Busy trails...

Years ago when there were half a dozen dog teams training in the valley behind our place, there wasn't a day gone by that I didn't pass another team out there. Now there's only one other musher who runs his dogs regularly and I seldom see him, since we apparently run on different schedules. So you can imagine my surprise when I ran into four teams and a snow machine yesterday after not seeing anyone out there all winter.

Had a tangle with the first team, so had a brief conversation with the musher. Sounds like teams from the Two Rivers area have discovered the trails in this valley. That's alright I guess, but it'd sure be nice if they helped out on trail maintenance once in a while. The dogs made clean passes on the other three teams and the ski doo, so maybe the younger dogs have finally learned how to pass. While it's nice to meet new people, it's a lot nicer when the dogs don't get tangled up, they just trot on by.

Morning visitors...

Had visitors yesterday morning. Dogs were barking, but couldn't see anything until I looked out the kitchen window and saw this moose walking down the path from the back door to the driveway. So got the camera out and took some photos of the moose in the driveway.

Assumed it was the cow and that the calf was still behind the house. So opened the back door to look out and there, not 20 ft. away from me, was this huge cow moose. The calf was the one in the driveway. Don't know who was more surprised, but fortunately she bolted away from the house and ran behind the wood piles.  After reuniting with her calf, they both slowly wandered off. Later on I heard the dogs barking again and figured the moose came back, or likely had never really left. So got some photos of the cow this time.

After a while, I got tired of listening to the dogs bark at them, so finally got the moose heading up the driveway by yelling and acting like the boogey man. Just a little excitement to start the day.

Ground Hog Day...

Ground Hog Day's come and gone, and like last year (Global Warming...2/3/13), the hoary marmot's not saying much. But at least the weather's cooled off enough now to run dogs after the second warm, rainy spell this winter. So here's a few photos of todays dog run:

Heading out on the trail across the valley.

Taking a break on the way back home.

Here's a plot of the temperatures so far this winter. There's several -40 cold spells, which are typical, but also a couple of of +40 spells when it rained. Go figure, you'd almost think there was some kind of climate change going on.