What a great weekend!!!

I didn’t do very good getting an update on the blog in a timely manner………busy, busy weekend – probably the busiest we will be until the racing season starts!

Friday nite dinner at Pine Stump Junction was nice – we got to know them much better – they live about an hour or less from Bellerive’s home – so it was probably nice for them to have someone to talk to that knows a bit about where they live – 

Saturday was a “training the pups” day and then I spent most of the rest of the time until the potluck making hot taco dip, peanut butter and chocolate covered rice crispie treats, bbq wieners and chocolate covered pretzls (only they ended up being “frosted on one side pretzls because I guess the chocolate was getting too old to stay “spreadable” when I microwaved it – what a pain individually frosting a plate full of little star shaped pretzls!!!!

The pot luck was great as usual – the thing that cracked me up was that I thought I was bringing kind of unusual things to share……………….and so did the other 5 people that brought hot dips and the other 4 people that brought rice crispy treats with chocolate on top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Dave Turner from Fairbanks AK was the speaker and he was pretty funny describing how he trains and his experiences running mid-distance races all over the US.

Sunday was 2 team training and we passed another slug of dog teams head on – probably about 7 of them – and not small teams…..Magnussons were running 2 teams of 16 every time they went out and we have 11 – only one cluster with one of the passings out of the whole weekend which was very good!!!  We have one new leader this year that we haven’t run him in a race yet so it was good to see how he handled lots of dogs on the trailside and passing head-on! I would guess there were about 10 dog camps set up and even more people came for the day to train or potluck – so there were over 50 people at the dinner and presentation.

Sunday was adult training and then sitting around the campfire for the afternoon – luckily most of the 4 days was rain-free or only drizzle – so it all turned out very well! The chocolate pretzls didn’t go over that well so Randy and I ate them up while I watched some of my horror movies – I have maybe 20 to go and it’s almost Halloween!!!!

We did get 5 rabies shots on Saturday and the vet that comes from Manistique did them – he looked at teeth of 4 brothers we have that have chronic mouth problems (the vet says some dogs just have and mouth chemistry that enhances mouth problems and these 4 do…..) So 2 of them are going in for cleaning next month – and one of our leaders has a lump on his hip so we are going to have that biopsied also.

Today/Monday we trained pups and it was sunny for the first time in a long time – feels nice!!!!

If you are able there are lots and lots of pics and video from the weekend on face book  - if you want to get a flavor for how many dogs there were here!!!!

Friday

I was dismayed to look at the blog and see that I had not posted since Sunday!!!!!  Amazing how fast time cangofor 2 old “f…ts”!!!!  Here it is Friday ad we are in the middle of the annual training session and rabies clinic that takes place right herein  our neighborhood every year!

I guess Monday was dinner at Jan’s with Carol and John Waltman – good visit –Jan is not going to be here this y ear for the rig session and seminar that they started long ago because she is going to another seminar down in Arkansas – 

Trained through the week and it went good  =they are up to 10 miles now and we still have 2 months  to train here!  The weather has been pretty good for both dogs and drivers – about 40 dgrees.

Today we did run across the road to the trails that the Magnussons have set up for the training weekend (probably over 250 dogs on the trail)– they not only have many many dog teams for our dogs to pass but they also put up Halloween decorations on the trail for the dogs to see and get used to seeing different things on the trail! I will try to take pictures the next time we go out – it was raining lightly today so not a great photo op!

Tonight we are going out to dinner with Annie Malo and Marco Rivest – people we know from racing for over 10 years and from Quebec – though we have never spent “Quality time” with them before so this will be good to eat dinner together – more about the rest of the weekend tomorrow!!

Through Sunday, 21st

Friday was a very rainy day so it was the first time we haven’t trained every other day since we have been up here.   Instead we drove around more trails and almost got lost again but think we finally figured out how to make last year’s training trail a little longer (about 19.5 instead of 17.5).  We ended up having to run the trail backwards because we kept getting off track!!!  But now we have it marked and should be able to get around it pretty good.

So Saturday was moderately cold when we first started training and then it was on of those UP days where it gets colder as the day goes on!!  Even though it was only one more day off than they are accustomed to, the dogs were crazy to go!!!  It was all we could do to get their harnesses on in their circles (we do that now so that we hook them right into the line and are ready to go once we have all 8 of them in) and one of the leaders ate through the neck line so we had to replace that …….it’s amazing how much more energy they have with just one extra day off!!!!!!

We had one narrow escape while we were training –as we were about ½ mile out on the trail Randy saw Jan Shaw out on the trail walking her golden retriever, Katie.  He yelled heads up and her dog ran past her wanting to have a conversation with our dogs in the team so Jan did the only thing she could do………..tackled her dog!!!!  Now mind you, Jan is in her 80’s……….don’t we all wish we will be able to tackle at that age!!!!  Went to check on her after we finished the run and she was OK!!!!  Also we went farther than ever at 8 miles with no signs of any of the dogs being tired!!!

After training we went to Mass in Newberry and despite the “slower than we are used to” songs, it was a good sermon with Fr. Marty.  After that to the drugstore, then to pizza (not nearly as good as “Spank’s”) and decided to make it a “real date nite” and went to the movie theatre to see “Halloween” – the theatre was built in 1931 and has been wonderfully restored – even the Greco-Roman paintings that are displayed all over the theatre!!!!  It reminded us both of going to the show in Fremont and Montague at the little theaters there!!!!  The show was not as scary as we thought it might be (which was a good deal in Randy’s opinion……….) but good enough!!!!  Back home to our UP house at the outrageous time of midnight!!!!!!!!!!

Just finished making the "bedroom" area of the trailer to look like we will be sleeping in a sardine can!!!!  we put the shiny silver insulation all over the walls and the ceiling (including the windows.....we will see how the works out for claustrophobia..........)  Just is case it's really really cold this winter we should be very warm!!  A little snow on the ground this morning but it's mostly gone - supposed to be 50 tomorrow so we will have to get up and train early before it warms up!!

Below see photos of our "UP house" - look close and you can see the Halloween decorations above the table and on the cover of the couch!!!!

Wednesday

Awoke to more snow and high winds - we had it pretty messy and cold and hail-ey for the first team but it was even a little sunny for the second and third.   Still in the mid 30's for temp!!!!  The training went very well and everybody seems happy!!!  Including "dad"!!!!!

Tuesday color tour

Today was a “not training save the stress on my back” day!   We decided to go to Curtis and follow a color tour - which we hear advertised on the one and only radio station we can get clearly here – it’s advertised for an inn among other things – so we drove down to Newberry and then west on M28 to Curtis south of there – we did go by the Chamberlin’s Ole Forest Inn but it just looked like a big square white house on Manistique Lake so we didn’t stop.  When we did get to Curtis we did stop at a place overlooking the lake and I did have whitefish dip with chips.  Delicious!!!!

Suprisingly the colors are best right here within a  mile of us!!! There is a lot of outgrowth of maples from the clearcutting and they have turned beautiful colors – many of them you saw in the pictures I posted!

Tomorrow’s another training day and it’s supposed to snow tonite so we will see how it goes – it was so wet yesterday with snow that it seemed more like training in the rain – hopefully the snow won’t make it as wet tomorrow!

Update until 10/15

Went out to dinner in Paradise at a fish place – it was their last nite open for this year so they were out of almost everything except whitefish – which is what I wanted !!! but not so much for Randy –though that was what he ended up ordering – delicious fish!!!!!!

AMAZING!!!! The amount of work and effort that was put into the Halloween walk we went on tonite!!! It was at Paradise near the Shipwreck museum – so many people put so much into this maybe ¾ mile scarefest!!!!  I only screamed 3 or 4 times but the vignettes throughout the trail were so well done and SCARY!!!!!!!  We had to wait probably almost an hour to start but the had a chance to talk with a woman from Detroit with her 2 kids about lots of stuff.  Once we went thru the walk we went on a free carriage ride with 2 beautiful Percherons… all the while it was very cold (like 32 degrees) and snowed at several times (and snowed all the way back to our house – enough to have all the foliage on the side of the road covered with snow!)

Saturday was another perfect training day with the temp at 32 when we started with the first of 3 teams – the pups are running in harness and still doing very well.  We upped the mileage abit and ran them 5.4 miles on a slightly different trail – the old dogs that trained here last year remembered it all but about half of the dogs we have to train had not so it was exciting for them!

After training we went to Newberry to mass and listened to a very good sermon by Fr. Marty about giving everything to God- worries, hurts, feelings, being drawn to do something good for someone else, and all things that Jesus wants us to give Him.  He even used poker chips in his sermon as a demonstration of “being all in”!!  After we went on a long ride around through rough roads east of our usual return home route thinking that the colors would be nice but there wasn’t much in the way of maples on that road………….

Sunday was a “go around more trails to see if any trees are down” day and spent a lot of time out in the woods across the road from us looking to see where there might be other trails for us to use – got lost……………didn’t know where we were for ½ hour (and of course I didn’t bring the phone………..) but finally found our way back to familiar territory!!

Woke up this morning to very noisy roof sounds (the roof over our bedroom must not have very much insulation cause I hear every rain drop and today it was every hail stone!!!!) and cold temps – like 32!   It was kind of a miserable day for training – in the course of the 3 hours it rained, hailed, snowed and sunshined for about 3 minutes!!!!  WE were both covered in mud and wet and cold when we  were done today!!!  Good thing I made a roast in the Instapot last nite for dinner so we have a warm hearty dinner already made and waiting for us!!!!

Tomorrow is an off training day so who knows what Randy will think of to do- -------

 costumes from the haunted trail we went to Saturday

 first real snow fall today!!!!!

Wednesday trip to Escanaba

It took longer than the usual 2.5 hours because of the heavy rain but we made it to Greg Janders mink farm by 2:30 to pick up our specially prepared dog meat - new recipe this year following the advice of a very knowledgable musher friend of ours - he guarantees 3 more mph on the dog team using this mix!!!!  Joke, joke........  So I transferred all but 5 buckets of the 2,000 pounds of meat myself!!!

Today is a training day and it has been raining hard up until now - Randy is out draining puddles so we can get through the trails and it is supposed to snow this afternoon!!!!

Hello 2018-19!!!!!!!!!

Sorry I fibbed about being ready for writing on the blog yesterday…………..things got in the way and I didn’t quite make it~!!!

So----we begin the 2018-19 race season by moving to the UP of Michigan again this year – the snow and conditions were so good for training last year that we were very happy Jim O would allow to rent again this year – this year, however, we are not staying in our trailer for these 3 months, we are staying in the dog handler quarters that is built into the corner of a pole barn on the property.  The really big positive is that we have a shower and toilet right in the same place with us but the negative is that the wifi and phone signal don’t reach out here (which means when I want to use them I have to stand in the yard, go to the house or sit in our trailer!)  Probably won’t be watching as much Netflix this year!!

We left on Thursday and it was OK but not as cool as we would have liked it to be for the dogs traveling in the boxes.  Didn’t leave quite as early as Randy wanted but did get up here about 5 in time to unload the dogs before dark.  Lots of barking during the nite because they were in a new place and cooler and had new neighbors in the dog yard.

It is surprising to me how much more work it is to set up another whole household – lots of things to bring in to the “shack” as we are call) g it – clothes, food, dishes, coats, etc, etc  Of course I am trying to make it as “homey” as I can in another small space but not spending the same amount of money that I did on the trailer.   

Friday we trained all but the 4- 6 month old dogs that we brought with us (they are doing so well we wanted to keep them training until we go too far for them)  They were all soooooooo crazy and hard to handle!!! Especially because we are trying to leave from the middle of the dog yard which means they are getting harnessed in their circle and then tied right into the line (and we found out that the line needed to be tighter because the dogs hooked in were easily able to go visit the other dogs still in their circles)  Some of them felt like I was in a wrestling match with an octopus!!!!!

All went well after a fashion and the were a bit more settled by the time we got back.

Saturday was more unpacking and “decorating” and making lists of all the things I had forgotten or didn’t know that I was going to need.Then we went into Newberry to shop for all the things I knew I still needed – no Walmart ; only Family Dollar – but still found almost everything on the list – then to church – it was good to see the priest we enjoyed from last year.  

Sunday trained in the morning  - the dogs were a bit more used to the new exit/entrance plan (I have to run about 30 yards leaving the dog yard with them following me to get them to go the right way!!) and a little less crazy but still hard to handle – also put the puppies in with the 2 teams of 8 adults and  they did fabulous!!  We are only going about 4 miles and the temperature is good for that – plus they get a couple of breaks in the 4 miles.

Monday was a trip back down over the Mackinac Bridge to the Indian River area to pick up some dry dog food that we are going to be feed with raw meat this year =  we took the “Monster Blue Truck” and thought we were getting a wrapped pallet of bags set onto the truck – but it turned out to be loading 40, 40 pound bags with 4 of us bringing the bags to the truck and then Randy stacking them – this all happened in a downpour (and we found out the bags are water resistant but not waterproof!!)  so we tarped it and put many many tie-down straps over the stack- we were nervous all the way back to the UP (2.5 hours) thinking the load could shift and we would have bags of dog food all over the road getting wet and hardened up (or mush to begin with???)  Made it home OK, unloaded it today, then trained dogs, then Randy wanted to go for a bike ride………….do you suppose he wants the insurance money?????  Then I made pea and ham soup in the new Instapot I received from Amy and Bill for my birthday and Christmas – it turned out fabulous!!!  And now I am out to the trailer to be able to post this for you!!!!

The colors are almost peaked and it is beautiful!!! I took pictures today while training and will try to post soon if not tonight!!!