Where is the Christmas spirit??? Wouldn't you think that if you opened your front door to find 6 sled dogs on your porch and an additional 6 sled dogs wanting to be on your porch and a musher who would like to be anywhere BUT standing on a sled in front of your house, that you could offer a cheery greeting? I think that I must have met the grinch that stole Christmas, out of costume.
You have to realize that the driveway that my dogs turned on was plowed as if it was surfaced by a Zamboni (equipment that ice skating rinks use). As my team turned on that plowed driveway I had no idea what was in store for me, but I knew that it could be ugly. Sure enough, when we came further down the driveway, the dogs were headed straight for the front door...up onto the porch they went and to the right...with 6 dogs waiting to follow suit. UGH !
The guy came out of the house and grabbed my leaders and pulled them off the porch and then I asked him to stand on my brake so that I could unhook tug lines. Then he went back in the house after he muttered some unkind words. I had no idea how I was going to get my team out of this situation, with no hooking down and no snub line or static line to tie off to anything.
I decided that I would untangle the dogs. They could have been all balled up and a mess so I was lucky. While I was untangling them, the leads headed out the driveway. I grabbed my sled and hopped on and then steered it into a snow bank and tried to set my hooks. No such luck. So we went a little further and again I tried setting the hooks. I got a very poor set and one that you couldn't trust. I went and untangled a dog and then we went out onto the road and I drove the sled to the right side of the road and finally was able to set my hooks.
I then lined the dogs out and went up to the leaders and hooked up their tugs. I worked my way back to my wheel dogs and I was so relieved that the hooks held. I was prepared to hop on the sled if they pulled the hook. Well, with the dogs all lined out and all the tugs hooked, I hopped on the sled and we took off. We went around the subdivision and then headed back to our trail. Whew ! Just another day in the life of a dog musher...
It was much easier going back. We were the only teams on the trail in a few days and had to break trail on the way out. It was hard work for the dogs but they did a great job.
Tomorrow we are hoping to run some new trails. It is snowing lightly...and we are hoping that we don't get much new snow. It makes it so beautiful, but also so much more work.
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