Missing 2 kids and a spouse and a granddaughter but all the rest are there1111

 

What could go wrong next............?????

 We left Baldwin on Friday as planned and arrived here at Deer Park late afternoon - enough daylight to get into the house and turn the electric back on and get started on warming the house.  Fed the dogs in their boxes and dropped and slept in the trailer -

Saturday we brought all of the dogs back to the dog yard using the same approach as when we left - tie 2 leaders in front in harness and 1/2 the dogs on a stake-out line hooked in by their collars with the snow machine behind them.  That worked good and it was great that they could be released when we got into the yard and most of them wanted to be hooked up in their circle!

We went into town to buy parts for the cracked water pipe we found in the bathroom under the sink and bought some groceries - came home and Randy started to replace the pipe and found he had the wrong size fittings...........back to town and for more groceries I forgot...........got home and fed dogs and Randy asked me to get the new fittings out of the truck..................it was locked with the keys inside............ went over to Jan's to callAAA for road service and they said they would be here in 45 minutes..........not............never came...........so went to Frank Caldwell's on the snowmobile and asked if he had a "break in tool" and he did and would come over in the morning................

Sunday morning Frank comes and gets the truck open and Randy tries to get into Jim's house to turn on the water to our place and he can't get the door unlocked!!!!!  So he decides to feed dogs, tries again and gets the door open and the water turned on...............but no water coming to the house!!!  We at this point don't know if the pipe is frozen underground but don'e know for sure.................

So Randy went around the trail for 2 hours and thought some fix for the water would occur to him!

Meanwhile we had Peeps from her surgery in the house for the first time overnite - she was in a crate that had straw bedding in it and by morning (having taken her out to pee 3 times during the nite) the living room floor was covered in straw!!!!  You cannot believe how loud she was howling during the nite wanting to be let out!!!  Of course Randy never heard her!!!  So not a very restful first nite back!!!! At least it's easier on my body getting into the bed - it was pretty painful trying to get up into the fifth wheel bed multiple times a nite!!!!!

So we are warm and have a trail (almost too much snow.........) the dogs are happy and all we are lacking is water!!!!!  Guess it will be like living in the trailer for awhile!!!!

Wow!!! what a week!!!

 I don’t recall where I left off updating you on the forever changing  saga of the elder DeKuipers………………..so I will just start from about a week ago!

The Tahquamenon race was great, Randy got second in the 10 dog race and Moe (aka Jim Moyer) ran 5 of our dogs in the 6 dog – our lead dog created a little bit of a “off course” maneuver (even though it wasn’t groomed for the race she remembered going gee at the corner while training- most of the race course is on the trails we have used for training for the last 4 months

Oh and I got run over by our dog team…………the man in the chute tying the teams off for the start wasn’t quite practiced yet when Randy went out so he let the team go ahead about 10 feet before Randy stopped them and because I was up holding the leader out I got trampled, popped back up and untangled the dogs that were tangled – the bad thing is that the healing of my pelvic floor muscles/groin that had healed over the last 3 months, was re-injured!!!  Our son-in-law Bill was pretty funny when he heard me tell the tale he started singing “Grandma got run over by her dog team”!!!!!!

So Sunday was a non-walking day and stay on the couch day and anxiety because we intended to leave Wednesday for Baldwin for the next race!  And that means packing up most of our house to go into  the trailer which is ¼ mile from our house (parked in a public parking lot on the west side of the road so we don’t get it snowed in when it’s time to leave!!!)– so lots of loadinng and unloading with the pickup and deciding what to take and what to leave---

Well that process and me being re-injured took a lot longer that what we would have expected so we ended up leaving Thursday afternoon and only making it down to Gaylord at the Walmart parking lot overnite – the drive was a little stressful what with me driving the pickup and Randy with the truck and trailer and high winds going over the bridge and snowing and I ran out of windshield wiper fluid so spent some anxious not seeing too pretty good when a car’s lights were shining on me!!

Made it to Baldwin about 1 and parked in the lot across from the catholic church we belong to and prepared for the celebrity/sponsor race.  The whole race weekend was organized by Moe and Lydia and we had volunteered to help so we provided 2 teams of 2 for the sponsor race – they had dual starts and eliminate for the sponsor trophy – it was very fun and Moe and Lydia had made up fun names (one of ours was the Kettle Korn Express!) for each of the teams and we all had fun – the younger DeKuiper family came for the sponsor race and the driver’s meeting and stayed in town at the Pere Marquette Lodge (and they loved it) because 3 of the kids were racing in the real race the next 2 days. (Aeja, Oak and Aurea all of whom had never been on a sled behind a dog team….)

The first race was bitterly cold but we were all troopers and got the dogs ready for Randy in the 8, Oak and Aeja in the 4 and Aurea in the 3 dog junior using 2 of Moe and lydia’s dogs.

We were a little concerned for all of them as it’s not an easy course and  they no experience – also there was only one other junior in the race with Aurea and we knew she had lots of experience since she had like 70? Miles on her team and had raced at Tahquamenon – 

Well amazingly Aurea came in 2 minutes ahead of  Aubrey without a any problems!!!!

Not so much for Aeja and Oak…………….apparently Aeja fell and lost her team (and never did recover it – it was brought back by a trail helper) and after he went by Aeja , Oak fell and lost his team but did recover it and finished with trail help catching his team!!!  What troopers!!!  (Reminds me of my years racing and falling and losing………..)  As it turned out there ewas a problem with timing the race? And they threw out all of Saturday’s times for the 4 dog race – which meant because Aeja had walked 4 miles to the finish line she qualified to race again Sunday and they both had a fresh start to “redeem themselves”!!!

Sunday was also cold – lots of cold fingers and toes – and we also got to see Mitzi and her family and Luke and his!!!  So out of our whole family we were missing only 2 adult kids and one grandkid!!!  You can bet Grandpa and Grandma had a one-of –a-kind great day!!!!

So Aurea had another trouble free run and wins!!!  And even thought she fell again……….she didn ‘t lose her team and both Oak and Aeja finished 5^th and 6^th (I think/remember?)

We took all the family out for dinner and it was one of those “remember always” days!!!

The next saga in our travels started Sunday when we mentioned to our nurse practioner and vet tech daughter-in-laws the we had a dog having poor appetite and vomiting and diarrhea =we found a stethoscope and listened for bowel sounds and heard nothing and began to think bowel obstruction – so Moe got us an early Monday morning appointment at his vet to evaluate – xray showed a mass in her abdomen 10 cm but he said we would have to find someone else to treat is as he was covering for the vet clinic owner and didn’t have time…………all the vets in west Michigan were at a convention in Florida!!!  Worst timing!!!  We finally got an appointment in Big Rapids with a referral from Moe’s vet calling from Florida and were seen there Tuesday.  More xrays and ultrasound and she determined that she needed surgery and had a cancellation so she could do it Wednesday – which was good because we had been thinking it was life threatening if she developed a leak in this fluid filled mass!

Surgery went well, we brought her back to our trailer where we are parked in the lot next to St. Anne’s and she is eating and acting very well!!!

So the fall out from all this is that we would have left here and gone to Wyoming for the stage race where we have paid a non=refundable entry fee of $1000 but had to notify them we would not be coming – we had only 14 dogs making in the pool we could use and this broke the camel’s back –we also had to cancel snowmachine reservations we had made in Alpine WY where we trained last year to acclimate us and the dogs in advance of the race – we were supposed to get only ½ of our fee of $300 back but she said everyone that worked there is a dog person and they would refund the entire price!!!

So this is Thursday, we have our dog back, and think we are going to a couple of races in Wisconsin so the plan is to go back up to the UP and our rental cabin, open it back up and put the dogs back out in the dogyard and train for a couple of weeks!!!!  And me drive the yellow truck back up because we don’t really have any other transportation to go the ½ hour into Newberry  without taking the 8 miles to the gallon blue truck!!!!

I will try to be more up to date the next several weeks!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t recall where I left off updating you on the forever changing  saga of the elder DeKuipers………………..so I will just start from about a week ago!

The Tahquamenon race was great, Randy got second in the 10 dog race and Moe (aka Jim Moyer) ran 5 of our dogs in the 6 dog – our lead dog created a little bit of a “off course” maneuver (even though it wasn’t groomed for the race she remembered going gee at the corner while training- most of the race course is on the trails we have used for training for the last 4 months

Oh and I got run over by our dog team…………the man in the chute tying the teams off for the start wasn’t quite practiced yet when Randy went out so he let the team go ahead about 10 feet before Randy stopped them and because I was up holding the leader out I got trampled, popped back up and untangled the dogs that were tangled – the bad thing is that the healing of my pelvic floor muscles/groin that had healed over the last 3 months, was re-injured!!!  Our son-in-law Bill was pretty funny when he heard me tell the tale he started singing “Grandma got run over by her dog team”!!!!!!

So Sunday was a non-walking day and stay on the couch day and anxiety because we intended to leave Wednesday for Baldwin for the next race!  And that means packing up most of our house to go into  the trailer which is ¼ mile from our house (parked in a public parking lot on the west side of the road so we don’t get it snowed in when it’s time to leave!!!)– so lots of loadinng and unloading with the pickup and deciding what to take and what to leave---

Well that process and me being re-injured took a lot longer that what we would have expected so we ended up leaving Thursday afternoon and only making it down to Gaylord at the Walmart parking lot overnite – the drive was a little stressful what with me driving the pickup and Randy with the truck and trailer and high winds going over the bridge and snowing and I ran out of windshield wiper fluid so spent some anxious not seeing too pretty good when a car’s lights were shining on me!!

Made it to Baldwin about 1 and parked in the lot across from the catholic church we belong to and prepared for the celebrity/sponsor race.  The whole race weekend was organized by Moe and Lydia and we had volunteered to help so we provided 2 teams of 2 for the sponsor race – they had dual starts and eliminate for the sponsor trophy – it was very fun and Moe and Lydia had made up fun names (one of ours was the Kettle Korn Express!) for each of the teams and we all had fun – the younger DeKuiper family came for the sponsor race and the driver’s meeting and stayed in town at the Pere Marquette Lodge (and they loved it) because 3 of the kids were racing in the real race the next 2 days. (Aeja, Oak and Aurea all of whom had never been on a sled behind a dog team….)

The first race was bitterly cold but we were all troopers and got the dogs ready for Randy in the 8, Oak and Aeja in the 4 and Aurea in the 3 dog junior using 2 of Moe and lydia’s dogs.

We were a little concerned for all of them as it’s not an easy course and  they no experience – also there was only one other junior in the race with Aurea and we knew she had lots of experience since she had like 70? Miles on her team and had raced at Tahquamenon – 

Well amazingly Aurea came in 2 minutes ahead of  Aubrey without a any problems!!!!

Not so much for Aeja and Oak…………….apparently Aeja fell and lost her team (and never did recover it – it was brought back by a trail helper) and after he went by Aeja , Oak fell and lost his team but did recover it and finished with trail help catching his team!!!  What troopers!!!  (Reminds me of my years racing and falling and losing………..)  As it turned out there ewas a problem with timing the race? And they threw out all of Saturday’s times for the 4 dog race – which meant because Aeja had walked 4 miles to the finish line she qualified to race again Sunday and they both had a fresh start to “redeem themselves”!!!

Sunday was also cold – lots of cold fingers and toes – and we also got to see Mitzi and her family and Luke and his!!!  So out of our whole family we were missing only 2 adult kids and one grandkid!!!  You can bet Grandpa and Grandma had a one-of –a-kind great day!!!!

So Aurea had another trouble free run and wins!!!  And even thought she fell again……….she didn ‘t lose her team and both Oak and Aeja finished 5^th and 6^th (I think/remember?)

We took all the family out for dinner and it was one of those “remember always” days!!!

The next saga in our travels started Sunday when we mentioned to our nurse practioner and vet tech daughter-in-laws the we had a dog having poor appetite and vomiting and diarrhea =we found a stethoscope and listened for bowel sounds and heard nothing and began to think bowel obstruction – so Moe got us an early Monday morning appointment at his vet to evaluate – xray showed a mass in her abdomen 10 cm but he said we would have to find someone else to treat is as he was covering for the vet clinic owner and didn’t have time…………all the vets in west Michigan were at a convention in Florida!!!  Worst timing!!!  We finally got an appointment in Big Rapids with a referral from Moe’s vet calling from Florida and were seen there Tuesday.  More xrays and ultrasound and she determined that she needed surgery and had a cancellation so she could do it Wednesday – which was good because we had been thinking it was life threatening if she developed a leak in this fluid filled mass!

Surgery went well, we brought her back to our trailer where we are parked in the lot next to St. Anne’s and she is eating and acting very well!!!

So the fall out from all this is that we would have left here and gone to Wyoming for the stage race where we have paid a non=refundable entry fee of $1000 but had to notify them we would not be coming – we had only 14 dogs making in the pool we could use and this broke the camel’s back –we also had to cancel snowmachine reservations we had made in Alpine WY where we trained last year to acclimate us and the dogs in advance of the race – we were supposed to get only ½ of our fee of $300 back but she said everyone that worked there is a dog person and they would refund the entire price!!!

So this is Thursday, we have our dog back, and think we are going to a couple of races in Wisconsin so the plan is to go back up to the UP and our rental cabin, open it back up and put the dogs back out in the dogyard and train for a couple of weeks!!!!  And me drive the yellow truck back up because we don’t really have any other transportation to go the ½ hour into Newberry  without taking the 8 miles to the gallon blue truck!!!!

I will try to be more up to date the next several weeks!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Way lots of snow!!

 We are truly seeing a UP winter!!!  Randy thinks there is at least 14 inches of snow and more in places you can't even go to measure!

We trained all 16 healthy and uninjured dogs today on a portion of the trail that Randy has been grooming for specifically that reason- we did see Bruce and Laura out on the trail but not much else....

Had a wonderful farewell chili dinner with Jan and the Waltman's tonight!  Feels like we just settled in to our "Dog Camp" and we are already leaving - had to take my philodendron plant over to Jan so she could babysit it again this year!

Didn't get much packing done since I am still gimping around so I guess the big push is going to be tomorrow (or today if you look at the time I post this......)  mostly people food, clothes and various other things need to be loaded into the yellow pick up and delivered across the 407 to the trailer - it should take most of the morning tomorrow and then we have to hook the dogs up on a stake-out line and run them over to the trailer as well - I was hurting a bit today after training so we will see if it causes more problems when I have to put dogs in boxes in the trailer tomorrow!  Thankfully it's only my right leg that is hurting and it was pretty good a couple of days ago so maybe it will be good tomorrow!

So we will load everything up and take off for Baldwin (1/2 hour north of our downstate home) and for sure be there in time for the sponsor's race at 4 on Friday evening, race Saturday and Sunday and then leave for Wyoming on Monday or Sunday evening!!

Will let you know how the weekend goes!

Yea!!!! A great race and a very good finish for Randy!!

 Randy spent a lot of time over the last week grooming the race trail to make it as good as he could for the dogs to race on last Saturday  - Mother Nature cooperated and it was actually an excellent trail for the race!

Randy went out 5th on the 34 mile run and knew that Lynn Witte would be his greatest competition and sure enough she came in first and he was second!  We were very happy with that and everybody that saw him out on the trail said the dogs looked very good!!

Additionally, 5 of our dogs went out in the 6 dog race with Jim Moyer and finished 6th - one of our leaders  went off the trail for some reason or he would have finished higher

I actually got run over by Randy's team in the chute and re-injured my groin so was not able to walk on Sunday and go into the brunch for the awards - it's much better today and I can walk pretty good and it feels like I will be back to normal in a couple of days...........................

Wonderful and amazing good wishes and blessings for you in the new year!!

 The week of the holidays has gone by very fast - a trip to Escanaba( *2.5 hours one way and it being Christmas eve and our daughter Amy's birthday! )to check out the furnace that wasn't running even though Randy though it was all set for winter travels

We acutually figured out the problem using the internet the day after!!

Lots of snow machines up her this last week - and of course the loggers plowing what we had planned was going to be part of the trail!

For us while training in the last week were three major snags!!  We were going down the 7 mile fire land and what to our wondering eyes should appear...........but a logging truck turning onto the same trail we were on,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,so luckily he backed up and we were able to go past him!!

And then 2 days later we get to the end of our across the road east trail at the parking lot before we cross the road to come home...........and there is a major size dump truck and a thing that was lifting this humongous snow plow onto the front of a major dump truck!  God bless Randy to decide to use the snowmahcine to train that day because he was able to stop them, I ran out ahead and made sure they had a path and have the follow me onto out trail across the road and home!!  When I first went up to see how it would be possible to ge get through I thought "pretty bad!!!

We think we are pretty ready for the race this weekend at Tahquamenn as good the trails are currently and expected sn0w  the end of the week