Heading towards the summer.

Days are getting longer fast, as the arctic is heading towards the midnight sun. We've had some really beautiful days with sunshine again, but has been snowing quite a bit too.

What would my wintertime post be without some pics from sled dog trips?

Just two weeks or so ago almost all the snow fell from the trees because of strong winds. Recent snowfalls made the forests pretty nice again.

January is supposed to be cold here. This year it's been like supposed. For quite a while it was constantly between -25 and -35 celcius. You have to keep you phone and camera near your body, if you want them to work for more than just a short while. 

Always when it's -20c or below, everyone is immediately warming by the fire during lunch or coffee break. When it's warmer, almost everyone stays outside stroking and keeping company to the dogs.

My team enjoys running on a soft layer of fresh snow on recently smoothened trail. Sometimes when tracks get icy you have to put socks on for the dogs, as the paws might start bleeding.

Arriving back to the farm at the Guesthouse Husky

Well, like usually, you got to spend some spare time outside too. So on the skis, and off to the forest on untouched snow!

And after the willow grouse tracks we go. Cloudy days don't make it easy for a human being to spot a white bird on snow.

 

Crafty young dog! He let's the other one to bulldozer his way in soft snow, and then follow the ready path... 

...So no wonder he's full of energy during the break, and has to find something to do.

The hatchet I made last year has been in use a lot. Quite light, but effective enough for my common use. Only change I made was to grind the bevels bit more acute. So far have been happy with it.

 In previous post I mentioned a set of puukkos coming for sale. Well, it seems like it'll go like with Olkiluoto nuclear powerplant in South-West Finland..... it was supposed to be operating in 2009, but still to this date is not. So with this I'm trying to say these knives won't be ready for saly by the end of this month. In this picture blades are roughly ground, and ready for hardening.

Here they're hardened. Easy to see the line of partial quenching.

Blades ready, and some blocks of curly birch sawn for the handles. Blade legths vary from 85 to 98mm. To be continued next week.....