knoppers

I wish I could have gotten pictures, but a bird I could not identify, looked it up and had American Redstart on my deck today, there were about 3 or 4 of them. very awsom.

seen a few herons also, I did have a white egret on my pond today, first time I have seen one on this lake ( pond ) in 27 years I have been here. and one strange vulture, it was flying low over the water like a eagle would do.

congrats to the bulldogs, national champs again!

had 4 pelicans fly over today. something new to me, during Thursdays blizzard, there was a loon singing on my pond that opened up earlier this week.

I thought with al the fresh snow, that the rivers would be high and muddy, I will wait.

I saw a purple finch this weekend, haven't seen one for awhile. this was at the cabin in palisade.

well I stopped on the way up north today at the dealer to have the reflash recall done. take the cover off, unstrap the sled, unload and ride into the shop, less than five minutes later, drive it back out, load back up, put straps back on and cover. I think if there is a next time, I will ask if they can do it on the trailer. but at least its done. no ridable snow since it was all ice and no snowdust for cooling, so hopefully it works OK to start next year. I was still thinking of making some laps on the lake, but it looked like 12 inches of pure slush.

if you use the trailer much, just screw on some plastic glides, it also makes loading and unloading a snap. here is a picture of my glides on the utility trailer.

most times reverse will not get you unstuck, mostly because your in the deep stuff. but backing off the trailer, or into the garage is when I use mine. I don't have your problem, but I just got a letter in the mail today from Textron, a recall on my ECM, they said it needs to be reprogrammed, and do not use it. from what I read on artic cat forums, they shoot flames out the exhaust that can cause the belly pan to catch fire. then I read that some people were having problems after the reprogramming. I will wait a couple weeks, then bring it in to be done, its worked fine for me, 2nd year and 800 miles.

plan was to go to the cabin today and ride, then weather changed my plans. 3 hours this morning to shovel off my moms roof before the next storm, another 1 hour to prep my house for shovel later in the day, and a drive to the cabin to shovel that off. I did not bring my sled, thinking I needed to head back home after the cabin roof and deck. after checking the weather this morning saying 8-12 inches wet heavy snow starting sat morning. just checked the weather, now its starting later, afternoon, and less, only 6-10, I could have brought the sled and rode after all. my arms feel to sore to ride anyway. its pretty sad when a snowmobilier has had enough with the snow already.

no I did not stop, it was getting late in the day, so I kept on riding.

well my riding day started bad, or should I say not started. my new sled would not start after riding yesterday without any problems. it got to the point my battery was almost dead, so I tried the recoil, nothing. I looked through the manual, it said to check the fuses, since I had my visor plugged in, maybe a blown fuse, all looked good. paging through the book, I noticed something that said if you have been riding in deep powder with lots of dust, your throttle cable could have some ice on it, I did ride across the lake before putting it away in deep powder. it said to work the throttle and let it snap back, then give it a 1/4 throttle and try starting. well that worked and it fired up fine. I was a little nervous stopping for gas today, but it started without issue. again today, I have to ride over the lake through deep powder to get back, but this time I let it idle in the driveway a little while so the heat from the motor would melt anything off the throttle before putting it away, then I worked the throttle again to make sure that is fine for the next ride. good day of riding once I got going, lots of traffic in the sand dunes, but still a good ride.

I rode the trails around big lake today, mostly to get used to the new trails. trails were awesome, they must have groomed last night, rode to becker and back and some other playing around. all in all I put on 42 miles today. I will ride into the orrock area tomorrow. don't ride that much around here anymore, mostly aitkin co. now. looks like the trails around the sand dunes look good, I will give it a shot tomorrow.

the snow should not be a problem, looks like up to 8+ inches more next week, and below average temps for this month.

looks like it will be a long riding season this year, most likely good riding well into march.