Healing mode..........

Randy was pretty sore after the falls on Saturday but is doing better (it doesn't hurt to laugh or cough as much!!) and the swelling in my knee is decreasing bit by bit every day but is still sore - it will certainly change the dog training roles if we train today or tomorrow!!!!  Just wanted you to know we are doing better!

Uh oh...........again...............

I mentioned in my last post that I might not be able to report on the race until Sunday or Monday because there likely would not be any cell service at the race site – which is at a park on a mountain top!!!  So, the discerning reader might ask, why have you been able to post on Sunday early afternoon……………..?  Because we are not at the race site- we are back at Bellerive’s and have been since last nite……  Again, you might ask, why…………..?  Because Randy got disqualified and I got run over by a run-away sled!!!!!!!!!

Started out to be a great day – we had had no problem getting to the race site and also climbing the very steep hill up the mountain -  Got up to a beautiful sunny day with mild temps and helped many 6 dog teams get out – there were 25 6-dog and 14 unlimited teams.  The entries were down a bit from last year for whatever reason (2 of the unlimited teams however, are competing at the Fur Rondy – (so that should have given 2 places moving up without them here!)

We got the team of 14 to the line without too much difficulty and Randy purposely put Ice and Lester in lead because he knew there was a bad left corner in the trail and those 2 generally tend to stay on the right side of the trail – at least better than all our other leaders….  We had a little glitch at the start because I couldn’t hear the countdown but Randy said he started fine – when he got to the bad corner, the “right-handed” dogs hugged the corner hard left and he crashed into the brush they had put down to prevent that from happening – he fell, lost the team and he ended up with a tree, butt first, wedged under all of his sled and between his brake and the sled!!!! It took 3 trail help to lift the sled, get the tree out of the sled by pulling the sled/team backwards – when they got that out the snow hook was tangled and holding the brake down – so picked up the sled and pulled back again and the trail help pulled the snow hook out before Randy was ready to go and he lost the team again – he went down the trail a bit more and had a tangle in front from the soft snow in the middle of the trail and when was untangling the leaders came back towards him and then the snow hook pulled out and he lost the team again – this time for good…………the team came in with another spectator/friend/driver and Randy came in on a snowmachine……………..Ughh……….

You might ask what I was doing while all this was going on and why I wasn’t at the finish line to catch out team when it came in????????  Well…………while I was watching the last unlimited team go out, as they hooked his snow hook to a line to hold him until the countdown, his snow hook rope broke and I saw a team of dogs and sled coming at me at what seemed like the speed of light!!!!!!  I was standing in a group of maybe 10 people but I was the only one that got hit by the sled!!!  It hit me on the right side and knee and I was down thinking I had a broken leg………..well once the initial pain decrease and I moved my leg I found out it was only sprained – so I hobbled back to our trailer and put ice and a wrap on it – thankfully so many wonderful people pitched in to help us water the dogs and take all the harnesses off -  Randy put all the dogs back into the trailer by himself which is a lot of stepping up and down!!!!  We decided to leave because Randy was disqualified and I was hurt and wouldn’t be able to help drop dogs from the trailer – so here we are………back at Bellerives, both feeling like we have been run over by a Mack truck and the dogs back in the kennels!!!!

Hopefully I will have use of my knee by Friday cause there is another race, then a weekend off and then the final race the weekend of St. Patrick’s day.  I think the the ligament on the inside of my knee is sprained and it will be pretty healed by Friday – it already feels better now than last nite!!!! 

I told Randy either God is trying to tell us something loud and clear or else we had this happen so we avoide being in some other place where it would have been worse – it was just too freaky to have 2 terrible things happen to us in one hour!!!!!!

More later!!

 the view approaching Mt. Gosford

 The race site with the mountains in the background

on our way home to lick our wounds..................

Pre- race day!!!!!!

Finally get to use the dogs that we have been working so hard with and for (615 training miles so far.........)!!!!  The race is in Woburn, a little town outside of Sherbrooke, Quebec, about an hour from the US border.  Claude says it takes him 3 hours to get there which means probably 5 for us!  Randy is only running 14 this race and the trail is 12.5 miles in somewhat mountainous territory (the hill getting to the race site is reallllllllly steeeeeeeep).  I don't know for sure if I have any telephone service there so I may have to wait until Sunday nite or Monday to give you updates!

We did go shopping on Wednesday and looked at helmuts but the type Randy wants with the sliding shield were not at any of the 3 stores we tried - we could go to the bigger city of Trois Riviera but we will wait and see............

Update

Since Valentine's Day things have been kind of uneventful.............except when I didn't close the outside door to the barn tight at last potty break of the night and it blew open and was 0 degrees during the night and all the pipes froze!!!!!!  The next morning when we discovered it we spent 1.5 hours with our inside infrared heater, my hair dryer and our heat gun desperately trying to thaw the pipes before they came to train and would need hot water!!!!!!  Unbelievably, we got the hot water running 1 minute before they came to get it!!!!  Randy told Claude what had happened when he saw him that nite and he said it had happened to him before too.......whew!

We also had a shopping trip to Shawinigan and Randy bought a thumb splint which is even better than the "metal stick" they sent home with him from the hospital - so he will be wearing it for the next two weeks - still no pain - just hard to manage without using that whole hand.  He taught himself to tie his shoe laces and zip his jacket so that's 2 less things I need to do for him.!!

Last nite we went out to dinner with the Bellerives and as always, had a very nice time!

Today we have to clean out the pens again - should be done every 2 days it appears and now it's been 3 - we have come to the conclusion that it's almost as much work having to clean the pens as it is to have to drop the dogs 5 times a day!!!

We are also going to shop again today - Randy has made up him mind he is going to wear a helmut while running on the sled!

 Pretty un-natural position.........wouldn't you say?  looks painful!!!

 the view from the house looking over at the barn with all the snow - on the right you can see the "snow mountain"

 You can use duct tape for anything - even medical necessity!!!

this is what they use to clean the drive way!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!!!

Boy was that ever a biiiiiiiiiiig blizzard!!!  When we got up yesterday morning the snow was knee deep!!!  I bet we have a bigger snow pile in our yard than you do!!!!  i don't have a cord with me to download a picture of it but I will in the next few days.....  Yesterday I didn't even come over to do laundry because Claude stopped by out trailer (after he got stuck with his SUVin the driveway) to say that Lise (the housekeeper would not be able to drive in to work because of the roads......I think he thinks she either does or helps me with the laundry - but I do it all - she speaks no English at all so it's kind of hard to communicate)  So we watched the loader clear the barnyard and the driveways for fun and fed dogs in the barn and that was about it!!!

So today I made Randy a big breakfast for his Valentine complete with Quebec syrup!  And now I have been up at the Bellerive's doing laundry for the last 2 hours -

Don't know about tomorrow training - Hermel went out with the groomer this morning about 10am and he is not back yet - so he is either stuck or broke down!!!  So there may not be a trail to train of for awhile - at least our dogs are in a big pen where they can bounce around!!!

if anyone ever wants our opinion on the efficacy of socialized medicine..........

we would be happy to provide it!!!!!!!!!!!!!   not good - 13 hours in the emergency room!!!!  (several people that had been there with sick kids finally left after like 8 hours and gave up) For sure we didn't have a life threatening emergency but come on...........  finally about 12:30 an we saw the doctor and she put numbing medicine in 2 sides of his thumb and then manipulated the thumb
back into the joint (I have seen some pretty gross things as a nurse but I couldn't watch!! - then we had to have another X-ray which meant calling someone in to do it - so when all was said and done it was $900 out of pocket (which most of it should be reimbursed by our Priority Health insurance should cover........) and a hard splint without use of the hand for one week and then a smaller splint for 2 weeks and then supposed
no sports activity
for 6 weeks - so that's not gonna happen!!!

13 hours in this waiting area and we did make some new friends of about 8 people that could speak English -some were delightful, some were wacky, and several knew the Bellerive family.  All a Blessing to pass the time and smooth Canadian/US relations!!!

We didn't get home until 3am and thankfully the Bellerives dropped dogs for us so we didn't have to do that when we got home - in the morning we watered them and then again, thank goodness for the Bellerives, we put the dogs into the barn/kennel so that we didn't have to drop them 5 times a day and risk further hurting Randy' hand!!

Today a big blizzard which I know many of you are also getting - coming out of the trailer this morning knee deep snow!!!

We think that Randy will be OK to train dogs soon (fitted a glove and mitt over the splint) but won't be able to do that till it stops snowing tonite and then they pass the groomer over the trail- so maybe thursday -   until then I hope to do laundry tomorrow up at the Bellerives'!

uh oh................

Good training trails the last 4 days - unfortunately we are like "all dressed up and no place to go" since so many races have been cancelled!!!!  we trained Thursday and Saturday with the snowmobile - so Randy thought it would be good to use the sled and build some speed on the dogs - so I went out ahead of him and we did 13 miles of the best trail that we have seen here or anywhere in the last 5 years!!!!  He didn't remember to take the GPS with him so he didn't know for sure but was quite confident that he was doing around 19mph!  at least part of the time and he had to slow them down with the drag for at least 5 miles of the trail.  So we were almost done with the run, I had stopped the snowmobile to check that traffic was clear and then took off across the road for the barn/home and hurried back to get ready to "catch the team" when he got back - well I had just gotten off the snow machine and I heard the dogs and sled arrive behind me and when I turned around all 7 dogs were in a big ball wrapped around the timeout bars in the yard...........and no Randy!!!!!!!!!!  I hadn't turned around to check he made it across the road OK and the first thing I thought is that the car I saw coming (but he still had time to cross safely) had somehow sped up and he had gotten run over!!!!  Mean while I had to untangle all the dogs and get them chained to the truck and prevent one of the females from getting bred all the while wondering what had happened to Randy...... then I saw him walking (the road is about 1/4 mile from the barn) and thought "whew"!!!!!!!!!!  And then I saw him holding one hand up in the air just like he had that day in Alaska when he lost the end of his finger training dogs!!!!!  and sure enough, he had injured his left thumb!!!  Thumbs are just not supposed to be permanently pointed in that direction!!!!  So I put all the dogs back into the trailer and we called Bellerives' business to find someone to help us get to the hospital.  We got ahold of Patrick and between him and Claude they brought us a car and then Claude led us to the nearest hospital (he was on his way to Montreal for a meeting) in his car and then he came into the hospital with us to be sure there was someone that spoke English!  So that was 2p and now it's 6:30 and Randy has had an x ray of his hand but hasn't seen the doctor yet.................

I will let you know what the outcome of our newest adventure is when I can!!!!!

Amazing!!! I figured out the way to get the tv to work!!!

I said a prayer yesterday - not a big prayer
 but just one to have me think of what to do..............turns out I had one thing wrong on the choices of setup = s o now we are good again!!!!

Bad weather today - rain and warm temps so they cancelled both the race in Vermont and the Woburn race          -and they formally canceled the race in Laconia NH so now that makes about  5 races we were going to do and now only have 3 races to go!!!

What's up???? not much...........

_{The last few days have been quiet- training Tuesday- shopping Wednesday (I did buy myself some new underwear, socks, yoga pants and a “Canadianne” sweatshirt – all at Walmart – so if I need anything else I will have to go elsewhere………..  I did find a “stash” of turtlenecks up in the cupboard by the bed head, so I am not quite as bad off as I thought!}

_{Today we trained 1 teams of 8 on the best trail Randy says we have had since we left the east side of the 407 in the UP.  Also training today was our friend Mario and he had Marcel riding the 4 wheeler with tank-tracks ahead of him – when our dogs met them head on, Fred and Ice jumped up on a 3 foot bank on the trail to avoid the 4 wheeler and then jumped right back down after it passed and went straight ahead without a tangle!!!  In the dogsled world, that is amazing!!!}

_{We have found out that the race for this weekend at Woburn is cancelled – we are getting rain tonite and it must have already rained on their trail..  For today Jim Lyman has said that it looks bad for Laconia NH, so they are not cancelling but they never do till the last minute.  That leaves 3 more races in Quebec – hope they go cause we would hate to have this be a “one race season”!!!!}

Another mixed day of good and bad..........

The good was that I had volunteered to make dinner for the Bellerive's in my InstantPot and had gotten a beef roast last week and they said it would be good to get together on Monday - so when I texted to see what time, the note from Melanie kind of made it look like it was at her house and it would only be 4 of us - then 45 minutes before we were to meet Claude stopped by to ask what time to pick us  up to go to dinner -so that made it from a 4 person dinner to 6!!!  Yikes!!!!  So I quick thawed some homemade applesauce  from the freezer and along with the carrots, potatoes, gravy and squash I had ready and the dessert and salad Renelle brought we had plenty!!!!   And when I had pressure cooked it looked like 1/2 the size it started as so I thought for sure we wouldn't have enough but there was enough for leftovers!!!  Couldn't have turned out better!!

So the really bad things were that when we got home Sunday nite I couldn't get the tv to work..........thought maybe I was just tired and impatient and would figure it out in the morning..........nope!!!!  I have tried everything I can think of and don't know what has happened but now I can't get any tv stations even thought it shows 3 blue lights out of four on the antenna control!!!!  So today I am still without and in withdrawal!!!!!

The other thing that I realized was that, even though I haven't yet had much need for nice clothes to wear, I wanted to wear a shirt I was sure I had brought .................did a concentrated search of everywhere possible the garbage bag of my clothes were...........and no bag............nowhere...........no clothes for Cris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Randy tried to cheer me by saying it was pretty tricky of me to not bring all my clothes so that I could go shopping-------------????!!!!!  Especially on a day I was making dinner!!!  So what I think happened is that Randy thought the bag was to be stored in the UP for when we come back in the spring -so it's in the dog meat freezer............................

And today we got the freezing rain that everyone else has had and things were all frozen over - including the trail for training today - so Randy just went out to see if the top layer of ice has melted and maybe we can still train yet today!

More good news soon!!!!

Well some things went better and some didn't.............

Not quite as blustery weather yesterday, so that was good..........the trail was a little more packed........so that was good..........we didn't have any broken harnesses or dog fights........so that was good...........but the dogs really didn't perform as well as we expected!!  Randy switched back to an old leader and replaced the "hot shot leader" that we bought last year but the older leader ran out of poop 1/2 way through the race!  So he stayed in 14th and that was good!!  Made just enough money to pay our entry and club membership!!!

OMG!!!

bad start...........not so good race..........Randy is 14 out of 19.  started with a dog fight as we were about to go to the start line - then as he was in the final countdown, the wheel dog broke a harness (yes it was one of the ones Randy had fixed..........) so he didn't leave the chute at "go" = maybe 30 seconds to a minute later - and then just after he left he had a neck line came off a dog just in front of wheel - and had to stop at a trail crossing to have someone help him stop the team and put in a new neck line...........so 5 minutes out of 1st which I have calculated is 24 seconds per the 12.5 mile course - oh yeah, the young dogs that have never raced did pretty good except Skye who does not like to run in "deep snow" - I guess Randy spoiled her by only training on a good trail!! Maybe he will do better tomorrow and for sure we won't put the 2 dogs that fought together again!!  So time to feed and more to come tomorrow!!!

Well Randy goes out last.........

That could be a good thing or a bad thing.............stay tuned!!

Welcome 2019 racing season!!!

We are sitting at the St. Luc race site - just pulled in an hour ago and fed dogs - the trail looks a little soft but hopefully that's just at the start line - we are nervous as always - Randy clearly remembers a corner he has to make in the first few miles!  That's the problem with knowing the trails!  The dogs have not run since their 3 miles fun run on Tuesday due to the cold weather so they should be full of "pi__ and vineagar!!!!

Now that I finally remembered that I could use my "personal hotspot" (duh!!!!) I will be able to update you far more frequently!!!!!  Yeah!!!!  And will let you know what place Randy goes out after the draw tonite!!