As I came all the way to Stange to perform my passion again, my favourite part of the day every day, was to go sledding. But you cannot exactly hop on the sled and go, nope, takes some preparations. First of all, decide who you’re going to take with you. I call dogs who, sorry not sorry. And although you’d like to take the dog that hasn’t been out the longest, it doesn’t work that easy. Not everyone adores everyone so much. Then the surprisingly heavy, old-school wooden sleds have to be pulled up the hill. And with a theoretically quite boring action of pulling the ropes the right way, that’s your start. Now, time for action, take a deep breath. Because now it was time to get the dogs, that by now completely turned off their brain and react instinctively. They become totally crazy to be honest, they start jumping against the fence, howling and barking, running over each other. I do feel badly sorry for the ones who cannot come and seriously told them that it’d be their turn next time. Then go and find the right harness, and then have fun trying to get them on the dogs. They might want to go, but they don’t fully understand that the harness is a necessary measure. Once you did it, second fun task: take them by the collar as they’ll pull less hard then, and drag them, or get dragged to, the ropes in front of the sled. One of the small ropes gets attached to the collar, the other one to the harness. And that’s it. Easy peasy lemon sqeezy ? not really, they don’t like to be kept waiting, at all. Leads to some bruises and scratches, but trust me, you’re gonna laugh a lot as well.
And then the adventure begins. Get ready, take a deep breath of the cold, pure air. Still convinced that the air doesn’t get any more pure then it does in Scandinavia, same for the quiet that allows you to hear nothing but your own heartbeat. That didn’t really apply now, none of them. Some dogs in front of us started to punish us for being so slow by taking a shit, while the barking kinda ended the quiet. As Katinka wanted for the dogs to get to know me, before I took my own team, we now simply attached a second sled to the one with the biggest doggie team. As I’m quite small and those dogs are like the Hulk, it was a piece of cake to them. And off we went. With an unexpected pull, we released the sled from the rope. The barking stopped right away, as all the dogs became focussed on their passion: run. And the feeling of power and joy that rushes trough you while you’re being dragged along by those powerful creatures .. it’s impossible to describe, one has to experience to do so. Around you there’s nothing but a magical, untouched winter wonderland. You do not hear anything except for the soft sound of the sled sliding over the powdery snow underneath it. The enthusiasm of all the dogs is just contagious, I had this permanent smile on my face as we kept going and going, further into the woods. When we had to climb up a hill, the leading dog communicates with you by looking back, as they’d appreciate some help. Then we run after them and pull the sled upwards. Going downhill is scarier, you do not want to risk losing control of the sled as it will bump into the dogs, so you use all your weight to push the break in the snow and slow it down. Every now and then we had a short pitstop, during which the dogs take a quick bite of snow before they start barking again, demanding to go on.
When we return from those trips the dogs are exhausted, and often I’m cold as ice but also full of adrenalin as it is just the most exciting thing. We return the dogs to their houses, which is very easy as we simply have to unleash them, they’ll walk willingly towards their houses as they’re that exhausted. Getting of the harness is the easiest thing ever, it’s such a difference compared to before the trip. After that we all get out of our eskimo-suits, clean ourselves a bit, and have another beloved lunch. My daily lunch were my dear grillpolses, which us Dutchies know as knakworst, a very delicious kind of sausage. Then we all give into our laziness and take a bath, watch series, upload photos, chitchat. But as I just adored the little Lundies I tried to safe some energy to take them on a little walk, during which I once again did not run into any human being. After that of course it is not an option but a demand to visit the puppies. At the moment there were 6 puppies present, 4 beautiful little snowballs and 2 brownies. And I almost choked of cuteness as they stumble your way on their massive legs and start biting you with their tiny sharp teeth. I had to allow it, they were too cute to push away. It was worth the little wounds. Best of all was, that those puppies are so loyal to you that when you take them for a walk without a leash, they’ll follow you anywhere. You can imagine that this was a very beloved activity of mine, as often as I could I took the little furry balls with me, and enjoyed them stumbling behind me, so full of life. Together with the little babies I always walked to a viewpoint which offered a magnificent view on the Mjosa. Because of the sky being so clear here, every night the sky was filled with orange, red and pink, as if it was on fire, reflected by the dark myosa.
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