Little Girls Point

We've been running the sled dogs a lot, but we have four little dogs that often get overlooked for exercise, so yesterday we decided to take them up to Little Girls Point, on the shore of Lake Superior, which is about 10 miles from our house.  There is very little snow right on the shore line, and the lake is nice scenery in the winter as well as the summer, so it was a really nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon in mid January.  The weather was nice for it, about 25 degrees or so.  There was no one else up there and we decided to check out some of the things that we can't during any other time of year- a rental lodge that is closed in the winter, which we simply walked up to and wandered around outside, and a ropes course in the forest nearby the lodge.  Our daughter, Autumn, was with, and she had spent a couple days there about three years ago for Camp Superior, a program that sixth graders get to enjoy through their school.

Tika enjoying stretching her legs.

Shorty rolling in god knows what-we suspect deer pee.

Autumn overlooking the beach we swim at in the summer.

Autumn down on the beach.

Jeremy and his buddies out over the water-the ice just piles up on the shore-the lake doesn't usually freeze very far from shore.

Tika.

Autumn and Spike, Jeremy and Shorty.

Autumn reminiscing the high ropes course.

She apparently had to climb this wall twice. We didn't make her this time.

Low ropes.

This is the exercise that they do during the course.  Harder than it looks I guess.

Boris climbed this ladder like it was any old steps!  I was impressed.

Got Shorty to go this high.

And Spike would only go this high.

Cute little tiny mouse tracks.

Deer congregate up at Little Girls Point because the snow is not so deep.  This is one of several spots we came across where a deer had been resting-laying down.

The view out back of the lodge.

The dogs sniffing another spot that a deer had been laying down-on the VERY edge of the cliff down to the lake.  Seemed like a strange spot-if it had been startled or spooked by anything, it almost certainly would have fallen over the edge.

A small gathering of deer at a house right near the Point-the people who live here feed the deer, which attracts tons of them, but we were there at the wrong time to see the big herd that comes for the feedings and only caught this small group.

Powers Road Trails

Well, we have finally been blessed enough to be able to use the trails closer to home.  The logging seems to be over and the hunters have given up on their camps for this winter.  So now we don't have to do so much driving and the dogs get a change in scenery.  These trails are also more challenging, with lots of curves, tight corners, and hill climbing.  Most of the trail is actually snowmobile trail, but its a scenic trail not near town (bars), so the snowmobiles are not moving so fast and they are patient, friendly, and, a lot of the time, entertained by dog sleds on the trail.

We had our friend, Matt, come over to check out the trails.  He ran 12 dogs.  If you look carefully, you can see them through the trees.

A bit better view.  He really handled the trail well with all that dog power.

A new feature this year-a new trail that climbs a big hill to Bald Mountain Overlook, and then a nice ride down the other side of the hill.

Matt with his excellent leaders.

Jeremy's team-obviously there was something interesting over there...

The Old Ford Plow

We finally got a nice dump of snow.  We received at least a foot of snow over the past two days and we are thrilled about it.  The only problem is, with the snow comes the necessity to clear it out of the drive.  Which means firing up the old Ford plow truck.  After having to change the solenoid for the plow, of course, because the plow had stopped raising and lowering.  Thankfully, changing the solenoid did the trick.  The plow does not turn left and right anymore.  Hasn't done that for a couple years now.  No heat in the cab.  The headlights on the truck work some of the time.  The headlights on the plow don't work at all.  The brakes are almost non existent.  No power steering.  The driver's door is almost rusted off.  People stop during the summer to see if they can pick the truck up for scrap, and are always surprised when we tell them its our functional (kinda) plow truck.  But it almost always starts, since we changed the engine out in it a couple years ago, and it ultimately almost always gets the job done.  Don't worry, it never leaves the yard, it would be a deathtrap on the road!

Plowing almost always gets done after dark around here.  That's when there's usually more time to do it.

Gotta have the windows open to see, because there's no working blower for defrosting, and he's gotta dress warm, because of no heat.

Can't really scrape the windshield too much because its severely cracked, and we're afraid if it gets scraped too hard, it'll shatter.

We finally decided on a trail we could get the pups out on their first run.  Of course, because it was going to be a short run, we both decided on some questionable leaders just to try them out and we should have stuck with the old pros.  Jeremy tried out Lara, our 10 month old we got this fall, and I tried out a dog we used to run in lead a while back, but haven't during the last two seasons or so.  Both bad decisions.  The dog I used, Traveler, refreshed our memories that he does not hold the line out when hooking up and caused headaches right from the start, and Lara is just not mature enough to do the job yet, but we both think she will some day, as she does have good moments where she's focused and fast, but she will get distracted every so often.  She did do a better job than Traveler at holding the line at hookup.  We didn't get the photos I had hoped for because of all the chaos, but the pups I ran-Rain and Breeze, did an excellent job and ran nice and pulled the whole 2.4 miles.  Jeremy said that Storm did excellent, but it took Cloud a bit longer to figure it out.  She pulled her head out of her collar right after the start, so that had to be dealt with, but after that, things went better.

Breeze

Cloud

Rain

Storm

We also took Truk, the dark dog here, out for this short run.  He's 13, almost 14 years old and mostly retired, but did well on this little jaunt.  That's Salt next to him.

Rain and Breeze at the end of the run.  Tired pups!

That was on Saturday.  On Sunday, we decided to take a couple teams, minus the pups, out for a longer run, 27 miles.  Autumn decided that she wanted to ride along so the three of us went out for a late afternoon, early evening run.

Almost full moon.

Snow Storm

We finally got a snow storm during New Years Weekend.  There was high winds along with the snow, and we decided it was perfect weather to get the dogs out in. 

The highway on the way to the trails.

Of course, Marenisco got a bit more snow than we had at home.  We got maybe six inches of new snow, they had a foot of snow on the ground, and the road we had been driving down to park off of hadn't been plowed yet, so it was a bit hairy.

One truck had been through before us.  Thank goodness for four wheel drive!

Our parking spot also hadn't been plowed, took us awhile and some digging to get the trailer in and parked.

And nothing had been out on the trails yet, so the dogs had some work ahead.

Jeremy's team busting through shoulder deep snow-the dogs were having fun, though, and have put on enough muscle to get the job done.

Me and my team-we had it easy on Jeremy's trail.

We went in about four and a half miles to Henry Lake campground, turned around there and headed back.

The going was much easier on the way back following our trail.

It ended up taking almost an hour and a half to go about nine miles.  Slow work, but fun anyhow.  Luckily, its not something we have to do very often-breaking trail in a foot of snow-if we did, it would get old fast.