power is back on!!!

what a relief!!!  3 days without water is too long!!!  Trained dogs yesterday and today went out and cleared more trees and low=hanging trees from the trail -lots more to do tomorrow and 3 more inches expected tonite!!

3 days without power!!!

Big snowstorm 12 inches on tues nite and Wednesday - filled the trail in nicely but having no power is a pain - have drained the hot water heater for water and can go next door to Jans for it - using a generator for some power to heat the house  - ran the dogs for 12.5 miles today on a beautiful trail!!!! Hopefully we will have power again tomorrow - the trucks are out near us working on it!!!!  We love you!!!

YO!!! From the north country!!

The last time I wrote we were going through a “meltdown” here – and we still are = though today through tonite we are supposed to get the worst storm of the year!!!!  They are predicting  over a foot of snow!

We trained on Saturday both teams and it wasn’t too bad – lots of trenches in the area where the hunters are going back to their bait piles but all in all, not too bad. Sunday was warmer yet and we were afraid that the icy trenches had frozen overnite and might hurt the dogs so we just rode around the trail on the same course as what will be the race trail in January (so I could see where Randy would race if he decides the trail is good enough to do the 6 dog , 24 mile run)  There were lots of pretty wild hills and bumps in the trail to be sure – it will take quite a bit of snow to smooth things out!!

Yesterday the conditions were pretty much the same so instead of training we decided to tackle dog toenails!!!  It went pretty well, all things considered – like the fact that our four youngest have never had their toenails trimmed!!  And the other 3 second youngest we know are extreeeeeeeemly difficult to do!!!  It’s like trying to hold an alligator  on your lap!!!!!  We actually got everybody done with out too much sweat!!!  I am the holder and Randy is the cutter so I say I do the hardest job but I don’t want to make any mistakes on their nails so I make Randy do it!!!

Today is another “no training” day so we are off to town!!!  Thanksgiving we are going to Ray and Patty Brown’s (neighbors about a mile down the road towards Lake Superior) for dinner – all the neighborhood is invited so it ends up to be over 20 people = the table takes up their whole house!! We also do a “white elephant” gift exchange – so that’s very fun!!

In case I don’t post again before:  HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND ENJOY OF ALL GOD’S BLESSINGS!!!!!

Escanaba has no snow!!!

It looks like spring!!!!

Oh my goodness!!!

You know that grill I shared the picture of with all the snow on it?  Well the snow on it is all gone - and the trails are mush - what a mess!!!  We didn't train yesterday because it was raining and in the 40's again and we were afraid the dogs might get hurt punching through the soft snow - so today we are off to Escanaba to get another ton of dog meat!!!!  We take the blue truck and almost got stuck getting out to the main road!! and that was in 4 wheel drive!!  Randy says it will be better going back home with the extra weight on the truck.  But don't know how much training we are going to get in the next week - supposed to be warm pretty much until a week from Sunday!!!  Just have to do what we can!

Today is in the low 40"s!!!

We didn't train yesterday because when Randy went out to groom the trail in the "non-quiet" time from 11 to 2 there were 4 hunters in the area and we decided not to bother them - but we did train today!  a little soft and some melting but we think we have enough hard packed base to stand up to the next few warm days and maybe even some rain!!

Meeting with Austin in Marquette was very fun - went to a pizza place a lot of the college kids talk about - Austin had not been there yet so he has now!!!  Then we drove around Marquette and saw what we could from the car and then up to his dorm room - very nice!!  One of the nicest campus'/dorms I have seen!!!

This is what the grill on the back porch looks like now!!!

Crazy snow up here!!! We did train the dogs the last 2 days because they will be laid off for the beginning of deer season for at least 2 or 3 days!!!  Finally we have a path between each dog house so we aren’t wading through knee- deep snow to bring them back and forth to the line to run!!!  The trail is looking pretty good except some deer hunter that must have a camp back in the woods came through and plowed up part of our trail and made a berm so deep we almost tipped the snow machine over going through it!!! 

Tomorrow we are going to Marquette to visit Austin Kukal at Northern Michigan University which should be way fun!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...........

Be careful what you wish for!!!!!!!  We wanted snow to train dogs and boy, did we get it!!!!  A minimum of 2 feet!!!  Knee deep!!!! And more to come in the next few days!!!!  We are on our way to town right now to buy a part for the snow plow so we can fix the plow controller!!!  If ever we needed a snowplow, today’s the day!  The road isn’t bad cause the snowplow has been through and right now it’s not snowing so visibility is good.  Randy went out to check on the training trail across the road and barely made a dent in the trail to pack it – so no training today!  Then when he returned home and went to drop off the drag he was pulling behind, he got the snowmachine stuck in the dog yard!!!! And then spent an hour digging that out!!!  The snowmachine is running today after he replaced all of the fuel lines, but it still only runs in low gear – just keeps acting like there is an air leak somewhere in the fuel system.

Yesterday we went to town twice!!!!!  The first time we bought the new fuel lines and then realized that we had not brought back the red box movie we had rented – when I called them to ask about buying it (they offered to sell for $4 at time of rental and we paid $3 for the 2-day rental!!) they said since we had rented it we couldn’t buy it and that it would be a $3 a day late fee – and if it went over 17 days it would be $29!!!!  So we drove back in to town and were going to go to the Elks Lodge for a vetern’s day dinner, only to find out the dinner was last Friday!!!  So we went to Zellar’s for whitefish and liver dinner!

Ooops – I spoke too soon – it’s snowing again!!!!

The good thing is that all but one of the 22 dogs we are training are all doing good and working to their potential!!!!  We had 2 but the biggest dog in the kennel that doesn’t move around in his circle very much got in shape and is doing much better!!!

yo!!!!

Not too much new to report! We did go to Jan’s for delicious fish and Jim Oehlschlaeger and the Waltman’s joined us – I had brought frozen strawberries that Aeja had picked at one of her summer jobs (that girl had 3 different jobs last summer – no wonder she had already saved up to get herself a pick-up truck; and she doesn’t even turn 16 until March!!) so I baked biscuits we had shortcake for dessert!  We had a good time talking about the 3 guys’ experiences in the Vietnam war ; the other 2 in the Army and Randy in the Navy – all of them managed to avoid being in the middle of the fray…  So while I am thinking about it, Thank you to all veterans for your service!!!

It has snowed almost every day for the last week – when we went into Newberry Thursday for a meat sale at the grocery it was pretty treacherous driving!!!  Thus far we have about 9 inches of snow – the trail had some soft spots in it when we trained yesterday but Randy has been dragging it along with Frank and Regina Caldwell and the crew at Bruce’s – so most of it is getting packed good – we are doing it a bit different this year – last 2 years we stayed and trained on our side of the road until maybe mid-December but this year we started going over across the road for the rig session training and haven’t used the trails on this side again since then.  It makes sense not to have to pack this trails on this side for just us to use when there are 3 different teams of people to pack the trails if we only use the other side.  The only tricky part is getting across the road looking to be sure there is no traffic coming.  We have gotten both of our snowmachines running but now are having trouble with the one we just got fixed over the summer – it quits after going about 10 feet – hopefully Randy will figure out the problem!!  We also put the plow on the plow truck that we also just had fixed this fall – transmission- and now it’s leaking oil and hydraulic fluid – does it ever end????!!!!!!!  Also because of the early/heavy snow we put the trailer over across the street in a parking area for the state forest – it’s very inconvenient if I think of something I want or need from the trailer, to drive ½ mile to get it!!!

Going to church tonite – hope the road is pretty clear and training again tomorrow – 2 teams of 11 – Randy says we have over 90 miles on them and they are looking the best yet!!!! More later!!! 

update!!!

Yesterday we made a whirlwind trip to Marquette to buy a new phone – my iPhone 6S died overnite!  One minute it was fully charged and the next it was dead………………  so we went to Best Buy (it was the closest one at over 2 hours away) and spent $600 on an new one – it’s kind of like getting a new toy……….

We also stopped and got some worming medicine from the vet we know there that is also a dog driver, Tim Hunt – that wasn’t cheap either - $200!

On our way into Marquette, we started seeing emergency vehicles – like about 10 of them- who were responding to an accident that must have happened maybe 15 minutes before we came upon it – pretty bad – one of the vehicles was rolled over and the other smashed up- thankfully it didn’t look like anyone was badly injured from what we could see.

Only spent about an hour and a half in Marquette and then started back home so we could feed dogs in the light – did stop part way home at a lovely little stone restaurant we have always wanted to try but seemed like we didn’t have time or it was closed – it was very cozy and had rustic furniture just like my house!  The whitefish was delicious!

When we got home we found an unexpected surprise visitor, the owner of the house we rent was here from down by Cincinnati – not for a very good reason though – he had been at his brother-in-law’s funeral in Lansing.  So we visited with him during the evening and saw pictures of the new boat they have purchased to go through the inland waterways this year!

We ended up getting about 3 to 4 inches of snow for the first real snow of the year!  It will make training dogs today harder because it’s not enough for the snowmachine and the 4 wheeler will slide!  And then tonite we go to Jan’s for a fish dinner!!

Happy Halloween!!!! BOO!!

Well it was a very successful rig training session with over 300 dogs out pounding up and down our training trails across the road from us!!!!  The potluck was delicious as usual, and we had fun talking to people that we haven’t seen since last year’s session!  We enjoyed a talk from Dr. Tom Gustafson DVM about soliciting information from dog drivers about what vets should know about sled dogs and their health from the dog drivers perspective – he handed out forms to be completed anonymously to be sent back to Tom and then forwarded to the DVM group he belongs to. We talked to Marco and Annie Rivest and found out that Bellerive’s barn (I believe it was June when it burned down – no dogs were hurt – someone saw the barn burning and knew to turn them all out into the exercise field) is not re-built yet and that the dogs are being trained by Samuel LaForce right now – so we will be looking forward to calling Claude and Melanie to get an update on how this season is going to go for them!!

This week we trained Tuesday and Thursday following having trained at the rig session on Friday and Sunday 6 miles.   This week we took the same trails and added 2.5 more and made a really big change that impacted the “human” members of the DeKuiper racing team –we had been running 3 teams of 7 or 8 but Randy decided to break it into 2 teams of 11!!  Yes, it makes the time out on the trail shorter, but, boy does is ever equal more effort and stamina on out part!!!!!  I guess I wasn’t quite in shape to handle that many dogs without a break in between!!!  It all went well for the dogs it was just the “humans” that had sore backs and shoulders!

Wednesday we decided to go to Sault Ste. Marie to shop so we went to Dunham’s and I bought a new pair of training boots, out to lunch at a Mom and Pop eatery on the main street across from the Sault Locks and then to Walmart – and I still forgot some of the things on my list!!!!

Last nite, Halloween, we went over to Jan’s and watched the movie “God is Not Dead” and I carved our pumpkin and made roasted pumpkin seeds!  Today I have discovered that the phone is not charging again so we are trying to figure out how to make an appointment in Marquette (2 hours away) to maybe have the “Geek Squad” replace the battery – I did drop it in the sand out of my pocket while training which I think is what started the whole “not-charging” issue a couple of weeks ago – darn phones; can’t live with them and you can’t live without them!!!!

More later!!