The last 4 weeks passed very fast. Camping-guests came and went, teammembers went and arrived, the most recent staff is always published on the team-page. Weather was sometimes summer-like, sometimes already more autumn-like.
A special moment was a forest-fire on the deforested area left side of the horsetrail. Stefan saw the smoke when walking his dogs, went to check out, found open flames and so we called the fire-brigade from Lieksa immediately. They arrived very fast, drove straight to the fire and stopped everything before the rising winds possibly could make it worse and push the fire over the hills in direction of the Lauri-lake. Thanks to 112 - always here when needed! There is luckily not a lot to see, nature is already recovering.
Many dogs celebrated their birthday in the last weeks. A big thank you for once to all the dog-sponsors who remember the day of their preferred dog and send them packages with tasty surprises. Sadly we and our dogs do not know all your birthdays, so we miss the opportunities for a revange-birthday-wish in most cases :-)
As every early summer, we started to clean up the area and storage buidings. One trailer full of waste was already brought to the special-waste-yard in Lieksa. At least one more will follow. We could sell one of our atv´s and the oldest of the snowscooters, to minimize our vehicle-park to a more reasonable number. For yard-works and more joker-jobs we have now 3 finnish guys in line. 2 of them will be here regularly starting from next Sunday, one other is ready on call. Sarah is enjoying her well-deserved holiday in Switzerland until this evening. from Saturday on we will have families here for the "Fit & Fun" programs, starting twice a week, including full restaurant service and almost every day guided activities. Ready for another guest-wave during this summer!
One big theme in the heads during the last days was the coming farewell to a big numer of dogs leaving us, to reduce the total number of dogs for the last winter in Eräkeskus. Yesterday was the day, when 26 dogs, aged from 2 - 9 years left us in direction of Finnish Lapland to find a new home with Dave in a modern, new built sleddog-farm. 18 dogs from the old kennels and 8 dogs from the new kennels were loaded in late evening to the trailer and left towards Meltosjärvi, including 1 stop at Puolanke to get water and a pee-stop. By now they have arrived, get familiar with their new home and within 1 month the training up there will already start. A big thank yoy to dave for trusting so much in Eräkeskus and our dogs!
Mulan also moved to her early-retirement-home yesterday. She recognized her new family immediately, came happily out of the kennels and even jumped straight into the open car. She will enjoy a few weeks holiday with her new family here in Finland and then move to Germany. I am sure, she will be as spoiled in her old days, as 12 year old Ruby is, modelling by now for the cover of the "Dogue" :-) And also Bolle left us yesterday, he found a new home in a small pack of 18 dogs with one of our previous teammembers with husband and son Mikko. His future will be the same as here, tours and kennel-fun. By all those departures, our number of dogs is by now under 100 and several kennel compartments are empty. One has to get used to it, but it is necessary. Of course I am happy for every dog, for whom I can find a new home, suiting his needs of age and activity. But despite this, the last feeding, the loading of the dogs, last cuddling, saying goodbye to them a last time was really tough and tears were hard to stop, the night almost sleepless. And once more it showed, how lonely this job really is!
As a sad "on-top" to all those departures, we had to let go Kejtu yesterday as well. The 14 years old male, otherwise still in good shape, had a wide-spreading tumour under his skin, already opening and infecting to the inside. As usual with those mentally strong dogs, he showed signs of unwell-being only a few days ago by refusing to eat and not coming out of his doghouse. After discussion with the vet, I decided to let him go. The alternative would have been the removal of a big area of skin and tissues with an unsure future and results. RIP old man!