6:30 am. -12 degrees.

This morning was the type of morning where my fingers and toes just wouldn’t warm up. Thank god for a super generous stash of Toasty toes and hand warmers from my good friends Carrie and John. It also helped riding at the back of the tour with the snowmobile windsheild blocking most of the cold.

I had an epiphany today that my habit of holding on to things; ex-boyfriends, books, friendships is actually a benefit in a job where I need to hold onto dogs, hold onto buckets of food, where my ability to not let go helped when I tipped a sled a couple of years ago and was dragged about 50 feet before the sled came to a stop. The sun came out and warmed things up quickly.

Tours went well with no catastrophes except for a sled that came into the kennel without a driver. The dogs were running full force and the bar of the sled barreled through my fingers before I could stop it. The dogs managed to tangle into a ball, stopping themselves. I felt like a complete failure. Fortunately all the dogs were fine.