Ramblings....

There is an easy way to kill old 4wheel drive trucks. And I found out today. Fortunately, it wasn’t my truck.

Today was the first day in about a week that I felt it was safe enough to try and get Big Brown Betsy, my ’96 Ford pickup truck, down off of my hill. She’s a wonderful truck and I love her dearly, but at her age her 4WD is a bit iffy. There is a small stretch on my driveway that it has to work or I could end turtling (upside down and can’t get back up). Today was also the day that I decided to get out of my mid winter funk and go do something, torn hamstrings be damned.

I have three places that I like to hike when I get tired of walking around my place. The problem is we still have 3 feet of snow on the ground and the going into the National Forest is hit or miss.I tried Slate Lick Lake first. The two track was not barricaded but there were no tire tracks, which proves that not everyone with 4WD vehicles are crazy enough to tempt fate on an unplowed National Forest road that leads to nowhere. And I wasn’t about to try and break a trail through the snow drifts. I wouldn’t have made it more than 100 yards before turning around, which would have made for some grumpy dogs that were excited about hiking more than the driveway at home. A quick turn around and we head to Paul State Park. Too many people there already. Since I had four dogs along with me, I didn’t think that would work out too well.

Famous last words: watch this!

There is an old quarry near my place, back in the National Forest that I love to hike around, but I didn’t think that would be open either. I am glad I went as it was open, barely. The road hadn’t been plowed, but there were many sets of tire tracks of some of the red necks trying out their 4WD, or stupid college students with Jeeps. So the crazy ones ended up at the quarry rather than the lake. This is where I learned how to kill a truck.

I parked at the last clear area, got the dogs out, locked up and headed out. I don’t think I’d gotten more than 100 feet before the first evidence of trouble. Someone had gotten stuck and spun their wheels so much the holes were at least 8-10 inches deep. Since the truck wasn’t there, I figured the tree bark that was plastered in the bottom of those holes had given them enough traction to get out.

A little further on was when I saw the first drops of transmission fluid. The mistake of many people when they are stuck is to gun the engine, sending the wheels flying and the transmission whining.

It looks like something had been shot

Which is the exact wrong thing to do, because slow and easy gets the job done when slipping and sliding. And it keeps the transmission from imploding. Then there was an even bigger blob. Poor thing is hemmoraging like it had been shot through an artery.

From the amount of transmission fluid I saw, I was amazed that the truck wasn’t abandoned where it got stuck. But I guess they got lucky and got out. I don’t think they are going to get much farther than home, if they get that far.

The rest of the hike was a pleasant end to a nice day. Although why the dogs thought it was good idea to go swimming the snow melt run off is a mystery to me.

Alpha Dog

I woke up this morning with my main man, Finn, not moving so well. I figured that he wrenched a lot of muscles trying to keep up with the young ones in the snow, then the irrational part of my brain kicked in, and I knew he'd actually ruptured a cervical (neck) disc and that he was about to become completely paralyzed. So he came with me to work for a full work up.

He ended up with a raging urinary tract infection with some struvite crystals thrown in for good measure. The good thing was, I was so busy at work, I didn't have time to brood on it and let my irrational side of the brain take over. I could easily have worked this into cancer of the spinal cord.

Anyway, I got home after dark and still had to go to feed the horses. Since Finn still wasn't moving very well and there is two feet of snow on the ground, I decided to leave him back at the house. The other dogs had a great walk in the snow (Deacon was able to get into the neighbors trash- had a little come to Jesus meeting over that), the horses were happy to get their hay and I was ready to go back to the house.

Walked through the door to the scene of dog food EVERYWHERE. And Finn sitting on the couch looking as innocent as a baby, with the only problem that he was the only one left in the house and had no one else to blame it on.

The moral of the story is don't leave the Alpha Dog behind even if it is for his own good. Or at least make sure the dog food is safely secured.

How to play in Snowmaggedon

Over the weekend my little hamlet was slammed with snow storm of almost biblical proportions. It wasn't as big as the blizzard of 95, where some areas of the mountains got almost 4 feet of snow, but this was close. I was trying to finish my morning appointments and get the ubiquitous milk and bread for the big snow in, and headed to WalMart for supplies. It turns out that the morning rush is when all the AARP members were out and I was able to move about three shuffling steps an hour. I eventually got home in time to avoid the worst it.

During the snow, the dogs, at least the younger ones, had it right. Run until you drop, sleep in front of the fire and repeat.

I have two young Labradors whose favorite game to play in the world when I am down feeding the horses is "stick". Basically you find a stick, poke the other in the side, take off at the speed of light and wait for the other to catch up and grab it. Then the two of them run around, grunting and coughing, twisting and tripping until the stick breaks. I think the goal is to see how long the stick holds up. I never really understand the whole reason for it, although, Deacon and Darcy will play until they both drop. However, two feet of snow can really put a damper on how much running a dog can do. Deacon makes up for the lack horizontal motion by trying to leap in the air.

If you are a horse, like my Lady, you don't play in the snow. You just endure.

And my neighbor just finished plowing me out. Right in time for the next storm!