Flashin' Around...

February turned out interesting, to say the least. After a couple of weeks of normal winter weather, it started to snow and kept it up for over ten days. Wound up with about three feet of snow falling and spending many hours plowing snow. Then it turned cold and the last five days have been thirty to forty below. Needless to say, didn't do much dog driving the last few weeks. But there's always time to read stuff on line, like the blog called "Progress is Fine, but it's Gone on for Too Long". Here's a photo from a post about Flight Magazine.

Now the article wasn't about the aircraft on the cover, but it reminded me of something else. Then it came to mind, the cockpit of the aircraft resembled the front of the spaceships in the old Flash Gordon serials. When I was a kid back in the day, I didn't care for cartoons too much. I preferred the old time movies and serials they showed on Saturday mornings. My favorite, of course, was Flash Gordon. Fighting Ming the Merciless to save Earth with the help of Dr Zarkov, who designed their spaceship, The Baron, and even the duplicitous Queen Azura. A perfect thriller for the cold war era when the old Soviet Union imperiled life as we knew it.

You have to wonder if the British aeronautical engineers at Handley Page who designed the Victor bomber hadn't watched the Flash Gordon serials when they were kids!

De Tourin' the Dogs

As mentioned earlier (Out with the Dogs 1/30/26), a large gully is blocking the main trail we use to run dogs. I've been clearing a trail around it and finally got it finished. 

The old trail's on the right, with the gulley in the distance, while the detour's on the left under the sunset. Kind of hard to see in the low light we get this time of year.

Heading back towards the detour after running it on the way out. Kind of exciting on the first run through, bounced off a couple of trees, but no blood no foul, I guess. This will give us access to all the trails in the valley now, so we can start doing longer dog runs. This is the time of year when the days are getting longer and suns up enough to feel some warmth, perfect dog drivin' weather!

Out with the Dogs...

 Now that the sled trail is in, mostly been running dogs out into the valley. Unfortunately, the thermokarst gullies that have been forming in the fire breaks and dozer trails (Out and About 3/24/25), have grown and blocked another trail. So until I can put a detour around the newest gulley, it'll be short and sweet dog runs.

Coming home up the back side of the ridge, the sun just barely clears the ridge top now.

After crossing the road on the way home, happy dogs heading to the yard.

Back in the yard, there's no tired dogs on these short runs.

First Sled Run After Freezing in the Dark...

 The cold spell that started in early December finally ended; thirty two days where it didn't get above 0° F and almost 3 weeks of 40 below or colder. Amazingly, it didn't set any records, but it was the longest cold spell like that since 1980. So I was waiting to post about the first sled run and now it's here, 6 weeks since the last dog run and that long a break set a record for me. 

Andy hadn't made it out to the road yet when we came barreling down the hill on the way back and crossed the road in front of her.  She got a quick photo of the dogs as they passed her along the trail, while I was hidden behind some trees. I guess it'd be a good photo to post for those who don't want to be seen on line.