Motorcycles in March

Once, I used to gauge the onset of spring by when I would start seeing the kids in the neighbourhood out on their new bikes. Now, since I don't live in a neighbourhood and haven't for a while, I can't see the new bikes and kids so I have started assessing springs' progress by when I see motorcycles on the road. This is week number two. Astonishing, really, when I think about it. I mean, motorcycles. In March. Normally we get about a third of our annual snowfall between mid-February and the end of March. We are, with the exception of snowbanks, completely snow free. Where once, a month ago, there was this:

There is now this:

This is by far the fastest snow melt I have ever seen, which unfortunately coincides with the the least amount of snow in this part of Northern Ontario I have ever seen. If this five-weeks-of-winter thing keeps up, I'm moving. Again.

Jenn had a hard time taking the dogs for a walk yesterday evening. Since the snow has disappeared so quickly and so soon, the snowshoe hares are at a severe disadvantage right now. Everything is mud or leaf coloured. Except them. When you have two puppies and six adult dogs running around loose it doesn't take one of them, and shortly the rest, long to see a blaze of white against the dark background.

It was Valley's turn to be in the house for a visit last night. Next to Hudson, Valley has the biggest feet and she sure can track in a lot of mud at one time. She's a pretty big dog, especially when she is in the house, but she is scared of the floor -- too slippery -- so that slows the wreckage down a bit: almost like watching a car wreck on slow motion film. You know the damage is going to be bad it just takes a while to happen.

It didn't take Valley long to find the bunny, either.

Seen here, Valley is using her wits to tackle the complicated barricade we had set up to discourage her and the rabbit meeting.

It didn't work. Here are the two of them, sitting down to a serious discussion. I imagine the dialogue was along these lines:

V: Good evening, my long-eared chum. I haven't seen you for quite some time!
B: Why, good evening, Valley! Fancy you in here! You've caught me rather unaware; I have nothing to offer you. Unless you'd enjoy a carrot top, perhaps?
V: Not to worry, my good rabbit. I'm only here to pass the time.
B: Well, then, what shall our topic of discourse be this evening?

I am now at the point in this post where I have to devote some time to the arts. It is always dogs, dogs, dogs on this site, but there are some out there that appreciated the higher forms of entertainment, some culture I guess, and I don't want to alienate them. Today, we will focus on a young artist who normally works in the body art medium but has lately switched to marker and paper. I feel this is a wise move as the art pieces will better lend themselves to display and will also have more permanence. She is currently going through her "Spuds" phase; so called because her character studies are rather potato-like. Here she is, with her piece simply titled Mommy:

And following that, the eagerly anticipated and highly debated Self-Portrait of the Artist:

There was much debate around the release of this piece because it lacked the customary straight lines at odd angles that normally account for appendages in this style. When I was able to interview the artist, I took a moment to ask why this particular portrait had a noticeable lack of arms or legs. "They are happy." she said, simply. They are happy. A lesson for all, perhaps. I was also fortunate enough to capture the enigmatic artist in a moment of playful coyness, where she threatened to shoot this reporter with an elastic. Her aim is pretty good, so that is all I have to report at this time.

Imagine my joy.

Imagine my joy last Wednesday when my boss called me to tell me that we were returning to work after having the winter off. I had been expecting this day would come in the near future, but I was really surprised at how near that future was. In case you missed it, "joy" was written with the utmost sarcasm. To be honest, I am a little sick of people and their trees. I think it is great (and here comes more sarcasm) that people decide to build sheds and store boats, snowmachines, cars that haven't moved in decades (but watch out: don't scratch the paint) under trees that should have come down years ago. I mean, why do today what can be put of until tomorrow? Instead of letting the tree get to a point where it is a menace to anything within it's reach, why not deal with it (or let us deal with it) when it is manageable? Its a tree. It will grow bigger. It won't get better. Go ahead, though; build a beautiful shed right underneath it and store your most prized toys in it. I enjoy a challenge. And if you really want to make me happy, after I have spent all day taking apart a tree that you couldn't deal with; that was over top of your $50,000 garage that houses two rare, modified muscle cars worth over $100,000 each, and you notice how hard the crew worked, all day, say to me: "Don't you wish you had stayed in school?" This really happened. Exactly as I have written it. I went to school, thank you. I notice that this comment came after I had come out of the tree; otherwise, the $100,000 car might have had a log as a co-pilot. So, imagine my joy.

Here is one of the trees we had to deal with today. A nice, over-mature poplar that had a big limb tear (almost) off in a wind storm last summer.

Notice the big cavity half way up it. That always cheers me up, when I climb past the dead, hollow part of the tree. Luckily for me, that is Rob, the other climber, up there today. I did the tree in the front of the house, the one that was over the deck and twenty feet away from the eaves. You can't really see Rob because he had a bunch of dead branches hanging in his way, plus the tops of the smaller trees to deal with as he climbed.

This is me near the end. Yahoo. I get to come down soon.

Is it too early to start looking forward to next winter?

What would YOU do with a purple marker?

Well, if you are my kid, you use it as eye shadow.

Notice the care with which the so-called make-up is applied. We wouldn't want it to look too garrish.

Actually, Hunter had a fistfull of markers and I guess she has been watching Jenn get ready for work. Hopefully, Jenn doesn't leave the house looking like Hunter.

I know that the majority of blogs out there, swirling around in cyberspace, are devoted to the children of over enthusiastic parents and while I am certainly not trying to join with them, this was too funny to let pass. Maybe it was just funny to me, I don't know. Oh well, too bad, it's my blog.

We have had some rather large temperature differences over the past few days. On Tuesday, it was -21 and today it was +11 with rain all last night. Almost all of our snow is gone, which may sound like a fast melt (and it was) but is made less impressive by the fact that I think we only had 8 to 10 inches of snow to start with. Right now there is not enough snow for the sled anymore, but there is still too much for the 4-wheeler with no motor. As well, the ice in some places is quite bad, so the dogs are just being free run around our place right now.

Jenn and I have been discussing the projects we want to try and complete this summer. Boy, there sure are a lot of them, not the least of which are pens (proper pens if you recall the tragic goat incident) for the goats and the chickens (which we have yet to get. Pens first.) Also, a timber frame/pole barn style garage, storage- and woodshed. I am planning on milling all the wood for this myself from trees harvested from the property. We have an abundance of dying poplar and I'd like to make use of them instead of supplying homes for further damaging insects and diseases.

Here is one final shot of my goofy kid.

This chair was given to Hunter when she was not yet a year old by our friends Paul and Josee from Whitehorse. It just fit her then, but she will still drag it over to her spot, get it set just so, and wedge herself into it to watch a movie. Notice the nice, big, comfy chair beside her. Realize that there is an inviting, soft chesterfield behind her. Know that we don't make her sit in this chair. This is all her doing. Hands folded in front of her, sitting up straight, she looks as if she is waiting for the Queen to arrive.

More from the race

It has been brought to my attention that perhaps my last post was a bit tedious: text heavy and picture light. In an attempt to appease my readers (both of them) I have some video posted below.

Jenn and her 4-dog bib:



Jenn, starting the 4-dog race, Day 1:




You will have to pay attention because the video is pretty quick. This has nothing to do with our dogs but rather how close the camera person was to the start line. Anybody familiar with Chatmac Dogsled Equipment may recognise the voice of the announcer as none other than Doug McNeill, Chatmac's one-time owner. He did a fantastic job of emcee-ing; so great in fact that he was approached to do other gigs for other organizations.

Jenn and her 4-dog finish, Day 1:




Our dogs, because of how and where we train, have limited to no passing experience. Check out Jenn's pass near the finish line. Claude Aumont, the other musher in the video, left the start line two minutes ahead of Jenn. A pretty exciting finish, especially when our dogs did such a good job of passing.

Jenn, starting the 6-dog race, Day 1:



This was not the best start Jenn had all weekend. Olive, the same dog that dragged the rest of the team off the trail a little further on, decided at the last second to jump over, crawl under or go behind Dora, the other leader. This made for a less-than-great start and as the team goes by, you can see the two front dogs are not as they should be. Just before the video ends, the dogs get themselves sorted out.

Jenn, finishing the 6-dog race, Day 1:



The farm fields allowed everyone at the finish line a good view of the mushers coming in. They were able to see them for a long time. As Jenn comes in, the object in the back is a snowmachine and is likely the trail groomer. This was the run that Jenn had a hard time with, both at the start and with Olive diving off the trail so she was out on the trail for fifteen minutes longer than would be normal. The dogs look pretty strong coming back even though the temperature was fairly warm for them.

Jenn's (first) race day

I have added a page about our dogs. It is on the sidebar at the right-hand side of the page.


Day One:

Early Saturday morning came in the form of freezing rain. It was race day. I have been on the committee that has been planning and organising this race since early summer and I have to say that after postponing the race once already, freezing rain was not what I wanted to see five hours to race time. For a week prior to today I have been grooming a trail to the point of obsession. It has wound up costing a lot of money; we broke one snowmachine and had it repaired, we broke a hydraulic groomer that tows behind a 4-wheeler with tracks on it instead of tires, which we also had break on us. This race was one obstacle after another; however, today was race day and I was up at 0500hrs to gather our gear, load our dogs, prepare their food, feed those left behind and then, get Jenn and Hunter ready, too, if need be. Normally, Jenn needs a few wake up calls but today she had Hunter dressed, a lunch packed, her race clothing on and a coffee for both of us by the time I was done my part. I think she was either excited or nervous. Probably both. We left in the pre-dawn darkness.

Leaving for the races



Although the race didn't start until 1000hrs, I had to be at the start line early so we could set up the road crossings, which included snow fencing down the middle of the trail for head-on passing, bales of straw on either side of the trail so the dogs knew to continue straight ahead and snow across the road so the sled didn't run over the bare road. Along with the two road crossings, we also had to set up for the 4-dog loop, which meant the placement of more bales of straw at trail junctions. On top of this, we also had just over eight miles of trail to groom. I parked the truck and trailer, set up the drop chain for the dogs and Jenn set about feeding the dogs in their boxes. By this time, the sun was starting to show and the freezing rain had turned to very fat flakes of snow.

After my grooming and setting up of the trail, I came back to the truck to help Jenn drop the dogs for a pee and I started to get her equipment ready. Hunter was wandering around the dogs and I knew Jenn would have her hands full until our race help arrived. We were expecting a few people to come out to help Jenn harness, hook up and get to the start line. I headed back out on the trail to groom the left hand side. The trail was about ten feet wide and the groomer is only four feet, so we had to make three passes. One snowmachine would tow the groomer and the other would pull three tires behind to smooth out the trail. These sprint dogs sure get the best trails.

At first, Jenn was concerned that I wouldn't be able to help her prepare for the race, but on my last go-round with the snowmachines she said that there were enough people around to help so I didn't have to worry. I had volunteered to be at one of the trail junctions in case a team blew through the bales of straw or a team and driver became separated. I was also going to relay the bib numbers of the mushers who were passing the half way point to the emcee so that he could relay, in turn, the information to the crowd. When I last saw her, before her first 4-dog heat, Jenn had quite a throng of people around the truck and the dogs. Some we knew, most we didn't and Jenn was being asked questions from all sides while trying to prepare for her first race. I was due on the trail, so I wished her luck and left. Hunter was with her cousins and Jenn's parents so at least Jenn was able to focus on her preparations. Since I wasn't there, I don't really know how things went, but Jenn was very appreciative of Stacey and Darryl, Rick and Brenda, Jim and Deb, her mom and dad, our neighbours, Bob and Linda and all the others who helped her. If anybody wasn't mentioned, it is my omission, not Jenn's.

From the speaker of my walkie-talkie I could hear Doug, the Trail Boss and emcee count down for Jenn's start: "three... two... one, go driver!" and shortly after that, across three farm fields, I could make out a figure on a sled: "well, she's still standing" I thought. A few minutes later around the bend comes Jenn with her team. They looked pretty strong still even though it was fairly mild for them. A smile and quick wave and Jenn was gone.

Jenn and her 4-dog team





Next came the 6-dog class and because of some confusion at the timers truck, Jenn was late for her start. Originally, she was told that there would be a ten minute break between the Purebred class and the Sportsman class, which she was running. When Jenn heard the emcee announce over the PA that she was supposed to be in the chute, she didn't even have a harness a dog and her gangline was still set up for the 4-dog race. As fast as they could, Jenn and anybody close by stated harnessing dogs and putting them on the gangline. In all the confusion some dogs ended up with tug lines on their collars, neck lines on their harnesses, some facing forward and some facing every other way. Jenn was forced to start behind the last musher. Before I tell the rest of the Day One, six dog run I should explain the trail.

We had 1- and 2-dog skijoring classes as well as 4, 6, and 8 dog classes, so we needed a trail that was at least eight miles long and preferably with no head-on passing. The latter we accomplished with snow fencing and bales of straw; the former we accomplished by zig-zagging the trail through the available farm fields. The first three fields were the most severe in terms of zigs and zags: in some places one part of the trail was separated from another part of the trail further along by 50 feet of open, snowy fields. This meant that although a musher might be two minutes ahead of Jenn, they may be only 50 feet apart.

Even though we took great care to provide adequate trail markers, one of Jenn's lead dogs decided: "To Hell with this zig zag business, I can just cut across here to the trail and save us all some time!" By the time Jenn was able to stop the team she was into the softer, unpacked snow and her snow hook wouldn't hold. Olive, the disobedient leader refused to listen to Jenn and wouldn't stay on the trail. What was she to do? With no snow to hold the hook and no trees to tie to, Jenn somehow managed to get Olive back on the trail and running again with a fifteen minute deficit. She was nearly fuming when she passed me, at which point she decided to move Olive out of lead.

Jenn and her 6-dog team





The rest of the race was uneventful. I came back in to the staging area because there was a gap between Jenn's race and the 8-dog Pro race during which time we held a Kid and Mutt race. Hunter didn't enter, but her two cousins Lauren and Owen decided that they'd like to run it so we brought out Ruby, the secret wepon, for them. Ruby was great; she pulled Lauren first, then the two boys of a friend of Jenn's from work, then Owen. Ruby ended being the best (no bias here, honest) dog out there mostly because she managed to run straight and not stop to sniff, pee or climb the snowbank. Lauren came first overall. I finally had a chance to mingle a bit with the folks around the truck and then it was back out to the trail for the last class of the day.

Ruby: Kid and Mutt dog extraordinaire.



Lauren, Hunter and Owen





Once the day was over, Jenn and I ended up talking to the musher who was parked beside our truck. He was a member of the race committee. His wife was nearly two hundred kilometers away and he didn't feel like going to his lodging right away, so we decided that we'd go home, feed and water our dogs and then meet for dinner. We sat and ate and talked for nearly three hours and then it was off to bed for us.


Day Two:

With the majority of our gear already in the truck and Hunter having slept over at Jenn's parents house with her cousins, we were not nearly as rushed as Saturday. I loaded the dogs again and fed those being left behind while Jenn made the coffee, which I eventually managed to spill. Hers, not mine. Yep. Good start to the day for her. The temperatures on Saturday night were around the -10C mark and everything was pretty icey in the dog-truck area. We, the trail groomers (all two of us at that point), wanted to get out on the trail as soon as possible to see what the above zero temperatures during the race, combined with the packing action of sleds and dog feet would do when combined with freezing temperatures. It was as we had feared: the trail was glare ice underneath frozen balls of icey snow. We started to groom the trails and quickly came to the realization that the race was going to be severly behind schedule, if it went at all, because of the ice. Not only would it make the steering of sleds very difficult, it would cut the feet of the dogs. All we could do was keep grooming and try to scrape as much ice off as we could. The problem with this was that the snowmachines couldn't pull the groomer when it dug into the crust because the tracks would just spin; it was that icey.

We ended up hooking two snowmachines together. I towed the snowmachine that towed the groomer. This worked for a bit, but since the machine I was on was liquid cooled, overworked and unable to get snow on its cooling fins, we soon overheated it. I ran it back to the staging area and got another one. This one we had more success with, but managed to blow three sparkplugs out of the other machine. It wasn't looking good. Back at the starters truck, the mushers were getting antsy. Some had seen the trail and agreed that it would be of no real benefit to run it while others thought the complete opposite. We had a meeting with the Trail Boss and the Race Marshal, who also disagreed on what to do. Finally, we agreed to wait until the sun had been on the trail for a while, groom it and then start the races. This seemed to meet the approval of many although by the time we got started at 1230hrs there was some more grumbling going on.


Rick (one of Jenn's handlers), James (Lou's handler) and me, waiting for the races to start


It was considerably milder this day and after running her four dogs, Jenn asked me if I thought she should run in the 6-dog race. She said that the four dogs were hot after they had finished their race. I said that it was up to her, since I didn't see the dogs when they had finished, but if she did run them and it seemed like they were getting hot to stop and give them a break. Since I was out on the trail still, we communicated through a friend who had picked up grooming duties between races. I'm glad that Jenn decided to run the dogs because she had a much better race on the second day and even though she stopped for the dogs three or four times, she still managed to beat her time from the day before.

After the 8-dog race, I came in and finished cleaning up and packing our truck. Jenn had already gone to the arena where the awards ceremony was to take place and I met her there with her parents, Lauren, Owen and Hunter, asleep on a pile of clothes on the table. The awards went until around eight-thirty, Hunter, Owen and Lauren having left earlier on with Jenn's parents to go to our house where they'd wait for us. Once the awards were over and people started leaving Jenn and I exchanged email address with a few friends we had met that weekend. It was hard to not feel like it was the end of summer camp and everybody was scrambling to get the addresses of their new-found friends before the bus left.

On the ride home, Jenn said that she was proud of our dogs. She thought they did really well in spite of us. She's right: Jenn fell twice; the dogs passed and were passed successfully even though we haven't trained for that yet; they handled the crowds well even though it is usually me, them and a Crown Land trail where we run; and they managed to stay competative with sprint dogs, even though ours are more suited to colder weather running and longer distances at a slower pace. Jenn finished 3rd in the 4-dog out of a field of seven and second in the 6-dog out of a field of two. Not bad for her first race, I'd say.

Jenn helped me put the dogs back at their houses and then went inside so that her parents could go home. I fed the dogs while Jenn got the three kids ready for bed and then the four of them hit the 'off' switch and that was it for them. It was a long day and they were tired. I was starting to slow down, too, but there was no way I was missing the celebratory, congratulatory, we-did-it-but-thank-God-it's-over party that was going on at the Champ's house, just up the road.

Lou, the champ, with a groupie and his greyhound




I'll have more photos of the weekend as soon as I can get them from Jenn's mother.

Yet another trip around our yard

Dogwise, things around here have been pretty quiet. The majority of my time has been spent putting in a race trail for our up-coming Markstay/Warren Challenge the Champ race on 10 March. We had to postpone the race because it looked like we were going to be snowless on race day; we were proven wrong, but a decision had to be made early enough for those planning on coming from out of province or from the States. Last Friday we received our biggest snowfall to date this year. It came down all day and at certain points during the day it was difficult to see even a few feet ahead of you. We have lots of snow now and today was spent grooming and regrooming the race trail because of all the drifting snow. We had winds of 50km/h gusting to 70km/h and since the trail is mostly through farm fields there were drifts on top of drifts. Three of us groomed the trail on snowmachines, pulling tires, a home-made groomer and a manufactured groomer, we were at it all day and by the end of the day, it looked like we hadn't been there at all. These sprint dogs, they sure have it easy. My team has to jump open water, run over, through or around scrubby brush and break trail in a lot of cases, but the sprint teams get a level, flat well packed trail. No wonder they go so fast!

As our snow was falling last Saturday, my friend Rob and his wife Sue came out with one of their daughters, Chanelle. We took them for a ride or two and offered them their own team to drive. I had to tell Rob, who is a snowmachine enthusiast, to use his brake because he kept catching up to me with his four dog team and small sled.

I had six dogs, my big sled and a passenger. I think he liked taking the team out; all I heard as he careened through the bush was "This is awesome!"

Chanelle was brave enough to try out her own team but it was easy to see that she was a bit nervous. She saw Rob come back covered in snow and asked what happend. He fell off the sled, but managed to hang on and the dogs dragged him a bit through the new snow. It was pretty funny; I watched the whole thing from my sled twenty feet in front of him. As he was on the ground and holding the sled I think I even called his leaders. I sure wish I had a video of that. Anyway, Chanelle was a bit nervous and she was scarcely out of the dog yard when she jumped off the sled and into the snow. It was too fast for her. She got back on the sled however and tried again but had trouble with the speed. Jenn walked with her part of the way and then just decided that one dog might be best so she unhooked Jinx and let her run back to the dog yard. The rest of the run went smoothly and Chanelle wanted to try it again. Jenn got old reliable Ruby and hooked her up alone,

but brought out Jinx again to hook up once the major corners were over. Chanelle had more confidence this time and was able to complete the run with her pair of dogs. That was it for the day as it was really mild and the dogs were starting to get hot.