Spring is close to arriving! We had 12 inches of snow last night which left things beautiful but it is already melting. The dogs love the fresh snow! This was a Monday morning play session at Acme Creek!

The winter has gone by in a flash. While most people think that winter drags on, we dogsledders feel like we blinked and it was over! Lots has happened to us this season. Our quick recap starts with an early winter and trying to get the trails open and keeping them open. It was great to be on the sleds early but we weren't ready with trail grooming equipment. We used to train on a two track type road through an area with oil rigs. This stopped when a semi truck came down the road while we were running dogs. Ryan and his team were almost wiped out. Almost a head on dog team vs truck. Well you get the picture! While the truck was moving slowly it was still a fright to both dogs and Ryan. Wouldn't have expected a semi on that little road!Next came the guy who drove his truck all over our groomed trail and left crater marks 18 inches deep. We could not run the dogs unless we filled 1/4 mile of holes. This happened on 2 different occasions and we had to change our whole trail system in the middle of a snow storm. It was frustrating and made our training difficult. When training to be at the top of your game you must run your dogs several times weekly! Each time something happens to knock off a day of training it takes the edge off your team. The last quirk in the plan was our almost head on collision with our dog truck on the way home from a race. A young driver came into our lane head on. Ryan's quick thinking kept us from a total head on collison but it did take out both front doors and damaged the flat bed on our dog truck. We had some banged up dogs and that took us out of training for most of a week as well. We are glad to report while the boy's car was totaled everyone walked away from the accident. Our dogs are all fine now. The truck is in the shop and one of the dog sleds had quite a bit of damage! Our last race was last weekend and Ryan managed to pull of lst place both days. My team had a bit of trouble the second day so we did not place as high as I would have liked but considering the season I can't complain. We have made some new friends and reconnected with some old friends during the season and that is worth more than any placing at a race! It will be a wonderful season to remeber!

Tomorrow we wil switch gears towards spring and puppies!