August 26, 2010

Ready???

We're off and running, well walking actually. We've run 8 of the last 9 days and already see big changes in the dogs. Today we ran two teams, both 5 miles. Although the Quest pool is much smaller (realistically around 18), we are training 29 dogs right now, including several retired-from-racing dogs. I consider all the Quest finishers from last year and Stump to be our best 12 race dogs. After that, there are a lot of question marks in our team for this year. Hopefully Ambler and Cassin will be back from their injuries, with force. Jay and Ivy certainly have the potential to make the team. The yearlings are full of youthful energy and excitement, but only time will tell how quickly they mature. Esther and Isis look great this time of year and we wonder if this will be the year they finally want to keep up come February. Boom and Togo are both still lurking on the sidelines, too. We hope they may decide to get in the game this season. So many questions... For now, it's just slow, controlled runs with lots of different leader pairs. We'll mix up the turns and trails as much as possible and really look forward to distances increasing as tempertures allow. It's great to be back doing what everyone here loves to do!!

Let's go-

August 24, 2010

August 23, 2010

Howdy-

We have a new dog food sponsor!! We have joined some of the best mushers in the world on Team Momentum and are glad to have a deal on such a great food for our team. After trying to negotiate the web of corporate-America with our last food company, it's so refreshing to be able to call up the owner of the company (an Iditarod finisher) and talk directly about the food and business. Dr. Tim Hunt has worked hard to overcome some early problems with production of his foods, and now has it dialed-in and is producing a high quality, consistent feed. It comes highly reccomended from our friends Brent and Sonny and our dogs have made an easy transition to Momentum. As a friend noted, it's the perfect time for our team to keep our momentum rolling, after a great season last year and we're glad to make the change just before training begins in a week or two. So thanks, Dr. Tim, for helping us help our team!!



Yukon Quest sign-ups are just around the corner, on August 7th. Anybody out there got an entry-fee sponsorship?? We'd gladly promote your business, give you a dogsled ride, and/or just be forever grateful...

In some other recent news around here, we will be featured in the July/August 'Mushing' magazine, in an article entitled "Smoking Sibes." Although I haven't read the article yet, I've heard it's pretty good. Thanks to Joseph Robertia who wrote it after an email-interview with me this spring. And for the third year in a row, our team is featured in the Mushing Alaska calendar, that just became availble for 2011. It's a nice shot of Reba and Eliza leading the team into the Quest finishline wearing smiles!! Maybe we should sell some from here? Anybody interested?

all for now. Thanks for checking in- Mike.

Quest video, part 2

part two, Dawson to Whitehorse.
Ohh, and all photos and videos are by Sue and Mike Ellis, Peggy Grass, and Bill McKee.
'Run Like an Antelope' by Phish.

TeamTsuga 2010 Yukon Quest video, part one

Well, I've spent WAY too much time trying to get this thing put togther and then processed to get it online, but here's a rough version of our trip down the Yukon Quest trail in 2010. I really had to degrade the quality to make this work, but hope you'll enjoy anyway.
Second half coming soon-

Summertime in Alaska

Howdy all. Summertime is here is Alaska and we are just as busy as ever. Sue is taking on more time at the vet clinic and I've been balancing a couple building projects with some trips to the Brooks Range doing remote camp set-up for a mining operation. Ya gotta make hay while the sun shines!

Sue and I are loving our first summer here under the midnight sun. I am looking forward to seeing some stars again, but I guess that's still at least a month away... Good thing Sue made those really dark curtains for our bedroom-

Exciting news from the dog yard here is that two dogs have joined our team for the year to come. We have taken on Jay and Ivy, from our friends Loranne and Rich, back in New Hampshire. They run Snowstar Siberians and owned Jack, who is the father of our great dogs bred by Moe Boksa, Stump, Mugs, Hawkeye, Gila, and Gecko. Jay and Ivy are out of a litter Jack produced after he went to Snowstar. We hope they will fall in to the team here and be able to run in the Quest pool next year. (Ivy also has a date with Stump when she comes in to heat.) Ohh, well there's some other news too, I guess. We definitely are trying to make it to the Yukon Quest start line again this year! It's an expensive proposition to continue to do this, but we are so deeply attached to this race, we can't really imagine not running it at this point. It's time to make the next step forward!

Our team just took a big financial blow as the distributor for our former food sponsor decided it was too much trouble to handle 8 bags of dogfood a month for us. So Alaska Feed here in Fairbanks has cost us our sponsorship because Loyall won't stand up to a big customer, like Alaska Feed. The good news is that we really needed to be feeding a better food and we hope we can find some sponsorship through a company that is interested in mushing and knows the demands of distance racing. We will never walk through the doors of Alaska Feed again and hope others will avoid this very musher-UN-friendly store. We do thank the folks that helped us back east to get the sponsorship (Mitch Ingerson, Peter Burhans, and Brian Fitch), and are grateful for the help we recieved for the last two years, but now it's time to move forward to better things. Onward!!

Here's a little video I took in the kennel this morning after being away for a week of work a couple hundred miles north of here-

Leg? Four is preferred.

Here's a link to an interview I did shortly after the Quest this year...
www.siberiansusa.com/siberiansusa/Mike_Ellis_2010.html

Spring fun and sun

Puppies