Derek's Adventure

For as long as I've known Derek, we've been on separate seasons. My winters are packed full of sled dogs and races and tours, and if I have a free day once a month, it's a good month. For Derek, his summers were his "go" time. For over 24 years, Derek has been a wildland firefighter with the last 22 years spent flying all over Alaska and seeing places that many people will never see. Sometimes I'll point at a spot on a map and look at its remoteness and say- we should explore there! To which he'll reply, "nah, that's just a bunch of black spruce and mosquitos but just right here, now that's country that I can't wait to get back and explore." While smokejumping allowed Derek to travel all over the state, it also completely consumed his life from about mid-February to early October. He'd get time off for his annual sheep hunt in early August, but otherwise he was tied to his job. Until this summer.

In April, Derek retired from smokejumping. In classic Derek form, he asked for no party or big celebration. Instead, he wanted to go explore the north slope of the Brooks Range. So that's what he did. For the last 10 days, Derek flew around the North Slope of the Brooks Range, getting the lay of the land and finding remote airstrips. He of course had his "little buddies" Jezzy and Sasha. They saw lots of wildlife- muskox, caribou, ptarmigan, porcupine, and grizzlies. They even had one encounter with a sow and older cubs that was a little too close for comfort. Luckily Jezzy and Sasha rely on their noses and not their eyesight, so they never spotted the trio, and Derek was able to back away without causing a scene. With a couple mornings of snow and a constant 10-15 mph wind, it wasn't exactly a beach vacation, but that's never been Derek's style anyway. I can't wait to join him on the next adventure!

Summer with Dogs & Deer

The summer so far has been glorious! LOTS of sunshine. Warm temperatures. The animals sleep most of the day then get rowdy in the evenings when temperatures cool down. I try to take one to two groups of dogs on a walk each morning. While everyone gets along for the most part, there are a lot of different personalities, and so I do put some thought into which dogs will play best together. Dogs like Yoshi, Faff, Tobin, and Bowser are social butterflies and can romp with anyone. Otis, Maple, and Beesly get along with most anyone, but they like to sprint back to the kennel at the top of the driveway. While they normally don’t get into mischief upon their return to the kennel, I prefer everyone to stick close and arrive as a group. Oryx can be hot-tempered with other females, but her recall is the best in the kennel, so as long as other sassy females aren’t in her face, she does well. Etta is probably one of the most challenging. She behaves like an angel on the walks, but if she gets back before me, there’s a 90% chance that she’ll just run back to her house and a 10% chance that she’ll skip her way over to Oryx’s house (seriously…if dogs can gleefully skip with a sinister air, that’s what she’s doing) and try to pick a fight. Most of the dogs run immediately back to their spots and patiently wait for me to clip them into their tethers. Faff, however, thinks this is the time for zoomies and likes to sprint around the platforms, play bowing with anyone who will engage in her antics. After a few laps she normally comes to her house to signal she’s ready to be clipped in. So many personalities!

I tried my best to upload a video, but I couldn’t get it to be embedded in the post. Here’s the Youtube link should you be interested!

https://youtube.com/shorts/yCDe4qvFcCY

We also took Sailor and Pilot on their first ever camp out! The reindeer were AMAZING. We did stop a lot for snacks along the way, but when the world is literally covered in delicious treats, how can you blame them?

Spring

Phew! After a whirlwind of a month, the 2021-2022 winter season has drawn to a close. Excitement didn’t end with the Iditarod. The fun continued with two weeks of women’s retreats, a trip up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Simon & Mandy’s wedding, and… baby Ike, Peep’s calf!

Ike was born just two days ago, and within 12 hours he was romping around the pen chasing his new herd mates. Incredible! We’re now impatiently waiting for Sappho to have her calf.

Immediately following Iditarod were the women’s retreats. The Women’s Retreats are some of my favorite trips. This is partially due to the beautiful scenery and spending two relaxing weeks with the dogs (and many favorite human friends who are also guides), but one of the biggest reasons that I love these trips is the women who participate. Many of the women are solo travelers, leaving their families to go to Alaska and try a completely new activity. Talk about a leap of faith! These trips are filled with women who aren’t afraid to step out of their comfort zone, or rather, maybe they are afraid but they do it anyway. There are so many incredible women- pilots, birders, ballroom dancers, ultra-marathoners, women who have summited Denali, dolphin trainers, mothers leaving their kids for the first time- but what is most inspirational is not necessarily their accomplishments, but the willingness to try something new. To take the step away from their routines, join a group of women they’ve never met, and embark on 7-days in the Alaska Range. Or as Beth would say “I didn’t know I could do that!” then immediately signing up for the new adventure. You get a bunch of ladies together who eagerly sign up to try something new, and you know it’s going to be a good time.

One fun story from the trips occurred during the first week. Moose have been very confrontational this winter due to the deep snow and challenging conditions. As a safety precaution, we had two guides (May Rose and Mollie) on snowmachines to travel in front and be a moose buffer. While the moose have been known to charge snowmachines, they especially hate dog teams, associating the dogs with wolves. Rather than running off the trail into the deep snow (where a wolf would have an advantage) the moose will hold their ground on the trail and run through a team if they feel too threatened. Sure enough, we encountered a particularly ornery moose the second day. Armed with an airhorn and firearms, May and Paige on snowmachines (Mollie was running Paige’s dog team) formed a buffer, gently encouraging a cow moose to not come our direction but instead take a trail off the main highway. Two snowmachiners came from the opposite direction, pinning the poor moose between our group and the arriving snowmachines. The moose turned and ran back towards us, but a warning blast from the airhorn and a warning shot in the air convinced the moose to keep her distance. The two snowmachiners who were traveling in the opposite direction motored off the highway and looped around the moose so that the moose was no longer sandwiched. She was still stressed and confused, so we waited for her to consider all her options and hopefully make the right decision. In the meantime, another family on snowmachines came up behind us. They passed our dog teams and pulled up next to May and Paige. Picture this, seven teams of five dogs. Two snowmachines staggered defensively at the front. May Rose, wearing a pink tutu and pink parka, a shotgun propped on her thigh as she eyed a grumpy moose. A grumpy moose, staring us down, trying to decide what it should do. The snowmachiner inquired about the situation and considered his options. His group didn’t have snowmachines that could easily go off trail (the snow was very deep), but they also admitted that they had no protection against moose either. Upon hearing this information, May, in her pink tutu and pink parka, shotgun propped on her thigh looks at the guy and goes- “you don’t have a gun?” I’d wager he’ll have that image stuck in his brain for years to come!

And not to worry, after a two hour standoff, the ornery moose found a good place to get off the Highway, and we had no more moose encounters the rest of our trips!

Shortly after the women’s retreats, we headed north to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I know I just said the women’s retreats are some of my favorite trips, and well, so is our annual trip North! We saw caribou and ptarmigan galore, a wolf, eagles, two musk ox sparring, and even bear tracks! Kalyn harvested their first caribou. Smoky led us through extreme conditions and was a total rockstar. For the most part, we were spoiled in every way possible. It wasn’t until the very last night that the wind picked up, and we were awoken at 5:30 AM by our tent with four people and heavy woodstove being blown across the tundra. I guess that means it’s time to go! Good people, great dogs, breathtaking views- it was the PERFECT way to end the season.

Wakey wakey

Iditarod 2022- post by Ryne

Well… that sure didn’t go how I planned. I’d say there are a fair number of 2022 Iditarod mushers who would say the same thing. Mother Nature combined with luck (or lack thereof) threw some curve balls this race, and for the RK team, we called it at 300 miles in McGrath. The standard press releases always say- for the welfare of the team- and honestly that’s the exact reason. I entered the race confident and excited, accompanied by more or less the same team (if not better) as our 2021 Iditarod team when we finished in 18th with 12 dogs. The dogs were well-conditioned and healthy. I had a brand new sled built under the expert supervision of Allen Moore. We had new gear (leggings and fox tails) sewn by Kalyn. The team was fired up. We were ready to rock!

But unfortunately it was just one of those years. It started with Oryx tripping going down the infamous Happy River Steps and straining her tricep. Then Dracula developed a swollen wrist. The run between Rohn and Nikolai was filled with first 30 miles of no snow then 40 miles of extreme moguls, jerking the dogs backwards as my sled bobbed up and down the moguls like a boat in waves. By Nikolai, I knew that my only hope was putting in some serious time massaging and resting to see if the small issues would go away, so we opted to take an un-planned 24-hour rest in Nikolai. Yoshi’s sore feet and hamstrings weren’t 100% by the end of our 24-hour rest, so Yoshi stayed in Nikolai. After a very slow run through a blizzard to McGrath, Faff and Sherlock were added to the list of returned dogs. I’d like to mention that 4 of the 5 returned dogs had never been dropped before in a race, and all except Sherlock had finished at least one (and up to three) one-thousand mile races. It just didn’t make sense.

At 300-miles, we were already down to a team of nine dogs, and it wasn’t nine dogs without their own issues. In reality, only about seven of the team were 100%. I stayed 24 hours, thinking that maybe we could still move forward, but after another long break, it was apparent that a 1000-mile run just wasn’t in the cards for us this year. Why? I have no idea. I’m inclined to think heat and hard trail are the culprits. I never once put my parka on during the 300-miles, which is astonishing. The trail was also hard-packed, and we’ve only run in soft conditions all winter. Yet other teams ran through these same conditions and continued on, so I’m at a little bit of a loss as to the cause. We can’t blame lack of rest because over the 300 miles (not counting our time in Mcgrath), we took 45 hours of rest. For comparison, a normal Copper Basin 300 is 18 hours.

I honestly just don’t know. But what I do know, is that the decision to scratch was the right decision. All the dogs are happy and healthy. The injuries that cropped up on the race were not major, and each dog just needed a few days to re-coup. We’re all back and running and gearing up for the multi-day trips starting on Thursday. Honestly probably the only lingering effect is the damage to my pride, but well, I’m getting over that pretty quickly too. And actually, probably the hardest part is knowing that so many people have helped us get to the starting line- sponsors, family, friends. We’ve had a badass crew this year of Simon, Tucker, Mandy, Kalyn, Derek, and I all helping in some way to get this team to the starting line. Tyler and Kelsey were providing in-home, super care for the dropped dogs. So many people have supported us financially and by following along. So that decision to scratch didn’t just impact a team of 9 dogs and one musher. It was a team of 9 dogs and so many amazing people (all of you) who were scratching. But I guess that’s what makes the Ryno Kennel team special, is that I knew it’s a team of people who care about the dogs and know that even though it would be disappointing to call it quits at 300 miles, the decision wouldn’t be questioned. We’re in it for the dogs. So thank you to everyone for supporting us and our decision. I feel very lucky to be surrounded (both in person and virtually) by so many incredible people and dogs.

Some photos by Whitney McLaren. Yes that’s Wingman and Dolly playing. They were both 100% and wondering why we were resting so much.

Iditarod Update 8/11/22

Hard races are inevitable. While we don’t know all of the details of Ryne’s race, we do know that she’s an extremely respected musher within the world of sled dogs. That’s because her dogs’ physical and mental health take priority over competition, and yet, she’s still a contender. Ryne’s decision to scratch from the race at the McGrath checkpoint represents that truth. 

Before I came to the Ryno Kennel, I’d been talked at by men with experience running and racing dogs. Talk based around a big question: “How do you get a dog to pull a sled when it doesn’t feel like it?” The answers to this question are why there is so much controversy surrounding the sport of mushing. 

As I’ve mentioned before on the blog, my first job at the Ryno Kennel was to take dogs on a walk — untethered, joyful dogs, running off-trail through the woods. This was Ryne’s indirect answer to that controversial question. If a dog doesn’t feel like pulling a sled, then it’s just a dog, and we should do our best to make sure it’s a happy one. 

From what Ryne’s told us about the race, the dogs were more than ready to keep moving down the trail at every checkpoint, regardless of any aches or pains they felt. If you’ve ever been around sled dogs that want to get going, you know how hard it is to keep them waiting. When Ryne decided to scratch, she was looking at a team of happy dogs, but what was best for their physical health was for them to come home. With responsible racing, that’s just the way it goes.

Happy dogs: Sherlock, Dracula, Oryx, and Faff all enjoying their well earned rest at Tyler and Kelsey’s house. Belle has rights to the couch as an old Ryno Kennel retiree.

Good girl, Faffers.

Iditarod Update: Day 4

Ryne decided to take her 24hr rest in Nikolai, which is where we signed off in yesterday’s blog update. We’ve heard that the trail out of Rohn was some of the worst mushers have seen — jarring ruts and moguls in the trail from all of the freeze-thaw cycles this season. 

With less trail news, we’ll take the opportunity to extend a big Thank You to everyone who is tuning in and cheering for Ryne and the dogs. 

We’d like to give a special shout-out to the people and businesses that have helped make running the race possible.

Feniks and Company LLC

Bema Electronics

Two Rivers Outpost 

AlaSkins @alaskins907 

Chena Valley Development

Orion’s Belt School of Self Defense

Tailspin Media

Big Dans Trucking

Chena Outdoor Collective @chenaoutdoorco

Rick and Sue Patton

All of the individual dog sponsors!

We definitely need to thank Tyler and Kelsey in Anchorage for taking care of any of the Ryno crew dogs who have to leave the race early. Right now Oryx is enjoying a well deserved vacation with them. We’ll let you know about Dracula’s arrival as soon as we get word.

Oryx enjoying her time with Tyler.

All of the encouragement we’re receiving as a kennel is being used well, from the motivation Ryne feels on the trail to the work back home, even to these social media updates. So thank you everyone for reaching out!

Back home at the kennel in Two Rivers we’ve all taken a day off from tours. Yet another layer of gentle snow is settling in, odd-jobs are getting tinkered with, dogs are having their walks, naps are being had.

When Dwight comes back from a walk he will wait at the cabin door and refuse to be lured near the dog yard. For a big doofus, he’s frustratingly smart. He gets a lot of cabin naps.

Iditarod Update: Day 3

It’s day 3 on the Iditarod trail!

Here’s a look at Ryne’s latest statistics:

I’ll narrate this graph as best as I can with what we know. As a reminder for those like myself who are terrible at understanding graphic representations: When the green line  (moving speed) goes flat, Ryne-and-team are resting. That dark blue line, that’s the elevation. We can see the time and date by looking at the top of the graph but it’s in military time so that might as well be hieroglyphics or worse, math. 

After resting from 3-8pm on the 7th, Ryne left the Rainy Pass checkpoint. The dark blue line that peaks near midnight (00:00hrs) of March 7th represents Ryne’s climb up the actual Pass. 

Ryne messaged us last night saying that Oryx slipped going down the Happy River Steps and needed a bit more time to recover. So she left Oryx in the care of the vet team at the Rainy Pass checkpoint.
Having climbed the Pass, the team arrived in Rohn around 12:30am, 8/8. After a 4 hour rest they headed down the trail.

Ryne left Dracula with the vet team in Rohn. We’re not sure exactly why, but we’ll update you if we get anymore information. Likely a sore wrist that she couldn’t work out. 

It wouldn’t be the “Last Great Race” if there weren’t some godawful parts to it. After Rohn, the team ran through what’s called “The Burn”, which is notorious for having little to no snow. We know that Ryne had to fight with some runner plastic after making it through. 

After leaving Rohn we can see that the team ran for about 4 hours, rested on trail for 4 hours, and then took off again until around 6pm tonight when they reached the Nikolai checkpoint. 

Right now they’re resting in Nikolai. They’re 263 miles into the race. With the amount of time Ryne has dedicated to taking care of the dogs, the team has been getting a lot of relative rest, and so when they’ve been moving, they move fast! 

Everyone at the RynoKennel is getting telegraphic updates from Ryne throughout the night and day when she has time to message us during her rests. The best one in the last 24 hours is simple and sweet: “Otis and Sherlock are really happy.”

Iditarod Update: Day 2

After seeing Ryne off from the start line yesterday, we packed up and were already on the road by 4pm. The sky was clear, roads were good, and we boogied on home with a view of Denali that Derek said is one of the best he’s seen. When we made it back to Fairbanks around 9pm, we checked on Ryne’s GPS tracker to see that she was resting the dogs at the 67 mile mark. 

This morning, 20hrs into the race, Ryne sent us some updates from her Garmin InReach before taking off from her second rest:

“Dogs all looking good. A few minor issues but hoping we can work through them. Trail was very hard and fast.

Trail is softer now which is nice. Perfect weather. Dogs did well in the heat surprisingly.

They did pop my hook at the first camp and my parka fell off my sled. I couldn't stop them and had to unhook tugs to go back get it.”

Knowing the dogs that she has with her, and knowing that they’re still looking good, we’re assuming that the “minor issues” are a sore wrist or two — meaning that Ryne is having to spend some extra time wrapping and tending to the dogs. Like Ryne says, sore wrists are something that dogs can work through as long as they’re being taken good care of and watched closely by their musher. We all know they are!

We can also assume that Sherlock is to blame for popping Ryne’s hook. This is Sherlock’s first 1000 mile race. Here’s to hoping that he keeps that hook-popping energy through the whole thing. Knowing Sherlock, that’s a very real possibility.

Almost 24 hrs into the race, Ryne is at mile 140 in 27th place and climbing up to the next checkpoint at Rainy Pass. 

Here’s a visual lay-out of her statistics:

Translating the graph into its basics: When the green line (speed in mph) goes flat, the team is resting. When the team has been moving they’ve been averaging around 8mph (light blue line). As they keep climbing up to Rainy Pass (the highest elevation of the race, indicated by the dark blue elevation line) that average moving speed will decrease a little, but with all the dogs being fresh, it might not be by too much. The purple line is her average speed overall.

Kalyn and I (Tucker) will be keeping the blog and Facebook updated every day with race news as it comes in, so stay tuned!

And they're off!

Well, it’s official.

The 50th running of the Iditarod has started. Welcome to the 2022 race trail!!

Ryno team left the starting chute in Willow at 3:06pm March 6th, 2022. Here’s our starting lineup for the Ryno crew. 

Etta Thresher

Dolly Elmer

Tobin Faff

Dracula Smoky 

Oryx Wingman 

Otis Sherlock

Mario Yoshi

It was a balmy 36 degrees and sunny in Willow at the start today! We hope it cools down a bit for our pals on the trail.  The sled dogs tend to enjoy temps hovering around -10 to -20 degrees, so Ryne will likely be keeping the dogs a bit slower until temps begin to cool down. 

The team is on their way to Yentna Station Roadhouse - mile 53 of 1000 miles!

We’ll update with blog posts as often as we can. If you’re interested in following along on the gps tracker, head on over to Iditarod.com to snag your Insider pass. 

Go bib #35! Safe travels. 

IDITAROD TIME IS HERE!

And just like that I blinked and the Iditarod is just a few days away! This morning is my last normal morning for several weeks. Tomorrow I’ll be headed to Anchorage for a Covid-test and the virtual musher meeting. Fifteen athletes (yes I can’t decide yet), Derek, Tucker, Simon, Jezzy, and Sasha will be leaving Friday morning to drive down to Anchorage. Mandy and Kalyn will be staying at the kennel to take care of all the critters left home and to keep running tours at Chena Outdoor Collective.

So who are the final 15?! There are a couple who just might surprise you!

Bullsh*t- by Tucker

Note by Ryne- the following blog is humorous and real; however, I would call this a R rated blog post for profanity. It is not intended for all audiences. It is also quite raw.

Like toddlers picking up a sickness from daycare, dogs can pick up bugs from other teams on a race. While we try our best to manage it with vaccinations, probiotics, and psyllium, occasionally dogs bring the germs home after a race and share it with the rest of the kennel. This is a story of the nasty little bug that followed us home after the Quest 200.

Bullsh*t- by Tucker

Maybe a less commonly known side effect of several kennels coming together for a race is that the dogs occasionally pick up a bug. With the longer races it can happen while the race is still ongoing and, if it’s bad enough, can cause mushers to scratch. A general sickness manifests often as liquid crap.

In the dog yard it can be a bit of a nuisance. Mainly because dogs don’t just shit still, a lot tend to waddle around. But being the experts that we are at shoveling shit, it’s actually not so bad. A person can become quite adept and accurate at flinging all types of turds into a bucket, frozen puddles of diarrhea included. Still, there are mornings where the phrase “holy shit” echoes out into the frigid air and sanctifies some of the dog circles. Such have been many mornings after Simon’s Yukon Quest. That busy little bug is still making rounds now. 

Wombat and Dwight taking up the couch. Bull napping on the floor.

I usually bring two dogs from the yard into my cabin at night. A giant yearling with extraordinarily poor proprioception, named Dwight, and a gentle, cock-eared 4-year-old named Bull. We’re all learning how to have inside manners together. The other night, Dwight earned himself a night in the dog yard by galavanting while simultaneously crapping liquid when we were on a ski. As I unhooked Bull, I looked over to Dwight: “Sorry buddy, but you’re covered in poop. It’s a warm night. You’ll be ok.” — A balmy 10F. 

My girlfriend, Sam, was over with her own dog, Gibbs. Three dogs in the cabin for the night, nothing unusual. 

5:30AM, Valentine's Day, my day off. The sound of a pacing dog is followed by the sound of a urinating dog. 

“Ah yes, it’s always lovely to wake up to the sound of urination,” I say. This is not our first rodeo. 

I begin to get out of bed when Sam shines a light onto the situation. 

“Holy. Shit,” she consecrates. 

I blink and look out, “That’s not urination.”

It is very calm in the beginning moments. We are assessing a situation of proportions here: In a valiant effort to be a good dog, Bull began at the back door of the cabin. But he didn’t shit still. Floodgates wide open he figured he should maybe try for the front door. When that didn’t work he circled the coffee table, splattering all the way. There is hardly dry land left. It is the Brown Lake.

Step 1: Catch the dogs. Sam already has Gibbs by the collar. Gibbs, a 7-month-old wild-woman, is not happy to be restricted. There’s an exciting thing happening and it smells sanctifyingly, god awful. It smells like if there were a fan around somewhere shit definitely hit it. 

Step 2: Open a goddamn door, quickly. 

But wait. 

My own darling dog, Charlotte, came to me as a puppy with the name Harlot. “Because she loves everybody,” the cowboy who gave her to me said. Right now, she’s in the full swing of heat and proving him right. Charlotte has chosen Wingman in the dog yard to be the father of her first litter. Wingman has graciously accepted this offer. It is forbidden love. At this point, preventing the magnetism between them requires physical restraint. I think it was Romeo who said, “It is the east, and Wingman is the sun.” And as I shove open the frozen door to the morning darkness, the sun is out for Charlotte. I have her by the collar as she tries to scramble out, quoting more Shakespeare, “But father! My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep!” 

All the dogs are doing their best to try and step in as much shit as possible.

“Bull! Bull. Come here, buddy. Come on. It’s ok” — He’s a little nervous because I said his name too sharply and he’s a sensitive guy.

I snag him by the collar, get him out the door, and shut it. 

The stench. 

I open the door back up. 

Bull is standing right there. “Tucker,” he says, “it’s -30F out, let me back in.”

“Sorry,” I say, and close the door on him. 

I hopscotch my way over to the window with the thermometer outside of it. I scratch off a layer of ice in order to see out. Bull isn’t lying, it’s -30F. Even with the doors closed the cabin is cold enough that the poop puddles have begun to freeze on the floor. 

Gibbs is now in a crate, begging us to let her out so she can help. Crying and pawing, she is insistent that she will be a good helper. Charlotte is looking forlorn after being sternly told to stay put on the bed. 

Take a deep breath, gag.

I start boiling water in whatever I can find, it’s clear we’ll need a lot.

Here, I originally wrote a beautifully descriptive paragraph. It went into great, poetic detail on the cleaning process of the cabin. But when I finished writing and re-read it, I realized that it might be a little much for me to liken a portion of Bull’s bowel trouble to the type of chili slop a lunch lady would dump on your plate. You know, that kind of chili slop that hasn’t been stirred enough? That kind with a questionable, semi-solid mass in the middle of it — like something might have fallen into the chili pot a long time ago and is in the process of dissolving, or maybe even coming alive. And I figured I could spare the detail that picking up such a semi-solid mass with anything but a spoon inside of a chili bowl is nearly impossible on account of how slippery it is and that when you inevitably drop said slippery mass it makes a noise that has the  physical power to literally punch you in the stomach. I also thought no one really wanted to know that when I grabbed the first pot of hot water to pour onto the freezing puddles of crap, I didn’t take into account the residual cheesy potato meal it had in it from the night before. And that as I poured the steam rose, just wafted right up into our faces. And we watched as the particulate vapor of cooked dog diarrhea  — mixed with a flavor of cheesy potato and spicy sausage — fumigated everything around it. As it turns out, you can witness smell. 

Then we cleaned it and it was all very romantic. The end — at least that should be the end.

Since I hadn't been out to the yard on my day off, I texted the group later that night: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how liquid is Bull’s poop?”

Ryne responded with a joke about Bull-shit. 

Simon sent me a video of soft-serve ice cream.

“I can deal with soft-serve ice cream,” I thought. “Plus, I’ll just wake up when he starts pacing like last time and I’ll let him out. No problem.” 

Well, just as you can witness smell, it also turns out that you can smell hindsight.