Skittish fox, calm deer

As you can see, there is not enough snow to set tracks, and there are lots of leaves and grass showing through.

Okay, the snow is pretty minimal, but it was sixteen degrees above zero this morning, so at least there had not been melting since my Monday morning ski. I liked the pre-breakfast ski so much that I did it again this morning, but doing the loop in Gooseberry Park instead of skiing to I-94. I could just barely make out my tracks from a week and a half ago, so I followed them because a bit more snow had drifted in them, making for less contact with grass and leaves. It's a slog on the waxless, cheap Trak skis, but it is still skiing and it feels wonderful!

On my way back, I glanced up just in time to see a fox dart into the brush. I think he will eat well this winter on our plentiful urban bunny population in Fargo. They've been fattening up on garden produce all summer and will make a tasty meal for Fox.

A bit later, I had that feeling of being watched, so I looked around, and there was a deer bedded down in the brush, just a few yards from me. She watched me carefully, ducking down a tiny bit more as I passed by. I'm glad she did not feel the need to get up. Eating is not as good in this season for her as it is for the fox.

After my hour of diagonal striding, I was pretty hungry and devoured a delicious veggie-egg white frittata (made by Enrico) with some toast and water while writing this. Time to head to work!

Fat Tire and Skinny Hooves

Fat tire & skinny hooves

My arms were sore from skiing yesterday, but the snow and sunshine beckoned, so I decided to go for my first bike ride on snow for this season. I wanted to try my new ski tracks app to track the Gooseberry Single track loop. I headed out on the bike path toward Lindenwood Park, went across the bridge to Minnesota and rode around the singletrack in Gooseberry Park. I felt kind of clumsy at first, but soon got the hang of biking on snow again. I still feel the handlebars on the Fat Boy are too wide, though. My app tells me I was out for 1 hour and 12 minutes, which seems right, but that I  covered only 2.9 miles. I'm pretty sure that distance is not accurate. It's a mile and a half just to Lindenwood. Hmmmmm. Whatever--it was great to be outside and get some exercise.

Fat Boy got tired and had to take a little rest.

First ski of the 2018-19 season

We had horizontal snow yesterday, so I didn't think any skiing would come of it, but the wind settled during the night and the day dawned sunny and still, so I thought I might as well take the rock skis out and gear up the dog for a little skijor instead of the usual walk. There wasn't much accumulation, but I figured if we skied mainly on the grass, it should be OK. Noko was game, so we headed out to the dog park. We saw a bald eagle within the first five minutes of our ski. What a wingspan!

Noko was a bit pokey on the way out, but when we turned to come back, he put in three spirited 100-meter pulls. With my new Apple watch, I now know that my heart rate spikes up into the 160s when he sprints because I double-pole hard to get the most out of it. The rest of the time my heart rate is in the 120s-130s, so I guess I could say that skijoring with Noko provides me with some moderate interval training!

After our little outing, I went out again and skied on my own to Gooseberry Park, skiing a little loop and then coming back along the river. I went back up to the dog park again, back down to the water treatment plant, where I took this photo, and then called it a day. I skied for 100 minutes total--not bad for the first ski of the season. I guess my workouts at the Y and biking to work have been good for getting my ski season started on the right boot.