Chillin' at the House

Today was one of those dark, drippy days that are perfect for chillin' at home - literally.  I did quite a few little things, most of which kept me indoors and comfortable.  I spent quite a bit of time on computer maintenance, getting rid of duplicate files, cache files and all those pesky logs and such that over time take up more than their share of memory. 

That doesn't mean I spent ALL day indoors, though.  With the sky so gloomy and the threat of rain I refreshed the wood shavings in Innoko's circle to prevent it from becoming a mud hole.  That was fun for both of us, as Innoko has no fear of the tractor, a rake or a shovel.  I think I've mentioned before that his is a pretty darned fearless little big dog. 

While out in the yard, I also replaced the latch on one of the pen gates.  Somehow I broke an ear off of the original latch, and had a devil of a time finding a replacement that would fit.  With the latch repaired, I also reset the position of the hinges so the gate wouldn't drag so much when opening and closing. 


I did catch up on a bit of housekeeping, vacuuming the carpet and clearing the clutter from my dining table.  Horizontal surfaces tend to get cluttered pretty quickly around here.  I did enough today to feel as though I were "productive" but not nearly so much as to be physically tired. 

I see that the National Weather Service has issued a frost advisory for low-lying areas of the Tanana Valley tonight.  I can't recall having frost so early in August in the past, but I've only been in the country for about 19 years.  My favorite weather site show the historical low-temperature range for today's date to be 35 to 73 degrees (F), so if we do indeed get frost it would apparently set a new record low temperature for the day. 

A lot of folks I know have been trying to predict an early autumn, but I'm a bit skeptical.  I keep reminding myself (and sometimes others) that only two types of people try to predict the weather in Alaska - newcomers and fools.  As I've already noted above, I can't claim to be a newcomer.  Now, it is a fact that my mother did raise a foolish child, but my brother lives in the Lower-48, and to the best of my knowledge he isn't all that foolish anymore, either. 

In any event, an early fall means we can start training early.  It may start with just short little "head runs" to help the dogs start thinking about running as a team again, but that's good enough to build a foundation for the serious training and conditioning that will be coming later.

For now, I think I'm just going to don some sweats and hunker down under a nice, warm blanket for a few hours.  That would be a warmer way to be chillin' here at the house.