Saturday, February 2, 2008

2/2/2008 Farmington's 5th Annual Dog Sled Race

See the big blue barn in the back? They had refreshments (someone grilling hamburgers on a countertop grill, homemade cookies and brownies for sale, and more) for sale in there including hot chocolate and coffee. This woman with the sled and all the ropes is getting ready for a race. She's in the parking lot area to the north which was pretty much all sled dog trucks (special trucks designed to carry a bunch of dogs, dog food, ropes, sleds, skis, and other related equipment.

Are these not the cutest distance markers you've ever seen? This one is at the start gate so I'm not really sure what it's marking, but I assume they have similar ones all along the course and hopefully, they're more accurate than this one.

These are the dogs waiting for the first race to happen.

And they're off! This is an event called skijor. According to some very friendly people that I stood next to for part of the morning, this is an event from one of the Nordic countries. It's basically having a sled dog pull you while you're on cross country skis. The human has on the cross country skis and a special harness with a big metal ring in the middle. You attach the ropes that are connected to the dog sled to that metal ring and off you go! There were competitors with one dog and some with two. We saw the 2 dogs located one in front of the other and we saw them where the dogs were side by side.


Somewhere out there are the racers. We could see them. Apparently a couple owns this land and lets the group use it. There is a 4 mile track, a 6 mile track, and a 10 mile track. The skijor racers were on the 4 mile track. What a beatiful day!

Here's one of the racers crossing the finish line.

As soon as this dog crossed the finish line he started rolling in the snow and eating snow with his tail wagging the whole time.

There was just one round of skijor (all the different classes were pretty much in the same race) and then it was time for sleds. The first event was 4 dog pro followed by 4 dog sportsmen. I couldn't tell the difference. Here you can see two teams (one on each side of the bales of hay) just out of the chutes.


I'm not sure who was a bigger winner today--the sled racing humans, the dogs, or me. What a glorious day! And I ran into Alan that works in the Ed. Center (we're both there late at night) and I had the chance to meet his wife. I loved finally meeting her after hearing so many wonderful stories.

1/27/2008 No matter how much snow, we still have church

Somewhere under there is the church sign that says the name of the
church and the times we have mass. Even though no one can see what
time the mass is (or the sign for that matter), we still show up. ;-)

2/1/2008 Slipperier When Wetter

Is "slipperier" a real word? It definitely describes the walking conditions Friday night. Wednesday was slippery when it was raining on top of ice. Friday it wasn't really "wetter" but snow was covering the icy patches and more precipitation was coming down, so it was definitely more treacherous.

Most every Friday night, an email goes out to all faculty announcing when and where The Faculty Seminar will be held that evening. (Translation: Faculty Seminar = Happy Hour) Here is yesterday's announcement: "Seminar today depends on the weather, if it’s not freezing rain there will be a seminar. If it is freezing rain, probably not. The maybe seminar will be held at the Homestead at 5:00."

I was planning on going anyway, so I decided to risk the "maybe" Seminar. Sure enough, a nice crowd was gathered and it was a great time. Fortunately, I was wearing my Yak Trax which give extra traction. I wasn't wearing them the day that I fell because I knew there were dry patches of sidewalk and I didnt' think you were supposed to wear Yak Trax on sidewalk or dry ground. But that misconception has been corrected by a number of folks. So I wore them yesterday morning to work and was now wearing them on my walk to Seminar.

In the late afternoon, big puffy snow flakes started falling. The prediction was for freezing rain but we got snow instead. By the time I left for Seminar, there was at least an inch of snow on the sidewalks and streets (which hadn't been plowed) and little ice pellets were the precipitation of the moment. Not sleet or hail, just ice pellets. Tiny. They didn't hurt. But they gave the ground a definite crunch.

Several times my foot slipped on the ice underneath the snow, but my Yak Trax gave me extra traction and I remained upright. By the time I got to seminar and was going to take my Yak Trax off, I realized I had lost one! I only had on one Yak Trax. (one Yak Track?) I felt certain I would find it on the walk home. It would have to be on a sidewalk somewhere and there weren't many others out walking, so I didn't imagine anyone would be finding it.

Seminar was great fun. I even had dinner there. Several hours later, The Homestead was closing early due to the weather but the Seminar gang was still going strong. So the new plan was to go to The Dugout to kill some time and then head to the 9:30 movie--Junea. It had been too long of a week for me, I knew I wouldn't make it, so I headed home . . . and retraced my steps to look for my Yak Trax.

I didn't have to go far. I got to the intersection of Broadway and High Street (a blinking yellow light intersection) and there was a lone Yak Trax in the intersection. It didn't even look like it had been run over by a car. It was easy to spot sticking up out of the snow under the street light. (There are many parts of the walk that aren't as well lit as that intersection, so that helped.)

The rest of the walk home was really great. There were now about 3" of precipitation on the sidewalk. There was still the icy base, then lots of snow, and crunchy ice pellets mixed with snow on top of that. Everything was covered in a thick white blanket that glistened on top like a Christmas card that you paid extra for the white glitter. Coming down was some kind of tiny precipitation -- not sure if it was snow or ice-somethings -- and that caused a gauzy Doris Day movie effect on the light from the streetlights. It was incredibly picturesque. I'm sure it was cold (it was 18 degrees when I left my office to go to Seminar) but there was no wind and I had on my snuggly long coat so I didn't feel the cold. (No, it wasn't because of any beverages consumed at Seminar.) But it was a little more strenuous than usual because of the accumulated snow. It was more like my one snowshoeing experience than it was like walking.

The most treacherous part was our own driveway, but I made it safely. I don't think I'll be removing the Yak Trax any time soon.

I did get a very nice anonymous comment on my blog entry about my spill. At first I thought it was a spam comment because there are web crawlers that will try to post advertisements and spam in blog comments. But it was too specific to my entry, I think it must've been submitted by a real person. It said, "Go to http://sports-imports.stores.yahoo.net/stabansol.html and buy Stabilicers Anti-Skid Soles for your boots and you'll never fall again. These are built in Maine for Maine winters. Hope this helps future falls and injuries. An interested fan! Love your blogs read them everyday." It was such a nice entry, I hope it is by a real person. :-)

So look at the "studded snow tires for your shoes" link that my "interested fan" is talking about and then look at http://yaktrax.com/productspro.aspx to see what Yak Trax look like. You just don't find products like this in Dallas. ;-)

2/2/2008 New Look to the Blog

I still really like the last template I was using for this blog, but something changed that was out of my control and the blog description took up more room than it used to. It covered a graphic and some of the links in the top right corner. So, I changed the template. But instead of being sad, I see it as a celebration of 1 year of writing this blog. I have 260 entries! (This one is #261.) I never would've guessed I would write so much (or post so many photos) and keep it up. What fun!

So Happy Ground Hog's Day! (The ground hog would definitely see his shadow today in Maine so I guess we're in for 6 more weeks of winter. Last year it was closer to 16 more weeks of winter.) And Happy New Look to the Blog.