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.