After all the snowfall and rain this winter, the snow and ice had built up in extensive layers on the roof of the house and garage to near three feet thick (Snowshoes... 1/3/22). When it started to warm up this past month, it all started to slide...
It's the time of year when the trails are too icy to run the dogs safely, but they're still good enough for gettin' wood. There's a number of fairly large spruce in the valley that have died off. Not sure why, but most are bigger than the average black spruce down there, maybe they're just timed out. Many have the bark starting to peel off, so they're pretty dry already.
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With the temps getting up near forty some days, the trails have gotten icy on the south facing slopes where they get more sun. The trail back into the dog yard and the road crossing are especially bad now. So when I was coming home from the run last week, I was trying to slow the dogs coming down the hill when I saw a red truck on the road. I figured it'd be gone before I got there, but no, it was stopped and blocking the trail. I stopped the team, stomped in the snow hook good, and as fast as I could, unhooked their tug lines. Then I started yelling, figured I'd get the drivers attention, but as I walked closer saw that no one was in the truck. I wandered around looking for someone but nobody was around. So walked over to the nearest neighbors house and shouted out something like "is this your truck, it's blocking the trail." Well after threes or four times, a woman came out, not the neighbor, who I know, but all she did was stare at me for a minute or two, then went back inside. So I walked back to the truck, it was running now, there must have been some remote starter working, tried the door, and when it opened, began to blow the horn. I looked back and saw the woman had come back out again, so I yelled "you need to move this truck, I have a dog team here." She made a sign with her hand like a slashing motion across her neck. At first it didn't register, but then realized she was telling me to shut up. Inconceivable! Then another woman came out. didn't recognize her either, and she slowly ambled up the driveway. When I tried to explain the problem, she just blew me off with "so I didn't see your trail, I'll just move the truck," or something like that. So after she moved it, I went back to dogs. Fortunately the snow hook had held, they were barking and banging to go, then I hopped on the sled and pulled the hook. They took off like crazy, so wasn't able to secure the hook in it's holster, so was just holding onto the sled with one hand When we hit the road crossing, the sled went sideways on the ice, slammed into the frozen berm, and the handlebar broke, tossing me off the sled. Here's the result...
Except for a sore shoulder and hip, I was OK and the dogs got back to the yard just fine, so other than the sled, it didn't end too bad. I'll have to replace the handlebars of course, they're hickory, hand bent with the help of a friend, maybe 25-30 years ago, so they've served me well. But now I'm using Andys old sled and still getting out, though I'm only running five dogs in the team.
