Hi Trixie!

I hope you’re enjoying your last days in the far south.  I imagine it’ll be coming spring as you road trip home.  Its been warm and grey here—snow is sucky and Mom and Dick had to take long walks on snowmachine trails.  My scars are mostly healed up by now, although I had to wear booties when we were at the cabin last week.  The vet suggests that Carol consider clipping dewclaws off new puppies.  Although I suspect it doesn’t matter to most of them.  Just us booty wearing pups.  Anyway—during those snowmachine walks I found at least 3 spruce hens for Dad, but they were spooky and flew off into the spruce.  When Dad stepped off the trail to get a clear shot, he sank into the snow at least crotch deep.  He had to lie down and roll back to the trail.  So we didn’t bring home any supper, but at least I showed him where they were.  We also went skiing up in the mountains and I sniffed down all the ptarmigan trails.  One flew out in front of me and I watched it go.  Dad says it’s good that I don’t chase after them when they fly.  The cabin is fun—dogs get to sleep on the bed.  Lots of squirrels in the woodpile.  No fenced yard.

Mom and Dad have been doing some Cub flying, and sometimes I get to go.  I’m relegated to the baggage compartment now.  My latest weigh in was 49.8 lbs.  Dad says he’s sending me back when I hit 50 lbs.  I think I’ll stay off the scales.  They pile in the packs and put the engine cover on top.  So I sink into the insulation with my head at window level and watch the world go by.  And when we land, they go off on snowshoes following wolverine tracks to the glacier and listen to the ptarmigans on the mountains sides. 

The drawing file attached is the image Terri made of me.  If you look around her website, she also drew one of Mom’s wolves from Lake Clark.  And Mom put up a bunch of her bear photos on the facebook page for when you have a few free minutes in the dark.  Mom just finished an editing job that brought in a few bucks toward a badly needed new computer.  She’s scanning the old family slides, so needs lots of space and speed. 

Hope you have a good trip home and get reacquainted with the smells.  Learning with a warm bird at the end sounds wonderful!  No such bribes here—just sticks and bumpers.  So get a snootfull for me.  Hopefully I can retrieve real birds again this summer.

Love and slush to you

Piper