Saturday, February 02, 2008

Friday, February 01, 2008

Kin.

Got an email this morning from Steve Garth, who has Sandia's sister, Maya. He included pictures that he said I could share... so below, is Maya.
She looks very much like Sandia. Looking a little bit different, because he's smooth-coated, is brother Zuni...
He also seems to be not as long in the body as Sandia and Maya.
One trait they share in common, is the willingness to get it on after Mr. Jack! That's "trainer" Wiz, the Saluki, in the middle.
We're hoping to get together with all these guys in a couple of weeks. What fun!
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Life Comes At You Fast...

..at least here in New Mexico. And I like fast stuff, so was enthralled by this news of a new "land speed record" out of Holloman Air Force Base. (and not just because the puppy's name is mentioned in the article!)

No indication if Amtrak is looking into the technology for getting the trains to run on time.

Oh Good. It's Not Just Me.

(Gilkey-Detroit Free Press Photo)

I've told fellow football fan friends often.. I really don't remember this guy's career at Michigan. I'm not alone.


Thursday, January 31, 2008

Unsafe in Any Decade.


Noooooooo!! No! A thousand times NO! Hasn't this asshole screwed up enough elections for two lifetimes? Please someone, put me out of my misery.. better yet, put him... wait, does he have Secret Service protection yet? I better let you all finish that particular sentence.
Not again.
Sob!

Gleaned from Google Ads.

Hope you all are checking out the Free Hog Hunt ad. I'm afraid my semi-dyslexic brain looks at that every time and sees "Tree Frog Hunt". MMMMmmmm-mmm, 30-40's my limit.

Every now and then something interesting pops up, up there. I saw this product advertised, but only briefly, the other day. Good thing I remembered the name of the business. This is a very interesting product. I'm trying to figure out if it's a product that would lend itself to Open Field Coursing. It's certainly less expensive than the California-made mechanical slips that most of the people are using now.

I'd like all my hunting friends to check it out and see what you think. It may need some modifications, but they wouldn't seem to be difficult. It would probably also be easy to modify for lure coursing. Check it out and send me some feedback.

Looking for dog food? Lots of ads for that up top, too. Help us out, and check them out.

Dad? Can We Go Hunting?

That's what he's saying. I don't need an animal communicator to figure that out. It's been four days.. the winds of the last two days (35, gusting to 50 and blowing lots of dust) has petered out, bringing in a cold front from the North. Perfect, to go out and chase a few.
As usual, Buffy used her scouting talents to jump all the hares today. She just doesn't have the endurance any more to stay in the race, (and the picture). I had Sandia on a slip lead for this one. I let him free course back to the car, and on the way back Buffy jumped one for him.. they disappeared across the road, but I did see Sandia jump one of his own on the way back. Just about the time we got to the car, we got another one up, but too far away. I actually called Sandia off of it. He's one smart puppy.

Today's Nature Shot: Horned Larks. This desert's thick with 'em.
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Not Politics. Aren't You Glad?

Getting back to dogs... think dogs don't know how to have fun?


We're in New Mexico... (well, I am, anyway) to avoid this crap, but damn! This looks like a blast!

HT Paula, my BFF ;^p

Monday, January 28, 2008

We Roll 'em Out, You Pick 'em.


Mysterious Traveler Entrances Town With Utopian Vision Of The Future

Listen. It beats the latest "State of the Union Address".

If you don't vote, don't bitch.

Election (1999)

Election year humor from your friends at Slate.com

Proof-readers Wanted

Have you stopped beating your wife?
The following confusing poll arrived today with our regular Trailer Life Directory Technical eNewsletter:
We Want to Know
Do plan to RV more or less in 2008
than you did in 2007?

Yes

No

Thank you

Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Rear End's the First to Go.

That's what they say, anyway. Here's more proof that Randir is a biological freak! Remember, this is an eleven and a half year old -male- Scottish Deerhound. And... he'd just had 4 or 5 (short) runs on jackrabbits prior to this leap.

Forgive the quality.. I shot this with the phone :)

Saturday, January 26, 2008

What Bulgarians Want.

Had our first visitor from Bulgaria yesterday. One of the fun features of SiteMeter is the ability to glean a lot of information from the visitors to the blog. This would include the search words they used on Google to end up with the old Hare-Brained Express 2008 on their search results.

I don't know what's more disturbing.. the search, or the fact that we had a post that was, at least on the surface, relevant.

I'm going to go out on a limb, and say this visitor is an old Soviet Bloc female Bulgarian Olympic weightlifter.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Making Great Dogfood.

Begin by having fast, agile, and long-winded hounds who can catch the second-fastest land mammal in America.

Then follow the steps in the slide show... (advisory: If you're used to getting your meat in a bag at a fast food drive-thru, or in the shrink-wrapped, styrofoam packages I mentioned previously, these images may not be your cup of tea)



For detailed step-by-step instructions, click on the slide show.

Must be a lot of tryptophan in jackrabbit. All the resident hounds have been sound asleep since dinner!

Milestone: The Best Ever.

I don't care if you don't agree with me. The greatest baseball radio play-by-play man- ever- turned 90 today. Don't believe me? Rent One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. What other baseball announcer could inspire a column like this one from the author of Tuesdays With Morrie?

A New, Completely "Natural" Feed From Nutro?

Well.... no. Of course not. But soon, since I couldn't find a procedure anywhere on the Internet for dressing out these guys, (and being someone who doesn't mind getting his meat in the magic shrinkwrap and styrofoam packaging), I decided to have an expert, none other than author, fisherman, houndman, M. H. Dutch Salmon, show me how it's done. And since I have a camera, and know how to use it... you all will learn how, too.

This fella's documented from the chase to the dog food dish. Next jack, I'll try out Steve Bodio's recipe... I'm thinking I'm going to like it. Dogs are already half out of their minds here, and it's still outside in the crockpot.

That's coming up in a future post. Hang in there.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Eight More Years!

This week's Onion story, plays on your sense of nostalgia. If this weren't deliberate satire, it would make a great true story. Dammit.

Chasing Jackrabbits Sure Makes Me Sleee...zzzzzzz


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Today's Feature: Fanny!

Posing nicely, here, with Cooke's Peak as a background. Last time we saw Fanny on these pages, she was chasing plastic, and looking damned good about it. This, however, is significantly more impressive:

Hard to believe this hare got away. But Fanny's going on 8, she's not 8 months old. She's running well enough to get entered in Dutch Salmon's Desert Hare Classic, though.

We started of with Fanny free coursing, and Sandia on a slip lead for the first time. He was in this course, but I held him up just a little too long, so he didn't make the pictures. They ran about a half mile, and both came back quickly.

Then we jumped one that was too far out.. Fanny took off anyway, but I held Sandia. The course took Fanny back towards the car, so I started walking that way with Sandia. I watched as Fannt flushed another on her way back... a very fuzzy, distant telephoto shot shows that she should have come back with tail fur in her mouth! She was soooo close all day.

Before Fanny made it back to us, we jumped one for Sandia to run on his own. There are some pictures, but this is Fanny's day. :) He disappeared over a ridge pretty quickly. There's a good sized valley, with lots of brush, so I knew he'd be back soon. And he was, just about the time Fanny got back, so I leashed them up, as they'd had enough work for one day... Fanny 3, Sandia 2, and it was starting to sprinkle.

As we left the field I saw my old friend, the Golden Eagle on a power pole. Magnificent creature!

Wow! A Record-Setting Day.


(click to enlarge)
You guys are awesome. You must really like Sandia. Or was it the old Deerhound? Whatever the motivation, yesterday set an all time record for visits to this site. 126 visits! Only a few weeks ago, the daily average was around 18-22. Do the math. The traffic increase seems to be connected to our westward movement into New Mexico. Hmmm.

And based on the new country counter we've put on the sidebar, we're actually getting readers from other coutries.. I mean other countries besides the Netherlands. ;-) South Africa? Bahrain? Austria? Yemen? Sweden? Argentina? Vietnam?...... Vietnam? (No, I don't have any children there trying to hunt me down... that I know of.) A quick check on SiteMeter shows that many of the visitors from these other countries... 30 different countries!, actually spend time here, and read stuff. Others, for whatever deviant reasons, get here from Google searches that take them to the screwing deer photo I used in a previous post. Many others come here from Patrick's blog, or Steve Bodio's Querencia, which is odd, since he doesn't have a link to us there.

Anyway... thanks for visiting. I'll try to make it worth your while to keep coming back. For instance, I'm taking Sandia out again today, so we can beat the possible "wintry mix" that's coming tomorrow.