Spring? Or Still Winter?

Hello all!

Well it's April 5th and I'm convinced that back in February the groundhog definately missed his shadow, because it's still winter here.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you!

We still have a good few feet of snow in spots in my dogyard. It's definately gone down quite a bit, and in fact along my upper fenceline I can actually see dirt, but some areas have so much snow still that I'm pretty sure I'll still be looking at it come June.

We're still on sleds around here, which is amazing. The training areas right near us are getting thin and icy, but I ran a team two days ago and we're still not seeing dirt on the trails. I'll keep running on sleds as long as possible... in fact I'll go north once or twice to keep running once the trails locally get down to dirt. Since I can't dig out my ATV yet to use. The trailer it's sitting on is buried behind massive snowbanks...

The older pups are doing quite well on their training runs, but it sure looks funny when fat and fluffy Lucas runs! Viktor too, although he doesn't look as fat as Lucas. I'm fairly certain on both boys its more fluff than fat and when they shed their ENORMOUS puppy coats they'll look like totally different dogs. But right now I'm almost embarrassed for anyone to see me hooking up those boys.

Billie is absolutely amazing in harness. All that energy finally has an outlet. She and I have had some serious butting of heads over the past few months but a few weeks ago we had a breakthrough moment and since then she's been almost a model in good behavior. Thank god! Finally.

I haven't hooked up the 3 younger pups yet. Anya is definately big enough but Anthem's two kids still look tiny to me. I doubt I even have a harness small enough to fit Denali.

Anyway back to the meltdown around here - my driveway has been impassible for 2 weeks now thanks to melting snow. I had to put a "4 wheel drive only" sign at the base of it after 2 smaller vehicles got stuck and had to be towed out. I've never had an issue before.

And then there's my leaking roof... the ice dams on the roof were so bad this winter that the leaks started in mid February. Normally I have a few minor leaks in the kitchen area for a week or so, but this year they were anything but minor and extended all the way along the back wall of the house. And went on for weeks, and weeks, and weeks....

I couldn't seem to keep the carpets dried out no matter what I tried, and when mushrooms began to appear I realized I had a serious problem. So I called the insurance company. They came over, inspected everything, and declared they wanted to call in some experts in drying out houses from water damage. The experts came in and pronounced the entire wall to wall carpeting had to be replaced AND the back interior wall of my house had to come down and all the insulation replaced AND possibly part of the kitchen floor as well. The next day their workmen came and tore up my house. All the wet areas of carpet were pulled up, and the ENTIRE back wall of my house has been torn off, including the insulation, and I'm left looking at the studs and the housewrap.

All I wanted was a new carpet! :P

The good news is they'll totally replace all that, it's covered by insurance, and I just have to pay my semi-small deductible.

Bad news is that I wanted to put the house on the market by now. In fact I wanted it on the market in February to have lots of time to sell before I started looking for a new one, but the leaking roof made me put the plan on hold; and now that I'm missing a section of wall along with the carpeting, I guess it's on hold even longer.

Since there's still a buildup of ice on the roof, I'm guessing it'll be another 3-4 weeks before they even start to put my house back together.

So I have no idea what I'm doing now as far as moving. Which is disturbing, because I really wanted to be in a new place by fall. Away from my complaining neighbors. I definately don't want to live here another year dealing with neighbor issues. But I may in fact be forced to do so now. Either that or I'll have to take next year off from distance racing because I'll be busy moving in the fall when I'm supposed to be training.

The bottom line is that as much as I'm loving the fact that we still have snow on April 5th and that I'm still running a team with my sled, at the same time I find myself wishing for a few 60+ degree days to melt my roof faster!

Even though mud-season is really going to be a bitch....

Happy Winter - oops, I mean Spring!

-jaye