Brilliant idea of the week

And I'd like to thank Pierre & Isabelle for coming up with it! I will blame it all on them. Due to the cold, I haven't been anywhere for days and the old water supply was running short. So, to save me a trip into town, my wonderful neighbors offered me some of their water. And one of them (can't remember which, so I will blame both forever for this one), suggested I get the dogs to haul the water down the road for me. *Sounds* like a great idea. They are sleddogs, they pull, so why not get them to help out? Better than me hauling it down the road in the plastic toboggan, right?!? Riiiight.....

So I load up the water jugs, bootie and harness up Jack & Harris (who were SUPER excited for whatever reason - maybe 'cause it had *warmed* up to -37!?!?), and we headed down the road. The gravel road was perfect, with a nice layer of snow packed tight on top. I filled up three jugs next door and put them on the sled. We started off with me running a bit ahead of them and the toboggan to see if they would do ok, and ok they did! They flew right to me and as I was looking back and trying to slow them at the same time, they passed me and I tripped in their lines and ended up on my face in a nanosecond.

Ok, so that doesn't faze me too much... I'm used to wiping out... so I take the camera planning to get an action shot down the road. After all, I'm finally using my dogs for WORK!! Other than for fun and recreation. We had PURPOSE here today. It was an exciting moment. I got the dogs to stay while I ran up ahead. My plan was, oh, to run alongside them down the road and then down our driveway. I don't know what was going on in my head that made me think I could keep up with these guys. I guess I thought the water would slow them down, but uh, no. That didn't happen. Before I knew it I had two happy huskies, (grinning maniacally!) zooming right towards me at mock speed! Pierre described it well - he saw the dogs speeding towards me, one went on one side of me, the other on the other side of me, and then I was there facing this toboggan full of water, speeding towards me. His comment to Isabelle (as they stood watching from afar) at this point was "oh, this should be interesting..."

I had no choice other than to take the hit to stop these two maniacs from heading out to our side road without me (that or I was too stunned to react). Sure enough the toboggan hit me at full speed, and I just remember ending up flat on my face (again) before I had time to process this craziness. Once again, I was wound up in their lines and the toboggan, but hey, at least it stopped the dogs!

Ok, time to brainstorm. So far, we haven't made it out of their driveway, had two disasters, and I was starting to get black & blue. I decide, I had no other choice than to hop in the sled wedged in between water jugs. I'm hoping it'll provide control, and bonus! I'd get a ride!! Well, thanks to that slick road, they had NO problem dragging my bruised body plus the water all the way down to our driveway. It was a crazy, but fun ride! We sped down the road, me on my knees ready for a bailout just in case. There is little control on a plastic toboggan I quickly realize. But the view is great!! A bit low, but great nonetheless! Anyways, they turned in our driveway like two old pros and there we hit the deeper snow, and lost a water jug. No problem, backtracking with two dogs is easy. We loaded up that renegade jug and headed home.

That was yet another kooky idea to chalk up in the record books, but hell, I'd do it again tomorrow!!

And the biggest bummer of the day was that we had taken pictures of this craziness, but the film wasn't loaded into the camera properly!! Arghhhh... yet another reason to get a digital camera!

But this gives a glimpse of what it's like to be behind these two (skiing - you can see the tips of my skis):


Here they are on Shallow Bay during a chilly quick skijor to mark trail: