Winter is here............will he stay???

 So far since Thanksgiving we have had snow intermittently and it is still here out on the ground!!  It has been just enough to keep us from having to run the dogs on frozen dirt and has saved their feet............not quite enough to pack but Randy did even the snow out once or twice using the pipe drag -   we are going 24 miles now and traveling out to the trail that goes around Ready and Rainy lakes - the most beautiful part of the training trails in my estimation - the dogs are still very happy to get harnessed and run and come back without breathing hard at all!

We did find a Christmas tree from one of the trees that were going to end up coming down over the trail so that has taken up much of my time since Sunday!!!  Though I don't have all of my ornaments and decorations from home, I have accumulated things that are special to our home in the UP and enjoy seeing them again each of the 4 years we have been here for the holidays.

Randy just communicated with Greg Janders near Escanaba and he is going to be putting liver in the beef that we order and mixing it and putting it in the square buckets that we have the fit under the floor in the dog part of the trailer - so that's lining up food for the rest of the dog racing season=  I also means that we will be going thru Escanaba again in a week or so and that means stops at Aldi's and Walmart!!!  Places that I can get foods and cheaper that around here!!

And a wonderful dinner was had by all!!!!

We went down to the neighbors (Ray and Patty Brown) for dinner today and enjoyed it immensely!!  We had thought about training but it had thawed and then refrozen overbite enough to make the trail dangerous for dog foot injuries so instead Randy went out and dragged 28 miles of trails so it would be good to train tomorrow - as we came back from dinner tonite it looked like we had gotten about 2 inches of new snow which will help a lot towards making the trail safe again!!!!  Again God Bless you all and remember to count those that you have been given!!! 

Back to the UP!!

Time flies by so fast and here we are already back up in Deer Park/Newberry to train dogs again!!

We were happy to have our son Luke and his family come to visit and do some dirt biking and 4 wheeling the first week we were in at the end of September and had a great visit to Oswalds Bear Ranch just down the road from us 15 miles!

What should have been a great ending to the week they were here visiting ended up with me getting a groin pull getting on the 4 wheeler that was bad enough that I went into the ER in Newberry to be sure I had not fractured my pelvis - not to worry but just soft tissue injury but painful!!!! Enough that Randy had to put me in a chair and push me into the bathroom!!! and then we ended up getting a walker from Jan Shaw that was her mother's!!!  Nothing like an injury to make to count you blessings!!!  Randy was an excellent "nurse" and even cooked and served me meals (along with the generous neighbors who stepped "up to the plate"!!!

I wasn't much help for the first several weeks of training our 18 dogs but have eased into harnessing and un-harnessing the dogs that are not berserk so have been able to support Randy over the last 3 weeks or so - I started out riding the 4 wheeler side=saddle so as to avoid further injury (cause I really need to be able to handle dogs full time starting in January!!!) but now am able to ride pretty much normal!!!

As of this writing we are up to 21.5 miles (we are entered in the Wyoming Stage Race again and need to prepare them to go 30-35 miles a day for 7 days!) and everyone is looking good!!  We have spent a few days out trimming trees and brush from the trail and until today when it got to be 46 degrees outside we had a good 6 inches of snow on the trails - who knows if we will be able to keep the base that we have already packed/dragged with the weather coming up!  It wouldn't be the "Cris and Randy Show" unless we had had some problems..............so..........the first issue we had (after me injuring me) going out 8 miles on the trails training only to have the 4 wheeler start coughing and wheezing cause - you guessed it- we ran out of gas!!  So a great muscle building experience pulling us and the 4 wheeler back home!!!

Another day we were stopped to rest the dogs on the training run and the front 6 dogs took off by themselves!!!  (we are training 9 dog teams every other day)  The cable main line had frazzled and broken!!  We tried to catch up with them (what is faster than 6 sled dogs that suddenly find that aren't pulling anything???!!!!!) so Randy unhooked the 3 at wheel and in front and took off to chase the 6 leaving me with 3 standing in the middle of the trail!!!  (Thankfully they were pretty cooperative and didn't yank me around and re-injure me!!!)  He had to go 28 mph to catch the 6 dogs but he did it and sure enough showed back up with them hooked back on the 4 wheeler ready to repair the break and hook back in the 3 I had been holding (I was a little nervous about how they would react when they saw Randy and the 6 coming back towards us with the 4 wheeler but they remained amazingly calm!!!)

So that has been the excitement so far............more to come I'm sure!!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving dinner with all the neighborhood in Deer Park!!!  I'm bringing pink stuff and Polish roses!!!

Pictures from Copper Harbor

 The awards ceremony at 7 that nite - Randy getting 4th place

Red lantern for last place person

Randy getting his gear check - you can see the start line is 2 blocks away and then around a corner!!!!  Long run up and back for me!!

When we came into Copper Harbor this deer herd was just walking around - people feed them and there are about 20 of them all winter 

Final 2021 Season installment!!

 Little did we know when we left for Copper Harbor that we would not be able to communicate with anyone!!!!  No cell service in the town!!!!!

So we got there Friday about 3p and tried..........and I mean TRIED to find a parking spot in the town of Copper Harbor - we drove around blocks and finally parked on a side street next to a restaurant and went in to ask if anyone knew where we could park!  I did speak to the volunteer coordinator and she didn't have any idea!!!  So we drove around some more blocks (and almost took out a light pole..........) on the very narrow streets.............and decided to park on a dead end street - we happened to see both of the ladies that live on the street and neither had a problem with us parking there.  We dropped and fed and then Randy decided we should move closer to the race start so we parked on a side street that butted up to the main street where we though people would park for the race - to be.........banging on the door at 6am and telling us we had to move because we were in JR Anderson's spot - so around the block and waited in line for an hour and a half.........finally parked = 11 am vet check and that was all good!  3 p gear check (we had to have all the mid-distance stuff in the bag i.e. sleeping back, waterproof matches, dog boots, dog food, etc even though the race was 14.4 miles) and finally at 4 pm the Copper Dog 25!!!  the trail conditions were not the best, grainy snow, but it went very well!!!  Randy came in 4th!!!

Slept in our parking spot that nite and headed for Newberry in the morning.  Got to Houghton and I thought we had made a wrong turn so we ended up having to turn onto a very very very steep brick street in downtown Houghton, going down the hill, hoping our brakes wouldn't fail!!!!!  Come to find out it wasn't a wrong turn after all and that we were leaving Houghton on a different route that we came in so that was why it didn't look right to me!

Half hour out of Houghton it started really snowing and soon we were driving on a 2 lane hi way with 5 inches on the road and almost no visibility and no place to pull off!!!!!  Made it to Marquett 2 hour later and decided to wait out the blizzard at the Menard's parking lot - it did lighten and we got to Newberry/Deer Park mid evening where we parked in a lot across the street from where we stay at Jimmy O's - next morning spend 4 hours shoveling and plowing trying to get our Ranger truck out of the garage (so we had something to drive when we got back home that wasn't a gas guzzler!!) then stopped to Jan's and got invited to dinner - Had a lovely dinner and visit and when we got back to the trailer heard bad dog noises in the back and sure enough, there were 4 dogs that "poured" out of the back when we opened the door!!!  They all stayed right around but still stressful in the dark!

Next morning left for home with good roads and sun and made it here about 3 - Dee our wonderful neighbor had come down and started a fire so the house was warm and open!!!  Did have one major problem...........no water.  Randy tried to prime the pump to no avail............it had frozen during the cold snap (first time in 24 years living here)  So we called the guy that is going to put in a new well for us this spring and he came out this morning and brought a new pump that we will just exchange when he puts in the new one!!!!

So finally a shower and fill the hot tub!!!!!!

It's been great year - met many new people going to 3 new races and made new friends!!!!  The dogs did well for the conditions and Randy and I didn't get hurt!!!! So SUCCESS!!!!!

God Bless you all in the coming year and talk to you again next October!!!