Tuesday – 2/24/15
The dogs are waking up with the sun every morning – that
means of course, several minutes earlier every day!!! This morning we got up at 7:10am – an all time “early”! We have a couple of dogs (especially
Captain) that “scream” when they want out of their boxes – and then there’s
always the “doggie chorus” – when one starts howling they all join in!!! It is very cold this morning – the
little heater on the floor says it’s 32 degrees. When we dropped dogs I had to come back in twice- once for
another jacket and also for a pair of mittens to put over my insulated leather
gloves – that’s a first for this year!
The dogs are crazy to get out and then crazy to get back in again where
it’s warm!!
We had a lovely dinner and conversation with Bellerive’s
last nite – I thought because Melanie said lasagna at “my house” she meant her
real house, but she still refers to her parents house as “my house” and that is
where we had dinner! Followed by a
choice of strawberry shortcake cake or, Randy’s favorite, sugar pie!! It’s like a tradition that when we come
here Melanie makes sure that Randy get sugar pie. It’s kind of like a maple-y surgary pecan-piesh (without the
pecans) filling in a pie crust – I can’t imagine the number of calories per
slice!!! Between that and his
Oreos……he just says “I’m on vacation”!
Abit of miscommunication – Randy overheard Melanie saying
she would be by today at 11:30 to pick me up – she had intended we would both
come to her house to get a “tour” since she is mostly done decorating it – but
I went and had lunch with just Melanie and Renelle instead – a “girl’s
lunch”! We had subs and wraps and
Melanie took about 3 hours from work to do the tour and talk. It takes 15 minutes just to walk
through the house!!!! It is beautiful
– 2 story entrance, with stairs on both side of the entry going upstairs, white
marble floors, golf practice area with one wall being the realistic practice
range, theater seating 20 with white leather sectionals and her and Patrick’s
bedroom has like a living room seating area and their closet is as big as my
living room!!!! She is blessed and
she knows it – she has no “airs” about her and her lifestyle!
The rest of the day was just dog chores and a movie.
Wednesday 2/25
Yea – training day (I mean that very very facetiously!) Things have not been going so well
first 3 attempts and I hoped this would be different – not to be so…..
Not so cold as it has been and snowing quite a bit.
For those of you that know the dogs I will just say the
first team was the “best” team of the 2 10-dog teams – hoping that it would be
easier…… Snapper and Doe in lead – Snapper being our most reliable leader –
until he underwent some kink of personality transformation – there was almost
nothing he didn’t try to do wrong including stopping and turning almost every
turn the wrong direction!! Then we
had to take Doe out because she was shying of Hermel’s team when they
passed. Another disaster – we left
a few minutes before Hermel did with a 15 dog team and we head on collided with
him 3 times – not just a little bit of tangling, but the full-blown take all
the tug lines off and straightening them out kink – and that was with 5 people
trying to untangle them!!!!! 2 of
them only speaking French! The
main problem was, again, Snapper, the dogs that stays on the left side of the
trail and he didn’t budge even with 15 dogs coming at him!! It could have been avoided had we left
after Hermel, but that would have been too easy……….. After we took Doe out of lead, Caleb ended up finishing.
So that was supposed to be the easy team- you can imagine my
trepidation! The next team was
lead by Beika (who came from Bellerives) and Sterling (the dog we have only run
twice that we just got from Bellerives)
They take the first haw good and then Beika thinks she wants to go back
to the barn and not run any more than a mile……3 times I had to drag the whole
team over to the trail through the deep snow to get her to go on the right
trail – every time I would get them in the trail and let them go she would duck
back to go home!!!! Randy had some
pretty choice word of description for her behavior….. A couple of more times she had to be turned but not as bad as
that one! We did end up having to
pass Hermel a couple of times (even though we left much earlier than him this
time) but it went well – Sterling did a perfect job and Randy will probably use
him lead with Beika for the race this weekend because there will head-on
passing. Is it any wonder I dread
training???!!!!
Today seemed like a beautiful day with it sunny but chillier
(we found out when we were going to take a little snowmobile ride (I thought it
was for fun but it was really for Randy to have me memorize the trail – so I
could lead on the 4 wheeler instead of following…..) but it was so cold on my
face I had to cover everything including my eyes (forgot my goggles) so we
turned around and came back. We
did get 2 naps in and managed to put more bedding and dry soak in all of the
boxes – the majority of the 24 are good about not peeing in their box but about
5 of them, not so much..
Between now and tomorrow morning we need to get directions
to where the race is because we will leave tomorrow- the last time we went to a
race near here, I followed the map to the town that was in the race’s name –
Kamarouska – little did we know that it was also the name of the region and the
race was 20 miles from the town!!!
Something very interesting and unexpected (especially in
view of the comments he has made to me about doing it…) has happened over the
last 2 days………Randy is addicted to computer solitaire!!! Anybody that knows Randy knows
that computers are not his favorite thing! So know instead of me watching movies and playing solitaire,
he’s “hogging” the computer!!!
That leaves me to read the book “Sacajawea” that he just finished – 1342
pages not including the bibliography!
Another thing I could mention is the traffic on the road in
front of us – about a hundred yards away – the one we have to cross to
train. I bet you there is double
trailer full of logs going by every 5 minutes traveling to the east!!! We can hear them but not so loud as to
bother us.
Friday 2/27/15
Change of plans!!
Last nite Claude came in the trailer to tell us where the race was and
that he would get an exact address for us this morning. He told us that Patrick has been
worse the last 3 days and had not even gotten out of bed and they had an
appointment with the nuerologist this morning at the hospital in Montreal and
that likely he would be admitted for evaluation – so they were not going to the
race this weekend so they could support Melanie and Patrick. The more Randy thought about it, this
race was going to have 2 head-on passes every mile and it has been a long time since
we have raced here and it wouldn’t be as enjoyable without the Bellerives there
–so we are not going ourselves.
Instead we are going to train today as is Hermel. You can imagine my excitement!!!!! It will be slightly delayed, however,
since Randy just went out to start the truck to move over to our training spot
on the other side of the of the barn and the truck wouldn’t start – he thinks
because it was so cold last nite and we didn’t start it yesterday that the
engine block heater needs to be plugged in to warm up and he put a charger on
the battery because it didn’t want to turn over very bad……
2 teams of 9 with Snapper and Sterling out first – actually,
it went quite well – it’s sunny but very cold – my throttle thumb froze and I
kept almost all of my face covered!
I only had to get off of the 4 wheeler once and by the time I hit the ground (and of course my
elbow….why is it when you have an injury you always seem to bump it more often
than normal –one of life’s great myteries…) they had already turned the right
way –what a change from Snapper’s previous performance!! He was as good today as he was bad the
other day!!
Next was T-Bone and Sioux in lead – I asked Randy if he
really thought Sioux would lead and he said “I hope so” so my next question was
what was plan B – he responds with “just keep trying dogs until one will lead”
– does that inspire confidence in how well this is going to go??? So we get them all hooked up and it’s
my job to jump on the 4 wheeeler and race ahead of the team to look for safe
passing over the road – I get to the road and turn around and no team no Randy
– I can see that he is still back at the barn and I wait to see if he is going
to come soon – I wait and think maybe he’s really having trouble and I should
go back and help –so I turn around and race back and he takes off with Cloud
instead of Sioux in lead -so I turn around, pass the team and race to the road
– from there it went downhill – T-Bone trained with Bellerives here and knew
every shortcut to take back home to the barn!!!! I was on and off and on and off
and through the deep snow – finally we got to the middle of the trail where
there are not as many choices to turn and things went well for awhile until
Cloud stopped the team so he could take a “snow bite break”!!!! Then T-Bone figured he would shave a
mile or so off the run again!!! Along the way we met Claude running his team
and head-on passed and then met Hermel at a corner and things went blessedly
well.
Finally back to the barn and today I hurt only ½ as much as
usual from turning the 4 wheeler and jumping on and off – I must be getting
into some sort of shape! Fed
dinner and Claude stopped by to say they would pick us up at 6:30 for
supper. We ended up going to
Melanie’s house and ordered in from the restaurant. Randy ordered poutine (might have spelled that wrong) which
is French fries with cheese and brown gravy over them and a hamburg – me I had
fish. We ate in the formal dining
room and Patrick was able to join us – he was feeling a bit better and did not
have to stay at the hospital – they increased his medicine and added a steroid
– I think, from the label that I read.
Today up at 8 (the dogs let us sleep in – I have been
leaving the radio on for them in the back and I think is seems to calm them…)
and for the second drop we were going to move over to the training spot and try
to free drop some dogs, but the truck wouldn’t start again – so plug everything
back in –
By the time we got the truck started we had already dropped
for the 2nd time – we thought that we would try letting them run
around when we dropped them for feeding at 4 pm but it got really windy and
colder – when we are in the “training position” we are more out in the open and
the wind was really rocking the trailer – the only upside to the wind is that
it is bringing warmer temperatures with it! I am listening to the Quebec talk radio and the give regular
weather conditions and predictions.
So we ended up not letting them free run and moved back to our usual
parking spot where we are more protected by the barn. Melanie and Patrick dropped off goggles for me to try
because I had mentioned that I was frostbiting my eyebrows – Claude tried to
give us some more donuts like the ones that Melanie brought us Friday (they are maple flavored and unique to
Quebec – they also brought us another sugar pie “tarte au sucre” because
Patrick said this was the best kind!! Way better than the other kind Melanie
bought Randy!) when he stopped by on his way to a funeral of one of the
original employees of his roofing company, Cirtech. The man worked for him for 25 years and was 86 years old.
The rest of the day was spent with eating, napping, movies,
reading and Randy doing a little project for me- he put a piece of sled runner
at the door between the “house” and the “dog boxes house” so that the carpet on
the floor will flip up on the end at the door so that when I come into the
“house” I don’t drag hay from the floor with me= that’s actually the messiest
part of the whole setup – there is always hay on the floor!!!
March 1st
Training day!!! Much warmer today than yesterday – feels
balmy!!! Did get a bit cooler as the day went on. Randy considered running one team of 16 but with all the
trouble we have had with head-on passing on the wrong side of the trail he
decided to just do 2 teams of 8 – yes the numbers are dwindling – what with
sore dogs and dogs who don’t seem to want to run as hard as they did
before. 1st team was
lead by Doe and Cloud (brother and sister out of Gill from Streepers and our
Scar) and wonder of wonders……….no problems turning corners!!!!!!!! Because Cris finally figured out the
trail and had them following me!!
The next team with Sterling and Snapper also went well except for a bit
of head-on passing with Claude’s team again and Randy went off the trail onto a
snowmobile trail for a little while, but all in all, very successful!! There are 4 really big hills that you
go up and down in this training trail and the dogs are getting stronger every
training session!
You probably are wondering why I haven’t posted in almost a
week – the Bellerives have been preoccupied with Patrick (he is not doing well
again and is going to a neurologist in Trois Riviere tomorrow for another
opinion) and so we just wait to see if they invite is in and I haven’t wanted
to intrude by going over to the house – and then ½ the time we do go to their
house I forget to bring the computer!
Tomorrow I will go over to the house and do laundry and get caught up!
After training today I even had enough energy to clean house
–not that it’s very big – and even used the little vacuum cleaner my Dad gave
me years ago!
The good news is that we found out that yesterday it was so
windy they didn’t run the open teams at the race we had planned to go to in
Kamarouska – don’t know about today but it was good we didn’t go to the race.
Monday, 3/2
Almost Aeja’s birthday!!!! Tomorrow the big 11!!!
We are going to try to get through on the phone to do a personal wish!!
Started out warmish this morning but by the 2nd
drop the wind had kicked up and it feels much cooler. I am in the house and waiting for Lise (the housekeeper) to
finish a load of wash she is doing and then I have 2 loads.
This weeks race is at Daquaam. We have been there at least 4 times – it is at a provincial
nature area on a river with a rustic lodge right on the river. The start is on the frozen river – one
year it melted and they had to re-route the start! Last time we were there Max and his wife Mary Claude ran the
place – that is also where they give the dogsled rides with the huge malamutes
– I will have to take some pictures – I have 2 cameras with me and haven’t
taken picture #1!
I spent an hour trying to get on the internet and was not
able to – even though I was last week.
So today after we dropped dogs we came into Shewanigan to
get propane again and to Tim Horton’s to use their wifi. Maybe even go to Walmart!!!
Sorry it took so long for me to post – you probably thought
we dropped off the face of the earth!!
.JPG)
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