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!!

Pre-Halloween Update!

Another week has flown by! We have now been here for 16 days and have trained 6 times – 3 teams of 7 or 8 and finally the dogs are acting like they know what they are supposed to do when we start harnessing – they were pretty wild especially some of the young ones and the new dogs we bought last year. Yesterday when we were hooking in the last dog in the team one of the pups from last year chewed the tug line ahead of her in half – and Randy had just replaced it the nite before!!!!!  It was like she said “oh, new line!  This will be yummy!!!”  We ran the dogs 6 miles yesterday and took them across the road to the area we usually don’t start training on until  we have maxxed out on the number of miles we can get on this side of the road.   The reason we went over there is because this is the annual rig training session put on by Bruce Magnussen and Jan Shaw – the 20^thor so I think……. And so there were about 4 or 5 other teams out training on the trails which gave us a chance to run our dogs by them and see how they behave – we did 3 head on passes and passed a truck twice so it was beneficial training and they all did pretty well, even the young dogs! Last nite we went over to Bruce’s and watched as more and more trucks and trailers with teams pulled in and we all sat around the fire sipping and eating until 9 and then Randy (who had not dressed as warm as I had encouraged him to do…..) got cold and we came home. Tonite is the big potluck and they have a speaker coming in so I will have to give report on that later.

This past week I was still recovering from the cold and it was rainy more days than not but we did manage to go to the lower Tahquamenon Falls on last Sunday and took some beautiful fall foliage pictures.  We also watched a movie at Jan’s one nite, looked for her dog, Katie, one morning when she decided to hide in her yard instead of coming back in the house like she does every other morning – we rode around on the 4 wheeler looking for her in the cold rain because we knew how upset Jan was to not find her for 2 hours! Yesterday I spent half the day looking for my new birthday earrings and my necklace and haven’t yet discovered where I put them!  Good thing it’s a small place to live!!

The trees’ leaves are beginning to fall as we are past the peak of the color season but it’s still beautiful out there!!!  Hope everyone is well and we miss you all!!!

we are uppers once more!!

Moved up a week ago and got started on the right foot with a horrendous cold!!!  Just getting over it and have trained in very "warmish" weather" 3 times - it's always amazing how crazy they are the first few times we hook up!!!!  other than colds, feeling good and renewing old acquaintances up here.   Hope this finds all of you in health and good spirits - the wifi at the house is not working well this year as well as the phone so we may be less communicative this year until we go to the next destination!!!

fortunately the Oswald bear ranch was open after their season for us to go see the bears when we went up to set up the dog yard!!!  Priceless!!!