Finally, some snow

I am just in from running the dogs. Jenn took the truck to work, so I am not able to take them anywhere and so I had to run them from the property. Not too bad, I guess. We are finally getting some snow -- now that it is the end of winter and the race I was helping organise had to be postponed due to lack of snow. For any of you who are interested, information on the Markstay-Warren Challenge the Champ race can be found here.

I guess just to update from the last post, Hunter has started going out with the dogs again. He problem was that she wasn't able to drive them. Her legs can barely span the runners, but she's mad because she has to sit in the sled. We have made a deal with her; she can take out Ruby, one of our more calm, non-racing dogs, on the small sled with one of us helping steer. She seems to like that.

I have managed to snare two rabbits. There are now skinned, cleaned, cut up and frozen. I debated about taking a few pictures of them, but in the end figured that people who wouldn't mind seeing a dead rabbit on this blog have probably already seen one before and don't really need to see one again; and those people who haven't seen a dead rabbit would likely prefer to keep it that way. I expect that this was the better decision. The first rabbit was a bit lean and I cleaned it outside because we had company with a girl about Hunters age. I wasn't sure if the parents would appreciate me dealing with the rabbit around their kid, so I stayed outside. The second one, however, was frozen (the first was caught on a relatively mild day) and I had to bring it in the house to thaw so that I could skin it. Hunter was facinated and wanted to help clean it, to feel its fur and kept asking when we were going to eat it. I was surprised at her interest, but decided that I'd not involve her right away. I let her watch what she wanted to.

As I started out saying, the dogs and I went out today on the river again. Risk and Dora were in lead, Blitzi and Lacey were in swing and Horton and Dart were in wheel. I only took one team out there, though, because we ran by a lot of open water and through some long patches of overflow. I think that the river is still safe enough to run, but the temperature is just below zero and the weight of the new, wet, snow is pushing the ice down a bit and creating the sticky overflow. I decided to get off the sled this time for a picture, so that people could see what my dogs look like coming, instead of going. I apologise for the quality of the picture; it was snowy and my dogs pulled the hook on me as I was taking this.



If you are wondering why the sled is on its side, it is because there isn't a lot of snow for the snowhook to grab and the sled adds a bit of weight on top of the hook. Still, they managed to pull it out. This is just a shot I tried to take while we were moving and from a different angle. It might have been better if I had a longer string of dogs and better scenery. I'll have to work on that.



The second team I took out was Olive and Mouse in lead, Moxy and Taiga in wheel. I have to work on some leader commands, anyway, so it was okay to only take out four dogs and a smaller sled around the property. I don't have leaders that hold the line out very well, and I spent a long time today working on this with Olive (yellow) and Mouse (the other leader). I think that these two are two of three of our best leader candidates, but I still need to work on their commands more. They are great at showing a willingness to run out front and set the pace and they do understand their commands a little but what I need is consistancy and no hesitation. It is coming. Here they are, after the run.

Jenn and I are thinking of starting a race for next year. There are not many mid-distance races around here and the races that are available to go to are often very serious because they are sanctioned by ISDRA and count for a lot of points in the sprinting season. I don't pretend to know anything about the sprint circuit, nor the sanctioning or point system of ISDRA but it seems to make for a very serious race. If anyone wanted to go to compete just for fun, they may have the feeling that they are in the way of more 'serious' mushers. So, in light of this, Jenn and I are planning on having a fun race series here in the Markstay area. We were thinking of a monthly race, where the milage goes up by ten miles each month. For example, Decembers race is ten miles, January is twenty and so on. If you are reading this and are interested, contact me.

Lastly, let me just describe my day yesterday. Jenn was off work and I had to drive 150 kms to get 300lbs of meat for the dogs, so we thought that we would make a day of it. After all, we had to go through North Bay and they have a mall. I get meat, Jenn gets to shop. On our way to North Bay, I noticed that the truck wasn't running like it should have been. It seemed to not have much power all of a sudden. I checked the transmission fluid, it was fine; I wondered if maybe we had some bad gas, but since we had experienced the problem prior to filling up and were still experiencing it after having filled up, I decided that wasn't it, either. The only other thing I could think of was that one of my plugs was missing. We drove on to get the meat and found, after an hour-, hour and fifteen minute drive, that the place had run out of meat yesterday. Great. So, we turned around and headed back to North Bay and stopped at the mall. It was just like all the others, so no surprise there. We piled back into the truck and drove back home. We were about half an hour from home when the truck blew something. I wasn't sure what but it sounded like a belt had gone and was hitting something every revolution. To spare you my diagnostics and cursing at not being able to source the problem -- it wouldn't have mattered even if I knew what it was because I was blessed with a complete lack of tools -- the mechanic who I convinced to drive out to my truck said that I probably blew a sparkplug. Somehow, the plug had been forced out of the threads that hold it in the cylinder head. Fantastic. "So you'll probably have to re-tap the threads then?" I asked. "Probably." I expected it to be a rather involved process, because, after all, how do you keep metal filings from the tapping process out of the cylinder? You remove the whole head and plug housing. Not a quick fix, I thought. Anyway, the guys were able to able to fix the problem quickly and we would have been out of the mechanics in less time except for the bird brained people who designed my engine. I mean, who buries sparkplugs so far in the engine block that you need a 4-inch socket just to get them out? 4-inches! Excluding the extension the guy had to use just to clear the rest of the engine. Oh well, it only cost $35 so I suppose I shouldn't complain.