Shopping day!!!

Not much to report - I made chicken soup from the left over chicken from St. Hubert dinner Sunday - went to Walmart and managed to spend $150 even though we didn't have that much on the list!!!

Then went to a Rona store (kind of like a Home Depot) and found the most adorable little wooden crates for $7 and had to buy 6 of them!!  They fit in a wasted space in the bathroom for book shelves and DVD's!!!!  Chicken soup for dinner again and to bed with it very cold - like 5 degrees F - blocked up all of the windows and vents in the back to keep the dogs warm.

today cold (it felt really cold last nite cause we have been used to 32 degrees or so - )  and we are going to train 2 teams.  Hermel took the groomer out yesterday with Randy to put in a trail and the Bombadier that pulls the groomer quit and they had to walk back home a mile!  Randy just went out on Claude's newish Skidoo to smooth over some of the rough spots and then bundle up to train!!!

Sunday second day of Epiphanie

Got up to another perfect day with even a little bit of sun!

Today the unlimited was not starting until 2:30 and because Randy went out 12th it was 22 minutes after that (2 minute intervals between drivers/teams).  So I went shopping!!!!  I will get a picture posted tomorrow but I had seen two booths in the art fair that carried faux fur hats and neck wraps and had thought about it all nite and decided that I wanted a head band with the faux fur....so I ended up with a head band and a neck wrap with material that looks like seal fur!!!!  got lots of compliments!!! and it's all dog friendly (meaning they won't try to take it off my head) and machine washable!!!

We got to the start line good with really only the 2 of us taking 10 dogs up - we dropped 2 - one with a sore ankle and one that got tired before the end on Saturday.  They took off well as far as I noticed but Randy said that one dog was tangled just before he left and Claude Bellerive got him straightened.  As I waited patiently at the finish line, the 2 teams that left before him came in and then a big gap in the action......like 10 minutes (or at least if felt like that...) When he finally came in there was a bit of red on our one white dog - he and his partner had a falling out on the trail, so Randy had to stop and correct their behavior and lost some time - so he finished 14th..  The good thing is, that the 2 leaders (Fred and Ice that we raised and are only 2 years old - Fred's 3rd time in lead at a race and Ice's first) came in strong, with Ice actually encouraging Fred to get by the 1/4 mile of people on both sides of the fenced off finish line!!!!  S0 big success!!!  Plus we paid $65 entry fee and won $165!!!  So we blew that eating out at a St. Hubert's (the really popular chicken place in Quebec).  The funniest thing is that we both ordered chicken and with your order you get a pancake and a 1/4 cup serving of chicken gravy!!!  Kind of like when we have breakfast out and you always get a serving of baked beans with whatever you ordered!
Tomorrow Hermel is going to use the groomer to put in a good training trail again - so if he is done early we will train, if not, shopping at Walmart in Shawinigan!!!!!

Good race day!!!

Had a peaceful/uneventful Thursday nite--  Up again not very early (I did have one naughty “child” that insisted on barking in the middle of the night even when I went into the back to  verbally “correct” him….  Because he wouldn’t stop I ended up putting a tool box over the front of his door that pretty much blocked his view and he finally stopped.

We fed breakfast and then tidied things up knowing we would be making the hour or so trip to the race site this afternoon.  I even colored my hair!  Had to go into the barn and wash it out in the sink, but you work with what you have!!!!

The trip to Epiphanie was good (we saw the Bellerives coming home from Ontario on the other side of the expressway – in case I didn’t let you know yesterday, Claude won the World Championship in the unlimited class and Melanie in the 6!!!!)  We are parked now at the race site in the downtown area of the little city and got the form to fill out for entering the race at the meeting at 7pm.  The brochure says they are having pony rides, horse-drawn wagon rides, fat tire bike rides, zumba and African dancing shows, maple syrup on ice (called “Bar de glace et terrasse exterieure”), feestyle dog shows, and art fair, ;and of course, the dogsled race!!!  Sounds like a fun weekend coming up!!  I will write tomorrow!

And today was a perfect day for dogsledders!!!  About freezing and over cast.  Didn’t have to be racing until 2pm (Randy drew 2^nd place in the draw) so went back to bed at 9 am to 11 am –(feeling a bit achey breaky).  Got the dogs ready to go from 1 to 2 pm and took them up to the line (about a 100 yard trip) good start off as it looked to me. 

Now we are in the trailer doing the post-mortem on the race – Randy had Oslo and Fred in lead and Fred did tremendous!!!!!!!!!  He (as a 2 year old) ended up pulling Oslo over most of the 13 mile trail.  Randy did get to 20.9 mph at some point and was at 18mph a lot of the time but said the trail was so curvy that it scared him in a couple of places!!  Some slush, some soft snow, some ice and some flat and hard.  With all that, he came in 12^th of 18 teams!  Not as good as he felt like he had done but when you look at the names of the drivers ahead of him and know how good those kennels are, it is very good!!! (I will keep that up till he starts believing me…………)  It is quite good considering that Oslo in lead didn’t really pull he just dipped a lot of snow!!

So tomorrow should be a great day now that he knows what the trail is like and how the dogs performed today!!  Homemade turkey soup from our house for dinner!!!

Thursday, January 26

We managed to get to Charette , Quebec with only 2 wrong turns this time!!  It is quite like home to pull into our friends place and park.  Everyone is still at the race and will be until at least late tonite.  We ran into a little rain on the way but the roads were good for the most part.  We came through Montreal a northern route that we usually don’t take and managed to avoid a lot of the bad stop and go traffic of people leaving the city at 5 or so. 

Woke up and fed dogs just as the front end loader from the Bellerive’s business was coming to plow all of the parking lot around the barn.  We moved so he could plow the 3 inches of snow we got last nite and then fed the dogs breakfast.  We wanted to be able to train and see if anybody was hurt from the race Tuesday so we hopped on the 4 wheeler with bulldozer tracks and tried to find the trail the Bellerive’s train on.  It was pretty hard to see with the new snow and blowing and we did have a trouble pulling the tires up one of the hills cause it was too deep (scratched that part of the training trail….)  After going over all of it 4 times we got out the snowmobile so that I could be sure to hit the right corners to lead our dogs training and went over the whole thing another 3 times.  Hooked up a 10 and 9 dog team and found that our leader, Spark, has a fissure in the palm of his foot – so don’t think he will run in lead this weekend.  The rest looked good!!!  3 o’clock and the major part of the work day is done so we looked up the race results from yesterday and found that Claude Bellerive is in 2^nd after having a bad day yesterday and that Melanie won!!!!!!  In the 6 dog class!!  So we are very happy for them and are thinking about Claude as he is on the trail as I write this!  Plan to pack up and leave for the Friday night meeting at the race site sometime late afternoon tomorrow.  Check in later!

Things move a bit slow around here..........

Spent all of 3 hours waiting and line and then finally having the vet check on the team on Monday.  They sent 2 people to each team and had to scan the chips on each dog and do a pretty comprehensive physical also. 

Tuesday morning they woke us at 5:30am to move the truck/trailer to our parking spot near the start line.  They had put some snow down in the lot because it was all ice but it didn't really help with the "slipperyness". 
Randy's start time was 3:42 and we got off to a bit of rocky start cause I forgot one of the dogs in the trailer (Andy) so it messed up our starting line-up of the team places.  He did look good leaving!!!!  Most of the teams had come in and I heard the race marshal get a call that Randy was still out on the trail (though he should have been back 1/2 hour ago) and heading back with a snowmobile escort.  Another of those "dogsledding widow" days.........  It was almost dark when he got back and many friends (Bellerives, Danae Bryar and Mike Marsch, and more) stayed to help us get them back to the truck.  Bad day.  Missed several corners and got dragged twice.  Turning a 15 dog team around when you miss a corner is quite a challenge.  Decided to go to Bellerives today and train tomorrow and see if any dogs are hurt and then may race in Quebec at Epiphanie on the weekend.  We heard several other open drivers may also not run today because of the trail.

Treated ourselves to a breakfast buffet in the restaurant.  It is a lovely place and I will describe more later.  Need to go drop the dogs and get on the road again..............

Welcome 2017!!!!

This year my baby, Lucas, turns 40 and my other "baby", Randy, turns 70!!!  Big year and here we start the racing season!!!

A couple of weeks ago Randy decided that he wanted to participate in the IFSS race in Haliburton Ontario, Canada.  So with double the racing fee for being late we began to make plans.. Those plans included having to put microchips in all of the 16 dogs he plans to race - sooooooo $730 later we have chips and rabies certificates and were ready to leave 1/21 for the race that actually starts on 1/24.  (Monday is a vet check so we left early). 

We started out on Saturday just after 12noon which was what we had planned.  the roads were clear but the fog was terrible!!!!  we made one wrong turn (or lack thereof....) and ended up driving around Bay City for a 1/2 hour.....   Had one of those miraculous border crossings in Port Huron (uneventful, without problems or inspections..) and more awful fog.  Stopped to feed at 5 at an En Route on the 401 and more fog.   Stopped for the nite at another En Route just before Toronto.  Good nite but only 1/2 of the dogs ate their supper.

Up at the crack of 9 (amazing those dogs let us sleep in so long???) and found our way up a very circuitous route to Minded and then on to the Haliburton Forest.  It is 80,000 acres of privately owned land that is used for a variety of year round activities including dog sledding -  lots and lots and lots of groomed trails (even though the snow is quite melty and shallow and mostly ice covered with water in all the parking lots).  We scoped the place out and found a parking spot for the nite.  Already met 2 guys from the Checkloslovakia (spelling????) running in the skijouring class.  More people will be arriving tomorrow so more to tell then!!!!