3 dogs for Ocean today!!!

If he stayed long enough and added a dog each time he runs he could get up to the same number as Grandpa!!!!!!

we are having so much fun with Ocean!!!!

He has been her since Saturday and we have so far had him on the sled behind
 the snowmachine and today he ran 2 dogs around the 4 mile trail
 and did perfect
 less snow than we had so that makes things difficult but tomorrow we should be able to run everybody the long distance

keep thinking snow for us !!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

We did!!!  The week went by soooooo fast - trained Sunday, Tuesday and then Thanksgiving - and it was so cold - 3 degrees!!!!!  Fortunately it warmed up to a balmy 20 degrees by the time we were finished training!!!

After training we went to the neighbors to have dinner with 11 other neighbors !!  lots of very good food and leftovers to bring home!!!

Today/Friday we are waiting in a vet's office in Manistique for our 2 dogs with bad teeth to be done= apparently their genetic "bad mouths" necessitated some tooth removals...........and not cheap!!!!   Things are a bit cheaper downstate......must be supply and demand!!!

Tomorrow we meet Cindy and the kids in Gaylord to pick up Ocean to have for the week- he specially asked if he could come and stay with us to train dogs and Cindy is generous enough to meet us about 1/2 way!!!  Should be a fun week!!!  Will try to keep up with the info on line!!!

Great last 5 days!!!

Went downstate and stayed 2 notes and got to see some family for meals, dropped off the 4 puppies to Dee and picked up the plow truck and put it on the U haul trailer (with much time and difficulty.............).  Left again on Friday morning and got home in the UP without problems.

Went to church on Saturday nite and then had another date nite and went out for pizza and to the movie "the grinch"!  it was quite good - different from the other 2 but quite good!

Sunday trained everybody and they sure were happy to go on the trail again!!!

Randy is fixing the transmission fluid line on the plow truck and by the sounds I hear in the yard it must be fixed - he had done some plowing with it already and it hopefully will be worth it that we drove downstate to bring it up here.  He is wanting to move the trailer across the street to a "parking lot" before much more snow comes and we get stuck in the drive again so I am making sure I have everything out of it that I will want until we leave in January!!!!  We still can drive the truck or snow machine over to get things but it won't be as convenient!!

Talk to you soon!!!

Welcome to our winter wonderland!!!!!

Well we have actually gotten the 8 inches of snow they predicted – not all at once- but over a period of 5 days!!! It’s winter up here in the UP!!!!  Even more wintery here at Deer Park than at Newberry!  Precisely why we are here away from home and loved ones training at a place with cooler temps and early snow!!  The training trails are beautiful – Randy has been packing them the last 4 days and they are nice and hard for the dogs’ feet!  We are up to 17 miles as of today – that’s as far as we ever went up here last year and we still have 7 weeks of training here! So we are very pleased with the dogs’ progress and so far we don’t even have any injuries!!!!

To give you a brief update: Saturday was training and church (and every one of the 4 -7 month old puppies has been in lead and does excellent!!!!!!!), Sunday was training the A and B team (though they really are all 21 of them very close in ability and speed………) and then we had a delightful surprise visit from the Kukals!!!!  Mark, Jamie and Austin were up here to get a tour of Northern Michigan University where Austin thinks he wants to go next year and major in criminal justice and conservation!  So they were here just before we got back from the 2^ndteam training (we would have probably been here when they got here but Greg decided to chew through the main line which left all 11 dogs in a twisted mess with dogs bickering left and right and getting tangled in the loose lines – sooooooooo we had to unhook all 11 and put them back in their circles……..so we cold fix the line………..then re-hook them all up again.  At least a ½ hour of effort and much frustration and a little bit of ranting and raving………..) and we visited in the house, did a quick tour of the lakeshore a mile from us, and then went to lunch at the historic Pine Stump Junction (used to be that they delivered the mail to a stump there for all the loggers and they went to the stump to retrieve their mail!) restaurant (about 5 miles south of us)  The pizza was good and the company and conversation were even better!!!!!

Monday was training and dinner at Jan Shaw’s with Waltmans – clam and seafood chowder – delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Something I have never made especially with Randy not being particularly fond of seafood and fish!!!e

Today we trained the A and B teams again and had a little surprise just as we were coming down a short and steep hill onto the drive back into the yard……..Jan was there with 2 dogs walking back from the mailbox !!!!!!!!!!!!!  Our team ran straight through in between the 2 dogs and no fuss, no muss!!!!!  I called Jan after to be sure she was alright and she said she was very impressed with our team for staying focused and going straight through!

Tomorrow we train the teams again because we are taking the 2 opening day of deer season off = so we don’t become targets in the woods!  Instead we are traveling downstate to pick up our “chronic problem” plow truck so that we can be using it up here!  It will be a quick trip – just long enough to get the truck and take the 4 puppies over to Dee’s  house to watch for the rest of the winter – they are doing super good but 3 months is a long time to have them in dog boxes and not be able to race them cause they aren’t old enough!!!

Enjoy our winter wonderland!!!

update for the week!

Can’t remember the last time I posted (and I write in “Word” so that if I lose my writing for some reason I can retrieve it and not have to do it all over!  So that means I can’t see how far in the week I have written until I go out to the trailer and open the wifi and the blog)– I guess it was probably last Saturday-ish……….we did go to Mass and then went out for a appetizer and then to the movie “A Star is Born”.  It was pretty good – we both had seen the one with Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Striesand and this was as good or better though I like the music better in the first of the two!  I think I watched the very first version of the movie on one of my horror movie dics – it may have even been a silent movie!!!  So that was “date nite” complete with buttered popcorn!!!

Sunday we trained and then went to dinner at Jan Shaw’s and had fajitas – that’s something I never have made and it was pretty good – will have to try them!  My contribution was chocolate pudding (sugar free because all of us including the Waltman’s are on diets) and rice crispy treats all topped with Halloween candy pumpkins!

Monday was training again and then Tuesday when we would have trained puppies it was raining pretty hard so we decided to go to Marquette and pick up some dog supplements from Dr. Tim Hunt – we had tried to meet up with him as he passed by here on his way to a rabies clinic for MUSH downstate but we missed his call – soo it took just over 2 hours to get to Marquette and we got the supplements – enough to last until spring – to the tune of $800!!!!  After that shock we went sight seeing in Marquette and spent more money!  We had lunch at a place on the bay (the Iron Bay) at the recommendation of one of the techs at Dr. Tim’s – it was excellent!! I had the whitefish chowder and it was everything the waiter said it would be – we also got a history lesson with lunch because they have historical pictures posted throughout the restaurant with a matching code card that explains the story that goes with the pictures – (so because I just mentioned losing what I have written on the computer the computer cooperated with my example and froze and lost the last half of what I have written the last 15 minutes!!!!!!!! But at least because Word does auto save I only lost ½!!!!!)

After lunch we drove through downtown- a lovely mix of old and new = then we drove around the Presque Isle Park which runs along the waterfront – a very nice park to have right next to a city!!!  Marquette is well work investigating!  Funny how we have driven by on our way somewhere for 20 years and have never been in the downtown!!

Made it back to Newberry and stopped for gas.  We started to leave………….but the started said”no”…………..so we pushed the yellow truck out of the way and couldn’t really tell what the problem was – so we caught our neighbor, fellow musher and mechanic who works in Newberry, at work just before he left! He came down and wiggled some wires (looks like Randy has to clean the batter posts……..) and we were off again. Came home and fed and then met Jan Shaw and Waltman’s and Richard Robinson for dinner at Pine Stump Junction for dinner – after that we went to Waltman’s to watch the election results and celebrate and

 Early Happy Thanksgiving from the UP!!!! All UP natural turkey!!!!

 Randy looking at 3D antique pictures in the restaurant in Marquette

 the ore dock across from the restaurant

 firemen's bell in Marquette

 another ore dock on Presque Isle Island

 view from the island

 our dog training obstacle course!!!!

commiserate………….

Wednesday was training and it was quite a bit colder so the dogs went the longest yet – 13.1 miles! We are even a little ahead on the training schedule!  We really have only lost 1 day so far due to weather with the adult dogs so we are right on track!!

We had one surprise while training-----not 50 feet from where we had to go under a fallen tree on the trail last year, we had a fallen tree 2 foot in diameter that we had to go over!!!!  The 10 dog team went over 2 by 2 (Just like the Ark……..) and broke off most of the rotten branches but it was quite the feat!!!  Then when it came to the 4 wheeler it got stuck on the axles going over!!!!  So after much pulling, pushing and lifting we got it off and over!!!!

Today we awoke to a little accumulation of snow on the ground – trained the puppies and so far, 2 of the 4 so far have done excellent in lead!!!  At only 8 months old!! They are naturals!!!

Tomorrow we are supposed to have a big snow storm with accumulation of up to 8 inches – se we will see how that comes to fruition…………..

Up to Saturday

Pretty calm week – training and doing minor stuff around the house- the weather has been good for training – most mornings right around 40 degrees – as we get used to the cold it almost seems balmy!!!  We can tell the dogs are thinking it’s warm as well – don’t see it getting any colder for another week and then some snow in the forecast!

We did outfit the dogs with some new harnesses – that took a lot of trying out for each run and knowing how many and what size we wanted to buy from Bruce Magnusson – he has tried this ZeroDc brand and found them to be pretty good but now he is interested in some other variety/conformation so is selling some of them to us.  This new harness has a larger and rounder neck piece so it looks to me like the dog is pulling more like the harnesses that you put on a horse – around the neck and upper shoulders while allowing free motion of the shoulder.  We will see how they work out…………..

On Halloween we took a drive over to Rainbow Lodge – it is a re-built cabin/resort that burned down in the big fire that happened up here maybe 5 years ago??  Our friends Kathy and Richard Robinson inherited the place from Richard’s father – it is a beautiful piece of property right at the mouth of the 2 hearted river.  When we had been here twice before you could never see how close you were to Lake Superior – but now with the fire leveling all the trees there are beautiful scenic views of the lake and the river!!  They have 7 (I think) cabins , five of which are brand new and so nice – the view and the pine and the rustic furniture……..wow!  They are really trying to sell (only $950,000………..) and don’t rent out all of the units – trying to keep them nice for a buyer to look at – and pretty reasonable – like a 3 bedroom house with a view for $1200 a week….. So we happened to catch Richard there closing up the cabins and he took us on a tour of 3 of them and then we went down to the Two Hearted River campground right on Lake Superior – beautiful as I hope you can see from the pictures!

After the tour we did go into Newberry and got groceries and saw all the trick or treaters around town! They start early up here…it was only 5!

I did manage to view almost all of the scary movies I have just in time for Halloween (I probably have about 150…………) and carved the pumpkin and roasted the pumpkin seeds – so we had a great but low key, Halloween!

Nothing much coming up except church tomorrow in Newberry and training every day!  Now up to 10.6 miles with the adult teams of 10 and 11!!

 Our new "sardine can" trailer bedroom decor!

 Halloween at the DeKuiper UP residence!

 The view from the cabin at Rainbow Lodge - that is the 2 hearted river in the foreground

 Inside the  cabin

 At the 2 hearted river mouth and campground - river in foreground and Lake Superior in the distance

 bridge across the rive at the campground - made to look a bit like the Big Mac

 river and lake beyond

 me crossing the bridge

 shows you how brownish the water is up here

below: the cabins on the ridge overlooking the river and the lake