Moving along

For the first time in nearly a month, it is snowing.  I mean seriously enough that I ran the little tractor to clear the driveways to my place and to handler Jeff's cabin today.  While I was moving snow, Jeff replaced a bad electrical part in the snow machine (an ancient albeit reasonably functional Skidoo Tundra), and we were able to get it started.  That's good news because it's going to snow some more.  According to the forecast we may get as much as 10 inches of new snow in the next couple of days.  YAY.  That's the good news.

Winter Storm Warning for my local area.

The bad news involves my buddy Seamus.  While I was hooking up dogs to run on Saturday I noticed fresh blood on Seamus' left rear foot.  He wasn't limping and it didn't seem to be tender, so I put him back in a pen, grabbed a different dog (Beau) and did the run. 

When I returned I gave Seamus a more thorough look.  There is a lesion over the toe with skin stretched very tight, but there were no indications of an orthopedic issue such as a joint dislocation or fracture.  I couldn't identify the injury, so decided a trip to the vet was in order.

Mark checked out the swollen mass, and drew some cells for microscopic examination.  The bad news is that Seamus has a tumor over the toe.  The good news is that we've caught it early and small.  Although we don't know exactly what kind of tumor, Seamus will go into town on Friday to have it removed and we'll send it off for a more thorough histological evaluation. 

Seamus running in right wheel position in this team.

Seamus resting after a training run last March.

So, the short term plan.  Tomorrow, while it's snow so hard, I'll go into Fairbanks to pick up a couple of parts I need for the snowmachine and, while I'm in town, I plan to check out the new movie Lincoln.  I've been hearing good reviews about it from fellow historical reenactors and want to check it out for myself.  Meanwhile, the snow can accumulate on the trails.

Thursday I plan to fire up that snowmachine and break out my feeder trail and probably the Swamp Trail so we have easy access to the major trail system behind the house without having to risk the traffic on the wood cutting road.  If I accomplish that early enough I plan to run a couple of teams.

Friday I'll be taking Seamus to the vet in town, where he (and I) will be most of the day. 

The long term forecast doesn't look quite so much fun over the weekend. 

Cold snap forecast for the weekend.

I'll have to wait and see just how cold it gets before deciding how to spend the time.  I'd prefer to run the dogs, but I don't need to hurt myself or them doing so.  We'll just see how things work out, because it is frequently much warmer here at my place than the temperatures elsewhere in the valley.