The Shape of Things to Come...

 When I'm out running the dogs, sometimes a song will pop into my head, often not connected to anything going on at the time. So today it was "Nothing Can Change the Shape of Things to Come," the theme song for a B-movie about a rock star who incites teen agers to riot and take over the country. Not a big success as a movie, but then the song was released as a single and it was a modest hit on the rock charts at the time. So I guess I remember it from being played on the radio back in the day. Well it got me to thinking about the dog team and how change is inevitable. You train up a team, get a good leader or two, but then in a few years they're getting older and either age out like Barney and Spuds (Goodbye Barney...8/22/17) or die suddenly like Jabba did (Here and Gone...6/28/20). Now it's Missy and Meathead, who are gong on twelve, that are likely in their last winter in harness. Missy filled in for Jabba after he passed and while not ecstatic about being a leader at first, she's been doing quite well lately. Gus and Earl are the new leaders in training. They're both improving and you can only hope for the best, cause "Nothing Can Change the Shape of Things to Come."

Gus and Earl leading the team down the trail today. If nothing else, they're good at going straight ahead, especially on the way home!

Tales of the Trail...

 On the last dog run in January, had a beautiful run until I wiped out on the sled while crossing the bridge. I wound up off the trail on my side in a snowbank. Just figured it was driver error and didn't think too much more about it after righting the sled and enjoying a sunny ride home. 

The sun just barely clears the ridge to the south in January.

So the next time I went back there, fortunately on the Ski-Doo, the bridge is down, broken in two, right in the middle. 

Not the greatest pic, but you can see the side boards of the bridge angling down from each bank to where it broke in the middle.

When the bridge washed out a few years ago, the neighbor hauled it out of the creek with his wheeler, but the center log, the biggest one, broke free and stayed in the creek. I knew it should be replaced, but the bridge seemed OK last winter and log work wasn't high on my list of things to do. So when I went over it the last time with the dogs, it must have failed and dumped me off, but with the dogs pulling their momentum kept me going forward. I landed. on the bank instead of falling onto the frozen creek. So the project this past week was cutting a short detour to where we could build a ramp down the bank for crossing onto the pond. Now that that's done, we can be on our way, heading down the trail again!