Blizzard

The weather has been terrible here. First we had warm weather and rain, then warm weather and wind, and now extreme cold, wind, and snow. Not a lot of snow, but then it is hard to tell with everything blowing around so fiercely. I was in the midst of trying to do a series of runs to simulate a race and get the dogs toughened up to the miles when I had to abort because of the blizzard. It wasn't the cold that scared me; it was the howling winds which create a whiteout and leave no trace of the trail. It is not too bad in the woods where the dogs can't get off the trail, but in the open areas, there is often no clue where to go, especially when you cannot see more than a few feet. The dogs are used to following a snowmobile track, so even though they may know the right direction, they will leave a blown in trail to search for a stray snowmobile track if it promises better footing. The snowmobilers around here like to spread out in all directions in the open areas, so that is why I cannot trust the dogs in these situations.

Today, they closed the highway which runs in front of our house. They do this when the winds create horrendous drifting and poor visibility. It was closed all day, but they did reopen it this evening. The temperature stayed below zero all day and should reach 25 below tonight. The wind chill was in the forty to fifty below range all day. We believe our wind gauge reads a little low because of the diminished air currents around the house, so who knows what the wind chill was out in the yard.

I went outside only to do the bare minimum of chores - mainly feeding the dogs. Unfortunately, I did discover a dog in distress. Little Lizzy, one of the purebred Siberians, was frozen into her doghouse. We had to bring the doghouse into the kitchen and turn some electric heaters on it for three hours before it thawed enough to release her. The rear leg that was stuck the worst felt like it was frozen solid; the foot was immovable, just like rigor mortis. Amazingly, when she came loose, she walked around perfectly normal with no sign of a frozen foot or a limp or anything. Nonetheless, she is spending the night inside in a crate.