take long trips in the mountains, especially with snow... but as he's approaching the 18 month mark, and his bones should be strong enough to take short mountain trips, I decided yesterday to take him with me and get him to go well with folk on skis. This wasn't a complete success!


How we experience life has to do with expectations; often we experience wonderful things but because of our expectations we do not enjoy them as much as we should. I love skiing, and next to powder snow, Easter Snow (normally grainy balls, that really hurt when you fall in shorts), is great for top tours. My vision was getting Kin up to the top of a smallish hill and then having fantastic downhill blasting with smooth turns on lovely snow to play on... the reality was somewhat different...

As soon as we got on the snow, Kin took great delight in rolling around, tangling himself in the lead, which isn't so easy to untangle him from when you are on skis. - This wasn't that annoying, mainly owing to the first walk of the day Kin found the remains of a one time grill that some evil folk had left in a nature area near my house, and as it's a nature area they felt compelled to leave the grill and the fish heads, bones that they had grilled, Kin promptly rolled in these and did have a distinctly fishy smell for several hours.


 Also we have to ski through a hut area to get to the hill that I wanted to ski on; we have a running joke that the one time you see Norwegians on skis, is Easter, and yes folk were out in force. Added to that Kin wanted to sniff everything, having a 70 kg dog running behind you, whilst you are on skis, with the lead connected to you at waist level can have a rather destabilizing effect.

I had to keep him on the lead until we were clear of people as he was quite keen on meeting and greeting folk. Once clear of the tracks and with a hill to ourselves, I attached a running lead - this is basically a ~five meter long lead, that he trails behind him, theory being he's easier to catch if I have to and if he's about to go over anything that could affect his longevity, I can grab the lead and stop him.


Now last Saturday it turned out that he did get a cut on his front left leg, caused by getting in the way of the metal edges on the sides of the skis - sadly this didn't lead to any form of prudence:

and his preferred place was lying in front of you! Which was merely problematic when going up hill, but when coming downhill caused several wipe-outs so as not to hurt the little chap again.


Now if I had the idea of going up into the hills with my dog and enjoying the weather, yesterday would have been an awesome day.

But despite trying to teach him to go behind, even throwing meat behind me, and fending him off in front with the ski poles, I couldn't stop him from getting in the way, when he couldn't stop me by going in front, he ran behind me and tried to grab my legs with his mouth, he only mouthed, but the meaning/intent was clear.

Don't be fooled by this picture, food was involved in order to get him to stay there, and the skis are off! Behind him you can see some turns (we had the hill to ourselves which is quite gratifying when you look up and can trace your line by your ski tracks; and the locations where Kin managed to 'shoot me down').


When we descended onto less steep ground, I had to shed the skis altogether, or risk cutting his legs again as here I had to have him on the lead (owing to people), and he kept crossing in front of me, so we had to walk the last 1 1/2 km to the car on lovely skiable snow.


Now I had a glider in the car as well, and was wondering about taking a flight in Hunnedalen, before driving home. It would have taken me about an hour to walk up to the launch spot. I could keep Kin tied to the car, go up, fly for a bit and land in the car park next to the car (I've landed here before but that was in a Sea King SAR helicopter... but that's another story). But decied that I didn't want to leave him by himself, and elected to drive back via our (Jæren Hang og Paraglider klubben) main flying area Gjesdal as there were bound to be folk there, and I leave him at the clubhouse while I am flying and there are people around to keep him company - or at least that's the plan - on approaching I couldn't see anyone in the air. One HG (hanglider) derigging on the winter landing... streamer whipping around. 


Turned out that everyone had gone home or was done for the day. Geoff a HG pilot, kindly offered me a lift up top (so I could fly down and leave the car at the bottom), drove up; now Geoff has a 2007 ish Subaru Forester, and unlike my 2009 Outback, it does have a low range switch, which meant that he could drive me all the way to the take off without frying the clutch. The top streamer was whipping around. Wind was averaging around 7.5 m/s, and going up to 9 m/s. Great for HG, not good for PG. Could have waited for the sun to drop lower and then the wind would have come down into limits but then there would be no thermics and no wind lift so would end up being a five minute flight, after waiting 30 minutes to an hour... so Geoff kindly drove me back down to my car/clubhouse were Kin was quite happy to see me.


All in all it was a great day, but was out of kilter with my expectations.

Does have the side effect that today Kin is whacked:

In the last two hours he's moved from here, to 

here!


It's raining now, so the rest of my day is going to be spent cleaning (see black on wall above his bum-this is on all the walls) or continuing building a fence around the patio...

Start of Easter, Cabin Recon- Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

 Easter in Norway is a big event, in as folk take time off and official holidays are 1/2 day this coming Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & the Monday off; many folk take the whole week off. David (see pic below), Kin, & I (above pic), got skiing on Saturday. The interesting thing here is how little snow there is this year compared with last year. Last year the road below this peak had ~ 1.6 m of snow at the same time (see posts, 

Keeping track of your human is a full time job - Kin

and see post:

Ferries & out doors life - Nurhan's take:

This year there is way less snow. Also interesting is that we normally ski in areas that areon high ground with high ground all around; you can clearly see from the photo that wereally are on the edge of the snow limit, the view over my right shoulder is a NW direction looking out to the sea and the land drops - and spring has arrived; looking the other way terrain is higher, and fighting it's rear-guard action against the arrival of spring.

Wasn't a long ski trip, but in places good fun as the snow was soft enough to blast down and turn - although the 'natural' dog hazard was a bit of a problem. Kin likes to run into you, now if the slope is steep enough (and you are going down) he doesn't have a hope of keeping up, otherwise he'll run sideways into you, or try to grab your ankles... now this tends to not only be annoying but can be quite dangerous, as the skis that we use are called 'fjell-ski' and they have metal edges - or to put it another way, think four long knives, so you have to be very careful not to cut the little chap's legs... he has no such worries as he tries 'T boning' you.

He also has a habit when you are going up hill of running in front of your skis and then stopping, which can be 'entertaining' as you try to herring bone up a slope.

No clue how to cure him of the above issues.

By the time we got back to the car he was very tired - and to put this in perspective, this was a really short ski, the snow was hard, so he didn't sink, and normally we would be skiing for not less than four hours, this trip was maybe an hour - this is one good reason for not taking him on the longer trips, another is that if anything happened, it would be really difficult to get him back to the road/car, and the third is that look at him this kind of trip is on ther right side of what he considers fun, I don't believe that he'd enjoy a longer trip with steeper downhills.

Below pic is of David.

Behind the highest ski tip in the photo is the sea.

Digging master classes, Chamonix, Grooming, and the results of Dog Yoga - Nurhan's take

Nurhan's take:

Don't they look innocent, neither one is paying any attention to the basket ball, that you can only see the top of, on what used to be a flat, green lawn! Zorro (in the foreground) has been conducting digging 'master classes' in the garden, what he lacks (by comparison to Kin) in size of digging apparatus (paws) he more than makes up for with enthusiasm. Kin merely moves the soil from the hole with his huge paws (and he likes to store plenty of it in his fur to deposit in areas where it won't be 'noticed' - such as the house...), but Zorro goes at the digging with wild abandonment; the soil arcing, gracefully up in the air, to the height of several Zorro's; this causes Kin to come over and watch as it's quite a spectacle! So when one happens to glance out of the window, it looks for all the world that Zorro is holding a Master Class and Kin is paying attention...


To give the grass a chance, I'm in the process of building a fence around the patio, so I can keep him on the patio for two weeks and let the grass grow!


Now 'every' year, we have a boy's trip to Chamonix; I've missed this trip twice since 1993, once as I was offshore, and once last year as Kin had just come to live with me and this was in his most formative age.

This year I was back. Now this is the only photo I took whilst I was there. This is a reasonably steep off piste section and my legs have melted. Over the years we've taken photos, we've taken video, and it never reflects what we actually ski, gradient, speed, feelings wise, so this year we mainly didn't bother to take pics... but we did come up with the Vole grading system; it's a well know phenomena with skiing, that when a person makes a jump they invariably think that their jump can be measured in meters, when realistic measuring the jump by the standard height of a Vole (or fraction there of) is a more realistic measure, and thus the vole grading system was invented! We had amazing weather. There was plenty of snow (which was good, as it didn't snow at all whilst we were there); but we had temperatures below freezing at night but by lunch time at 2000 m, temperature was up around 16 deg C with no wind, so t-shirts sitting outside in the sun having lunch :-) (and bragging about how many Vole's, Simon, Svein, and I were claiming).


Now Kin, although a boy, wasn't up for coming on this boy's trip. I had this conversation with per:


"Per, don't just answer this question, think about it and give me a ring back in a couple of days: You said that you wouldn't mind looking after Kin, if I go away, well I'm going to Chamonix in week 9 can you..."


'Yes'


"He's a lot of hassle, and he'll eat things."


'Yes'


"Are you sure."


'Yes'


It was with very mixed feelings that I dropped Kin off at Per's; not because I was worried about Per looking after Kin (he's had dogs before, he's known Kin from when I picked him up - Kin, not Per! And he cooked liver for Kin when I dropped him off!) But the longest I've left him before was overnight.


Per and Kin got on really well. When Svein, and I swung round on the way home from the airport, Per had moved the patio heater into the living room, so that he could have the patio door open so Kin could saunter in and out at will!


Kin had gone to bed when we dropped round:

Now Karma would jump up an be all over me when I came back from Chamonix, offshore, or elsewhere. Xo (another Newfie, that a friend, Pål had), would sulk and turn his back on Pål (which is only hilarious, if it's not your dog). Kin was somewhere in between, I think he had an internal battle over being peeved that I'd left him, but happy that I'd come back!


Really grateful to Per for looking after the little chap, and treating him so well - thanks again Per.




At the moment Kin is molting:

this pile is literary five minutes with a brush! Karma shed the whole year round. So far Kin's shed the whole year round but now he's having a major molt. He did lose his puppy coat way early (Karma got his adult coat at about the age Kin is now); so I'm wondering if this is a one off molt to do with the puppy coat coming so early, or if he will molt once or twice a year.


In February, with snow on the ground, and ice on the lakes, I took two ticks off him! Never found ticks before in such conditions. Took one off him today, so have put the tick drops on him today - this is several weeks earlier than normal.




We've also been looking at cabins, we actually bid on the one, who's roof I'm standing on - but didn't get it.

Kin has taken up dog yoga:

 Not sure if the furniture is required for this position, but judging by the snoring this is (surprisingly) a comfortable position - one he managed to hold, right up until I took this opportunity to try to groom his stomach and the inside of his back legs...




The weather has taken a turn for the better with several good weather days, which means flying. Some of the flying sites Kin can come to. This is coast hang at Reve.

 At the local clubs main flying place, Gjesdal, he's normally tied up next to the club house, most of the regular pilots know him and keep an eye on him, if not take him for walks. Here May is holding him (hat, with back to camera), Arvid (Mr President), is to her left, Dag is behind, and Per (who looked after him for a week, so he gets a special welcome, which they both enjoy) is behind Kin looking at his phone - and yes they are all standing in the middle of the road! 

Me, I'm packing my wing up... I landed close to the fence that's on the edge of the green behind them, lovely landing right next to the steps... lovely that is until Arvid took great delight in telling me how the fertilizer spreader (i.e. cow crap) had gone very slowly up the road yesterday, and that's what the lovely smell was! 

B-Person, & How to Make your Human Feel Useful - Kin's take:

Kin's take:

Now I'm definitely more of a 'B' type 'person'. Here I am trying to snooze whilst my human is trying to get me out on a trip, at some un-godly hour. Try as I might I can't convince him to go back to bed. I try strategically blocking the stairs. I snore contentedly, but all to no apparent avail, he seems dead set on this perverse activity of getting up whilst most living things are quite rightly sleeping.


However I have noticed that once I do get up, and go out, he seems to be in quite a hurry, and great entertainment can be had from randomly sniffing things every five meters. Now you might expect my human to get angry, but I've figured out a way to make him feel good. Get him to let you off the lead, and throw a ball. Run away with the ball, and hide it. He'll walk away expecting you to follow and give him the ball. Follow him and when about 200 m away from the ball, turn round, rush back to the ball's location as though your life depended on it. Now if you do this convincingly enough, your human should follow you. And now for the trick, make out that you can't find the ball and allow your human to find the ball. This not only extends the length/time of the walk, but will allow your human to feel useful, which will please them. Then when you get back you can go back to sleep un-molested by your human - unless food is being put out and then obviously one must go and investigate the offering.