More Snow...

We keep getting more snow, half a foot or more this week, so it seems I'm either plowing snow, running dogs, or taking out the Ski Doo to work on the trail. Have extended it out to the creek crossing, where it now loops back, giving the dogs a longer run.

Heading down the trail extension, it's always good to get out and run more miles.

Taking a break after the turn around. Next week I'll check out the creek crossing, have to be more careful this time cause last year I fell through the ice. Probably have to build a ramp down from the high bank onto the creek unless the bridge is salvageable (Solstice Bridge 12/22/18).

Been waiting for the Alaska Climate Center to post their weather summary for October, but nothing's up yet. So here's the NWS summary with a graph from the USGS Little Chena River site.

National Weather Service's monthly weather summary, October 2019, for Fairbanks, Alaska.

October followed the September's pattern of above normal temperatures but also had above normal precipitation. The warmest temperatures of the month occurred on the 1st and 28th when it reached 48° F. The coldest temperature was 15° on the 15th. The average temperature for the month was 31.7° which was 7.5° above normal.

Precipitation totaled 1.58" for October which was 0.85" above normal. The greatest daily precipitaion was 0.40" on the 2nd. Snowfall totaled 3.3" for the month.

Getting Dogmatic...

With the recent snowfall, been able to finish the work on the sled trail and finally get the dogs out for a run.

Heading up the hill, the dogs stopped whenever they felt like it, so not the best run ever, but still good enough to get them out again.

Back in the yard, the older dogs acted a little tired but the younger ones seemed ready to run some more.

Out on the trail...

With the 8" of snow we got last week, figured it was time to put the sled dog trail in. After 3 days of plowing snow, it was a treat to do something else for a while. The neighbor who walks his dog up on the ridge told Andy there were some trees down on the trail, so took the chain saw along. But it wasn't bad, there was only one big dead spruce that had to be cut away and it should provide lots of firewood. After clearing it out of the way it was an easy run out into the valley.

Then found a clearing and made a loop back to the trail. It's still way too rough to run the dogs on the tussocks down there and the ice at the creek and pond crossings would be questionable. So will head back down here once we get a little more snow and check it out further.

Stopped on the way back to cut up a down spruce that I ran over all last winter. Just shows how much more snow we had then.

All Chained Up...

After the "pineapple express" came through and melted all the snow, figured it was a good time to get some wood in. Andy had seen some dead spruce on the lower lot, so chained-sawed a bunch up, hauled it back to the yard and split it. Also got some birch from a tree that fell near the dog trail and an aspen that was down on the power line. Got it all stacked up just before the snow hit.

With the snow falling, removed the splitter from the tractor, hooked up the back blade, and then chained up the tractor. It was the usual circus, one chain went on fine, the other kept slipping off, wound up going on upside down, and took three tries to get it right. Now I know why Carl leaves his chains on year round!