Dry spell

The lack of snow this year in Minnesota sure did put a crimp in my plans. Two races were cancelled and I had to withdraw from another two because I did not have enough training miles on the sled to be a solid competitor.

So disappointing, and yet I trust that things are playing out as they should, even if I don't understand why.

I haven't been back on the sled since the mishaps just before the end of the year. So much has transpired since then. A precious friend ended her life in January, and those of us who loved her remain shell-shocked. I came down with the flu soon after and was the sickest I've been in years. The ole joints have really been screaming for attention, and I'm usually the last to hear. But I had to listen up recently when the discomfort got the better of me.

I haven't really had words to describe the sadness, bewilderment, and strain of seeing a dream that seemed so real slowly fade to gray this year. But I stumbled upon just the right language penned by my favorite poet, Mary Oliver. And I've been sitting on some dreamy footage of my pups and me training one foggy morning in January when the sun finally warmed things up. And then I found an extraordinary piece of music (humming, really) by Carly Simon, and something took shape tonight that gave expression to this odd place I find myself in.

The dogs are so beautiful, the experience so haunting, and in the end, I remain hopeful that I am doing what I am supposed to do and grateful for the mentors, the friends, the colleagues, and the family who have seen me through this strange journey.

Beautiful, complicated, and willful lead dog, Penya, from whom I have learned much. 

What THREE BLUE EYES taught me today

"DON'T LEAVE US BEHIND!!!"

These days, it feels lately like I'm meeting myself coming and going. 

I'm definitely coming to understand my limitations. Especially around time. Training in the middle of the week is intense. I'm up, driving, hooking up 6 fast sled dogs, running the 4-wheeler in sub-freezing temps, unhooking them, giving them water, hauling buckets of their "stew" around and feeding them, scooping up their living spaces, making tomorrow's stew, and driving 75 minutes back to Minneapolis -- all before I start my regular work day.

It's humbling how tired this routine makes a person. By early evening, I'm pretty well spent. But do I get myself to bed? Er, um, well, there's this GREAT book series I'm reading (The Hunger Games), so, well, I guess the answer is clear enough. I've been under the weather more this fall than is typical for me. And I know I need to take better care of myself and get more rest.

And hence, the less-frequent blog posts.

But, my pups taught me a thing or two today, and I wanted to make sure I recorded it. 

The trail we run has several hills, not big huge ones, but hills nonetheless. One has been particularly challenging for the team. And I though I try to be a tough gal and make them work up that hill, usually I cave and give the 4-wheeler a little gas to help them out.

But not today.

I gave myself a stern talking-to this morning on the drive north and committed to helping the pups get in shape to do at least one serious hill (during CopperDog 35 in March) without help from me. So up up up we went on our training hill, and they gradually slowed down to a complete stop some 30 yards from the top of the hill.

I told them to "get up" but they merely peered over their shoulders at me with a look like, "What, you're gonna be lazy and not help us out."

Yep, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

And as it turns out, I had completely underestimated their abilities. Within two seconds, myshygirl Greyling was doing her levitating act, and next to her, sweetness Elias, was screaming at the top of her canine lungs to get moving. Yep, honest to goodness cheerleaders.

And guess what happened? Bigboy Colt seemed to remember his strength and pulled hard, along with gotogirl Penya, and before you know, we crested that hill! All on pure canine power (and thanks to some genuine restraint on my part). I just felt so proud I could have popped!

It was a little tool chilly to take off my gloves so my bare fingers could make contact with the iPhone screen. But yesterday I managed to catch a few priceless moments.

Hope you enjoy them here in this short video:

Blazin'

So last week, THREE BLUE EYES and I were minding our own beeswax, cruising along a gravel road at sunrise, surrounded on all sides by corn fields recently mowed flat, when all of a sudden, what should appear, but a big ole truck with big ole guys decked out in BLAZE ORANGE.

(For the uninitiated, blaze orange is the craziest neon color that folks wear during deer-hunting season so they'll be recognized as human beings who should not be shot. But wait, why do people wear camouflage to hunt. I'm totally confused now.)

The two big ole guys slowed down and yelled at me: "YOU SHOULD BE WEARING BLAZE ORANGE!!!"

My sweet jacket*

Now, back in the day, I probably would have crumpled and cried if I'd encountered these gents, because I really don't like big ole angry guys yelling at me in a mean or mad way. But mushing, I guess, has toughened me up a bit, because I pointed to my SAFETY YELLOW jacket with REFLECTIVE STRIPES and shouted back, "Dude, I thought this was loud enough."

Fortunately, I lived to tell the tale, and a number of friends firmly suggested that I, in fact, don BLAZE ORANGE if I was planning to run my pups during deer hunting season. And so I took myself to my favorite thrift store and found a rather large BLAZE ORANGE jacket, then went to a fabric store and picked up some BLAZE ORANGE webbing and fleece to craft something for the pups. I cannot tell you how many silly questions I fielded by clerks at both stores. "So, what are you hunting, little lady, Moose?" Ha ha.

Mostly they were stunned when I told them I'm a musher, and with a big ole grin on my face, explained that I was trying to keep my dogs and me from being shot. Seeing as how I live smack-dab in the middle of Minneapolis, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by the next questions that followed: "So, where exactly do you do this? And don't you need snow?"

It was closing in on 9 pm (and 9:30 is my bed time on nights before I run dogs, since I need to rise at 4:30 am to get Ginsberg and me an hour north to hook up with the rest of the team) so I had to pass on the opportunity to be a goodwill ambassador for mushing.

But I digress.

Honestly, I've found it's kinda fun to wear BLAZE ORANGE and to decorate the THREE BLUE EYES team and the quad I use to train with splashes of the neon color as well.

I am happy to report that as of today, we've built up our runs to 9 miles, and the team is looking mighty fine.

Here, have a look! This little video (with apologies to Junior Walker, whose body of work I've just rediscovered!) is a paean to BLAZE ORANGE (sort of):

* I wonder how many times I can get away with pointing out my supercool safety yellow jacket with reflective stripes? If a person doesn't work construction, how often do we get to wear such awesome garb?

Please pass the 'jumping beans'

Last Saturday, THREE BLUE EYES practiced the fine art of passing another team (and being passed by a team).

Wooooo doggggies! That is one challenging maneuver to learn. The goal is for the dogs not to interact at all. We had more than few rough starts. (Mainly rookie driver errors -- I kept giving the command "on by" WAY too soon) Thank goodness Randy came along and shot video. I've been studying it a lot (and cringing at my shrill, overly loud and obnoxious commands, which you will NOT hear in the video below-ha!). I keep practicing different ways of giving commands while I'm in the car all alone, but nothing is sounding right yet. Any and all tips welcome!)

So, here's a little video of some of our better moments of late. There's one sequence of the pups jumping that's so silly, I had to run it in slow motion so I could label the jumpers.

The team we're "chasing" and the team we're passing is Chris Johnson's awesome 10-dog team. Chris is such a trooper to work with me.

Things are going to get REAL interesting once we get some snow and I switch to a sled. Seems the more I learn, the more I find I still need to learn.

Will I be ready for my first race in January?

Stay tuned . . .

'Did you check the gas?' Uh, whoops!

Learned a big lesson today: It's mighty hard for 6 dogs to pull a big honkin' 4-wheeler up hill with no help from the musher. Yep, we ran out of gas about midway through our run today. DOH!

Not only that, Claire even asked me early into the run whether I'd checked the gas. Er, no. But we took our chances.

Everything began swimmingly. I arrived at 6 am, with Ginsberg in tow, and in the dark with my nifty headlamp on and aided by a nearly full moon, I promptly pulled the 4-wheeler into position. I harnessed and hooked up my six fast sled dogs, and the leaders -- Penya and Colt -- held the team tight. No tangles, no fussing, even rookie Ginsberg seemed to be in his groove. All looked good. Claire boarded the passenger seat, and I managed to leave the driveway without bouncing Claire off the back or running over the dogs. (Still got to work on smooth gear shifts, though).

I got onto the road just fine and kept the speed reasonably even. Greyling only had to give me the evil eye about 7 times today when I let the gangline get too close to her. And she was a dream team member running with Ginsberg. After looking pleadingly back over his shoulder at me for maybe 10 seconds, Ginsberg got the message that I meant business and he dropped his tail a bit, pulled his ears back, and focused. (Whew!)

NOTE TO SELF: Wear gloves that fully cover your fingers next time you train. I wasn't sure I'd ever get feeling back into my thumb (which operates the gas). I opted to do the 5-mile run, which requires a somewhat tight haw back, and just as were approaching the turnaround   . . . SPPPUTTER . . . GASP . . .  COUGH, COUGH . . . SPUTTTTER . . . silence.

That's right folks: I ran out of gas. Thank heavens for amazing dogs. Five members of THREE BLUE EYES chilled and kept the line tight as Claire and I (though mostly Claire) problem-solved. How to get 6 sled dogs, a 4-wheeler that weighs a ton, and two grown women back to kennel? Claire managed to wrestle the vehicle around, with a little help from me, and we got into position to return home.

Rookie-boy Gins (not from today)

Meanwhile, Ginsberg got flustered, and as he usually does when he's excited, instigated a bit of roughhousing with the nearest dog. BAD BAD BAD IDEA, Gins. Greyling was not about to put up with his antics and I was able to interrupt the disagreement quickly (thanks to lots of practice at home!) with a few outbursts of "GINS!!! Stop!!!"

Ready to go, I gave the command to take off, but "HIKE!" didn't help at all. So it was time for me to do a little cheerleading. I ran up to the leaders, grabbed their harnesses, and we all tried with all our might to pull ahead and get the whole rig moving again. Fortunately, the Goddess shined her grace upon us (more than once), and Claire was able to get the 4-wheeler to start! I jumped on and drove until the next sputtergaspcoughcoughsputter>silence occurred. We repeated this scene several times, with me running ahead to encourage the pups to get it their all.

An upside was that I was able to see the team from a different vantage point (as in, not looking at their behinds for a change of pace) and was just blown away by how beautiful they are when they're working so hard. Even Ginsberg was putting 100% into the effort. I felt like Rocky and couldn't help but do a little jig. I LOVED it when they pulled ahead of me, totally focused and working hard. If only I could have kept up with them.

Sigh. Apparently, I need to boost the intensity of my aerobic workouts, because after running up two hills, I FELT like the 4-wheeler WAS: out of gas. Claire made it back to the kennel before me, and when I pulled up, the team looked fantastic! Still lined out and ready to be unharnessed.

THREE BLUE EYES (but not from today's run)

I REALLY am proud of these pups and humbled by how fortunate I am to be able to work with such beautifully trained dogs (thanks to Rita Wehseler, from whom I've leased the dogs for the season). They were unflappable and able to deal respectfully with their rookie driver. I'm also quite proud of Ginsberg, whose genes (which hail from some fine bloodlines) seem to be awakening. I loved it when Claire praised him for pulling hard and I could see the intensity and drive in his beautiful blue eyes. Claire even thinks he has leader potential. I hope she's right. He certainly has the very best teachers. And so do I.

Thank you, Claire, for working with me, sharing your astonishing wealth of knowledge, and believing in me.

And in other news . . .
I registered yesterday for the CopperDog 35, a competitive race for mushers like me (although I just happened to see that Claire's mentor -- Lloyd Gilberston -- has also registered for this race, and how fair is that, I ask you?) So when the organizers use the phrase "competitive" they really mean it!

This is a fantastic race that occurs in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (fondly called the "U.P.") I've heard or seen on Facebook many positive comments about the CopperDog race from very experienced mushers. The "35" is the baby of several CopperDog events. The Papa Bear event is the "150," a mid-distance race that takes 2+ days to run. Several friends will be tackling these events, so it'll be awesome to be among all the excitement.

I'm told the trail is fast in the beginning and towards the end, involves a long long long climb up a big big big hill. Hello, treadmill on full incline, you and I will be coming very familiar in the next few months.

And one final note . . .


It's been some time since I posted an "exciting episode" because it's been way too hot to run sled dogs in my neck of the woods. That's
right. It's autumn in Minnesota and we've been having temperatures in the 80s. Gorgeous, gorgeous days with the backdrop of some of the best autumnal colors we've had in years. Even the roses are still blooming.

Such weather has put many Minnesotans in a grateful and happy frame of mind. Except for us mushers. We always seem to be outliers when it comes to weather. Honestly, I've tried very hard to be happy for the unseasonably warm days.

But my heart belongs to snow.

And cold.

And Arctic environments of indescribable beauty. 

And, of course, to six fast sled dogs.

Cheers!

Photographs (c) Copyright Kathleen Kimball-Baker 2011

Ginsberg's first run with the team

We did 3 miles with the 4-wheeler today, and Ginsberg joined in for his first time in a 6-dog team. Lids and Greyling also got their first run since being spayed. And the whole team finally ran together. All and all, a good day.