It’s another gray, drizzly, dreary day Off The Beaten Path. It’s the final day of May and it feels more like the final day of April. I’m hoping with the turning of the calendar to June that the weather will turn for the better with it. While the tulips have survived the frosty May, they still haven’t fully opened. While today is supposed to be overcast and dreary, the forecast is calling for tomorrow to be a nice day. Let’s hope the forcasters are right so we can get our garden ready for planting tomorrow.

Today we will be taking care of dog chores and a few things around the cabin before showering and getting “gussied up” for a wedding this afternoon. My former boss who retired last month is saying “I do” this afternoon. Maybe he and his bride will luck out and the weather will change as their wedding is outside. If the weather stays like it is right now, we’re going to have to stop in town and buy a couple of umbrellas. I guess they say that rain on your wedding day is good luck, so our best wishes go out to Ted and Anne.

Jango has been adopted in the BL.A.C.Klub. Lis and John Neil Thompson, two of our handlers last winter have adopted Mr. Bo Jango. Lis ran Jango a lot last winter and whenever we asked her how he did on a run she would respond “he’s going to be a Rock Star”. When Lis saw on the blog that he had been moved over to the Varisty Team, she just had to adopt him. Lis, Jango says “wuff woo” (thank you in canine speak).

It’s been raining here in the north since last night. I was amazed at how green the forest got in the last twelve hours. It’s actually starting to look (and feel) like spring here. Finally. The only problem with the green up is that the bugs come with it. I guess it’s time to dig out the bug shirts and bug spray. Thank goodness we got the screen tent up last weekend.

It seemed to have worked. I said I was going to put away the winter clothes and by the time I got home last night, I only had to wear a t-shirt to do chores for a while. Steve and Mary Kay stopped by with Steve’s parents who live in Round Lake (down by Worthington) and they were surpised that we still didn’t really have spring up north yet. They had stopped by to watch us do dog chrores as they have a farm that gives carriage and wagon rides so they wanted to see what we do on a daily basis. The conscenus: we have a dog farm and they have a horse/sheep farm and the work is about the same. The only difference, these days, they don’t work another full-time job.

Mark’s back to work, working near the end of the Gunflint and his boss is talking about either renting a cabin up there or putting the guys up in a camper during the week to save money on the outrageous gas prices. While that would save Stan on gas not having to have the guys drive 54 miles from the shop everyday, it certainly wouldn’t save on my back to have me do all the chores everyday during the week!

After another freeze warning last night and waking up to a hard frost, I decided I’ve had it. The calendar says it’s nearly June and yesterday was the last day I am wearing a turtleneck to work. I’ve slowly been pulling out summer-like clothes but haven’t packed away the winter ones yet. This weekend if I have time, I’m packing away the wool sweaters, turtlenecks and long underwear and I’m going to tough it out. The only things that I keep out year-round are a warmer hat and gloves, neck gaitor and wool socks. These stay out only just in case we decide to go visit the neighbors on ATV and the nights can be cool Off The Beaten Path year-round. If you see a blonde shivering in Hovland, chances are it will be me.

Yep, I was right, we had Spring on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday we woke up to a cold drizzle which turned to light snow/drizzle in the afternoon. While doing the evening chores I had a warm hat, neck gaitor and an insulated jacket on! Since the weather was so crappy, I spent most of the afternoon updating our Dogtec website kennel bloodlines. We had let our membership lapse a couple of years ago so there were a boatload of additions and deletions that needed to be made. I still have more additions make, but it takes a lot of time to add dogs, resize and upload photos and make comments on each dog in each “group” that they are in. If I only didn’t have to work for a living……

Mark talked to his boss yesterday morning and yup, he’s reporting to work at 8:00 a.m. today. Unfortunately Stan also wants his backhoe back too, so Mark drove it down to the Highway late in the afternoon which meant I followed him to give him a ride back up the hill (I don’t know why he didn’t want to walk the 15 miles back up the hill….), which took two hours out of our evening. Good thing we got the soil moved on Sunday for the garden ‘cuz we’re back to shovels and the ATV trailer. Ahhhhh, the joys of living Off The Beaten Path, if it doesn’t kill ya, it makes you stronger…..