On my commute home on Tuesday night I heard this strange crunching sound as I drove along the Camp 15 Loop and wondered if I had not swerved quite right to miss a rock and possibly knocked something loose on the underside of the truck. Fortunately I hadn’t and realized the crunching was the tires breaking the layer of ice in the puddles along the road. I thought to myself, yikes, it’s only 6:30 p.m. and the puddles are already frozen so winter is really coming.

Then yesterday morning when the alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. (I get to sleep in a little later now that Mark is doing all the morning chores…and most of the chores in general) and I went outside to start the truck I thought it felt a little warm. On my way back up the shore from a work meeting yesterday when I talked to Mark and he said he wasn’t able to run dogs as by the time he had the morning chores done it had warmed up to nearly 60 degrees. He said the thermometer continued to climb and was nearly 70 by mid-afternoon and was still 50 degrees at 8:00 last night. The forecast is calling for nice, albeit not as warm, temperatures for today and tomorrow. A Howl-a-ween heatwave! At least it will be nice for the trick-or-treaters and for our handlers moving into their winter digs on Saturday. (Yes, help is on it’s way)!

Since it’s Halloween I have to share again the photo of a dog dressed up in a Halloween Costume. I received it in an e-mail titled “Why dogs bite their owners”. Have a safe Howl-a-ween everyone!

After receiving a threatening e-mail from my (much older)  sister Terry, I guess I best post a correction. In yesterday’s entry I said she and her twin brother Tim had only 365 days until they turned fifty. Well, I guess I forgot to add “X 2″ to the equation so they really have 730 days (729 today) before turning a half-century. Like I told Terry last night when I called to wish her a happy birthday, I was “just checking” to see if she was reading the blog.

Happy day after the 19th anniversary of your 29th birthday!

Due to a late meeting in town last night I only have time today to send along birthday wishes. First to Mark’s Grandma Margaret a happy 95th birthday! Then to my twins and (much) older sister, Terry and her 1/2-hour younger brother Tim (aka Sherm). If my calculations are correct don’t you two only have 365 more days before you turn 50!!!!!!!!!! We hope you all have a great birthday and don’t forget to send some cake our way.

Well the forecasters prediction of colder temperatures finally came on Sunday night. We woke up yesterday morning to a chilly 22 degrees and a dusting of snow. While I heard other areas in the county received about a 1/2″ of snow, we only had flurries with not much sticking to the ground.

With the colder temperatures come ice on all the water spots along our trails. While a couple months ago we were greatful for the puddles to keep the dogs cool in the warmer temperatures, now it’s turned into a pain in the rear for us. (As I’ve said before, mushers are never happy).  Mark took the Varsity Team on a long run yesterday and when he got back, he said it took him nearly 45 minutes to unhitch the 16 dogs as 32 snaps were frozen solid. Fortunately he’s full of hot air and had to blow on each snap to unthaw them undone. After this incident, I think we are going to look into replacing the snaps with toggles.

As I write this, it has only snowed for about five minutes all day (I’m writing about 8:00 on Sunday night), but looking at this cloud bank that was just to the west of us before dark, you would think we’d have over a foot by now! It looked pretty ominus (sp?), but as of two hours later hasn’t produced much precipitation. However, it did bring some pretty good wind with it. Good thing I always have a Sven saw in my truck just in case I need to cut a tree out of my way!

It rained off and on all day and by noon Mark was getting pretty discouraged that we wouldn’t be able to go for a run. After a couple of bouts of decent rain followed by clearing skies, I told Mark that I was going to take the JV team out “rain or no rain”. While he is home all week running dogs, my chances are limited to the weekends. Since Mary said she was going to run in the rain, it got Mark motivated (I told him he wouldn’t melt) so we hitched up the 16-dog Varsity Team first. After he left, I hitched up the JV team…avoiding the beaver pond…and took my guys on another leader-training run of 17+ miles running around in circles taking loop after loop after loop in all different directions. Mark thought he’d run the second JV team on Monday, but I decided to take them out for a leader-training run too. While the old leaders, Ophir and Olive, got a good workout of taking commands, all the yearlings that I tried in lead didn’t want much to do with it today. Maybe it’s all the water and mud on the trail. We’ll try again another day.

It sure felt good to be sitting on the ATV watching dog rear-ends most of the day. But when I got home, I was literally covered in mud. While Mark’s grading of the dog yard yesterday leveled things out nice, the yard itself is “soupy”. It’s a good thing I like “playing in the dirt”…take a look at my bibs! They are usually totally black and when I took this photo, the part that is somewhat black is only because that’s where the rain washed off the mud.

Note to Mel and Robbie…be sure to bring some clothes that you don’t mind getting muddy! See you on Saturday.