December 31, 2008 

esterday I got to work on projects all day for the magazines. I had three projects on the go at once! One of them was very fun, loud, rewarding and very different from anything I have done before. I am not telling you what it is yet, but I can tell you that it is a pretty fun material to work with. Bone. Other than the initial cuts to get rid of 7/8's of a cow bone, I did most of it in the house. Due to how loud I was being for a couple hours, Bren resorted to wearing the really cool ear muffs I gave him as a present for Christmas and retreated to another room. It takes an hour or two to make each item, which man started using about 35,000 years ago, but it is a very essential tool that got humans where we are today. I think it is something very right to put into a homesteading magazine. 

The rest of the bathroom tile came in yesterday, so Bren can finally resume working on the bathroom today. It was this tile which was holding him up and preventing him from the next step. It will be nice to get the bathroom done on many levels. However he is starting to complain about the kitchen and is ready to tear that apart as well. So I think construction will be happening here for a good long time.

It has been nice the last couple of days, but the roads are still yucky in many places. Me and a few other cars were traveling about 80kph/50mph on this for hours, slower when it was becoming dark and more slippery. It is crazy when some of the other vehicles in their impatience pass in a no-passing zone on a blind corner at 120kmp or faster fishtailing. Sometimes I wonder if they go off the road, if I would say "Are you OK? Well, that really got you there alot faster didn't it?" I know I wouldn't, but I know I would probably think it.

I put new batteries in my camera and got a photo of 'Soda' , so here she is. I did not want to leave her out of the winter dog photos. You can see the deep chest and the long legs of her McKenzie River Husky heritage. She was my main leader last year. Each year I seem to switch my leaders around. So I do not really have 'a leader', but I have four who will take that lead position. They need to have more miles put on them soon (newbie dog sledder working them, so she has not put lots of miles on them), as you cannot even feel "Soda's" ribs.

2008 was a good year and I hope that 2009 is even better.