Entretien de la ferme et projets

Nous disposons de trois mois chaque année pour travailler la terre. Le sol est en partie ou totalement gelé le reste de l’année. Ainsi, le défi consiste à réaliser tous nos projets durant ces trois mois, tout en continuant bien entendu l’entretien habituel du chenil, les entrainements, et la maintenance générale. Et si il est théoriquement possible de construire et d’entretenir nos niches, lignes, etc. tout au long de l’année, il est bien plus difficile de le faire par – 40 degrés!

In the summer of 2015 we expanded our 'dog recuperation area' close to the house and added an isolation area which could also be used for both lost and found dogs and visiting hotel dogs. In order to fully utilise the new area, we had to build a number of additional single kennels of our own design. This, in addition to putting in a new sauna at our Palojöki location, and doing a major overhaul of the sleighs, took a large part of the summer.

In the summer of 2014, we were again busy with building. One of the big summer projects was a floored and roofed cage in the sick dog area which was just about built in time to be put to use by our two summer litters of pups!

On the main farm itself we also built 13 new cages, plus two new running fences, and all of the kennels and fittings required to fit these out

The sleigh shelter was extended and the souvenir shop stripped back to its bones so as to add insulation (which meant that the kota became the temporary store for everything from the souvenir shop in the summer).

The roof of the wooden kota got finished and the floor got underfloor heating and a layer of concrete (tiling it will have to wait until next year).

We also re-designed the front of the house area, added a small climbing wall for playtime, extended the yard lighting and added pallet boxes to extend our house-area poop composting capacity which seems to work really well.

Further afield we did more work on the cabin on the Palojoki river, adding a whole new cabin there for our winter safaris, plus carrying out fixing up work at Kelottijärvi.

Pasi's parent's mökki has also had a laavu (outdoor fireplace / lean-to) shelter added and the pillared base was finally enclosed.

In the summer of 2013, the main building project was a new wooden kota on the farm area. Shorter multi-day safaris and even part of the itinerary of the longer tours now spend a night in this kota, which has sleeping space for seven people, electric lighting, power outlets, and fireplace for making meals and warm drinks. Staying for one night on the farm allows the clients to fully experience what it is like to live amongst so many dogs!

Other building projects in this summer included a small decorative windmill and well complete with our howling husky logos in the house yard, as well as a toddler's sandpit for outside playtime. We also added a drive-through extension to the garage area, so that quadbikes and other machines could be stored out of the elements year round and designed a pallet-box compost system for house waste and dog poop combined. We can't wait until next summer to see if it works!

2012 was the summer of Iona and Kit (and Tim, of course). Hence, it was an artsy-craftsy one (in which we also got a lot of small but important projects done).

We designed, and built, for instance, the farmhouse 'waste management centre,' which houses our recycling organisation systems and the general waste bins and is decorated with a sillouette of Pasi pulling a sled in the south pole...

...as well as a 'stuff' storage centre for general outdoor things like tyres, cage wire and water barrels since we didn't want to be the kind of farm with 'stuff' scattered all across its main yard and lots of cool decorative dogs from left-over bits of plywood. (The jury is still out on those...half the guides think they look like shooting targets and the other half, like me, love them!).

And we re-oriented the wood store, since we had noticed that there was more wind-blow of snow onto our cut timber from the north than from the sides where we used to have the cladding..

On the farm itself, we built a souvenir shop, (primarily just so that we had a heated space into which we could put cold people after safaris) which led into us developing things like our own postcards, silver pendants of our husky logo, calendars, mugs, postage stamps etc (ie it ended up being quite a bit more work than just the building itself!).

And, as if we didn't have enough design-based work to do, we created a whole bunch of pyrographied signs for around the farm, including on the door of the souvenir shop.

And we made QR codes for many of the farm signboards...

On a more practical level, we also built a floor base for our fabric kota to make access safer during the slippiest times of the season..

And a new log shed for the farmhouse area.

We also started work on a new cabin on the side of the Palojoki river.

Durant l’été 2011, nous avons choisi d’agrandir la maison en ajoutant une extension isolée a l’arrière et ce, pour deux raisons: a) Pour ne plus utiliser la salle à manger comme bureau b) Pour créer un espace confortable permettant aux clients de se changer.

Nous avons également agrandi le garage pour entreposer nos outils et équipements, qui s’amoncelaient dans la cour. Nous prévoyons de construire, un kiosque a souvenirs, un garage pour les motoneiges, un établi, ainsi que trois ou quatre nouvelles cages dans les prochaines années.

And we not only scavenged a lot of wood from the local tip to add 'creative' agility course obstacles to our nature trail (thus making it an agility trail)...

...but we also started work on our GEE HAW training maze which we have been adding to, ever since.

Durant l’été 2010 nous avons construit un garage pour les motoneiges, traineaux, etc. que nous utilisons pendant l’hiver. Nous avons également créé 8 nouvelles cages, la grande cage 'Puppy Hilton', le jardin d’enfants, avec une double niche pour chacune d’entre elles.

Nous avons construit un parcours d’agility et un labyrinthe 'Gee and Haw' que nous utilisons pour les entrainements. Le réseau de piste sur notre terrain a été agrandi et est désormais utilisé en hiver mais aussi en été.

Enfin, le dernier chantier fut la construction d’une clôture incluant toute la zone pour les chiens en convalescence, les protégeant ainsi d’éventuels prédateurs (on avait rapporté la présence de loups en maraude l’hiver précèdent).

A l’été 2009, fut le premier passé avec les chiens. Durant cette saison, nous avons construit un enclos dédié aux entrainements près des cages, agrandi celles-ci, rallongé toutes les chaines de nos chiens vivant seuls, construit un abri pour les traineaux et une aire de jeu pour les chiots.

Nous avons non seulement clôturé l’intégralité de la ferme, construit un abri pour nos stocks de bois, des toilettes sèches, et la charpentes des kotas, mais également aménagé assez de cages et d’emplacements pour 44 chiens. C’est durant cette même période que nous avons commencé à créer tout le réseau de pistes autour de la ferme, pistes utilisées durant les entrainements d’été et les safaris d’hiver. Nous avons également aidé a la rénovation de la maison secondaire des parents de Pasi, sur les rives du lac Ounasjarvi, qui désormais nous font la gentillesse de nous laisser l’utilisé comme hébergement d’étape durant les safaris longues durée.

Comme vous pouvez le constater, l’été est une saison toujours bien remplie! Et pour nos guides, mener à bien tous ces chantiers tout en s’occupant des chiens demande bien du talent!

Les cages que nous avions près de notre maison ont été transformées pour en faire un périmètre réservé aux chiens convalescents.

L’été 2008 fut le premier passé avec les chiens. Durant cette saison, nous avons non seulement clôturé l’intégralité de la ferme, construit un abri pour nos stocks de bois, des toilettes sèches, et la charpentes des kotas, mais également aménagé assez de cages et d’emplacements pour 44 chiens.

C’est durant cette même période que nous avons commencé à créer tout le réseau de pistes autour de la ferme, pistes utilisées durant les entrainements d’été et les safaris d’hiver. Nous avons également aidé a la rénovation de la maison secondaire des parents de Pasi, sur les rives du lac Ounasjarvi, qui désormais nous font la gentillesse de nous laisser l’utilisé comme hébergement d’étape durant les safaris longues durée.

During the summers of 2010-2014, concurrently with all of the above building projects, we were also juggling work on the Valimaa farm which we were managing for Transun UK and their subsidiary company, Santa Safaris. During the course of these four years we essentially re-built their whole dog-housing area, balancing erecting new cages with taking down the old, non-functioning ones, creating a floored and roofed sick-dog area, as well as indoor housing for sick dogs, and a large number of quality, insulated kennels. We made name signs and heat signs for all of the dogs and improved the asthetics and standards of the cage area. We repaired and replaced many sets of lines for use in training and safaris. We also rebuilt the interior of the main cabin, and provided sleeping spaces for the guides so that they no longer had to wake up in sleeping bags frozen to the floor. In essence we took over a farm in a state of near disaster and, using primarily our own tools and resources (since they weren't supplied), we went above and beyond our remit in trying to create the best possible environment in which their dogs could live.

Comme vous pouvez le constater, l’été est une saison toujours bien remplie! Et pour nos guides, mener à bien tous ces chantiers tout en s’occupant des chiens demande bien du talent!