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!!!