A Little Wound-Salt for Our Friends in Texas

Jessica Simpson Completes Elaborate Plan To Destroy Cowboys' Season

You half believe this is true, don't you?

:-p

City Slickers Beware!

So.. whatever happened to "truth in advertising"?

Day One.

As we pulled into the field north of Deming, I looked North and spied a couple of eagles. Young Goldens.. possibly the same two I posted pictures of on this blog a little over a year ago.

There were also dozens of Northern Harriers in the air.

We parked, got the dogs out and set off to find us a few jacks... Margaret walking student, Sandia, with Fanny and Buffy free coursing. We spotted 3 jacks during the course of our first mile. The girls saw none, as they were out of position.

About that time I saw something moving about 200 yards ahead of us. I thought it was a coyote, so we got the girls leashed up, because then I spotted a second... then a third... and suddenly I realized there was a whold herd, and they weren't 'yotes; they were wild pigs, and it was really a fortuitous that we had everybody leashed.

Except, as luck would have it, that's when we jumped the jack that everybody saw! Sandia is getting pretty excited about this stuff, and wants to be let go. Well, we were still pretty close to the pigs, so nobody got let go.

I decided the only way the girls were going to get something to chase was if we kept them on slips. Good thing, too, as Buffy almost dived headlong into this...

Judging from the way it's opened up it was either the eagles or a harrier that got him. We may have interrupted somebody's lunch. It gets worse. We'll be revisiting this unfortunate critter, but...

It was starting to get a little warm, and we decided to work our way toward the car, keeping the girls in the slips. We jumped one just to Margaret's left.. she slipped Fanny, I slipped Buffy, and poor Sandia could only stand and watch what turned out to be a short exercize run, as the jack lost them in some dense brush. We headed towards the car, and Fanny did, too. Buffy, however, remembered where she saw a jackrabbit that wouldn't elude her. Yeah... off she went, and it didn't matter that it was almost a thousand yards back the way we came.. she went right to it. I was yelling my head off, telling her, "NO!", and "Stop!", and other totally useless commands. As I approached her and her lunch, she did what she's done for years: Picked it up and trotted away from me. We repeated this exercize in frustration twice more, and I just decided, screw it! (or words to that effect), told her we were leaving, and headed back to the car. She looked up at me, and at least she didn't say "Goodbye", she just looked mildly perplexed.

I got to the car, we got the other dogs loaded, and we saw Buffy wandering around, not exactly coming, and not exactly going away. Basically, she was milking the moment for all the drama she could. But I had a secret: The magic green cow tripe treats.

Everyone in the car, we started to exit the field, but we had one more photo opportunity to go, as we watched a Harrier hunting. That yielded this dramatic shot of a descent to the ground in an attempt to nab a small, furry, creature. We thought she was successful, but no dice.

Here's looking at you kid.

Announcement.

Announcement 1: We have arrived in New Mexico! Back at Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming, and the good news is the goathead stickers that plagued us last winter in the field adjacent to the campground are pretty much gone, along with a great deal of the foliage. But there's enough cover in there to hide a lot of cottontails and jacks, and about a thousand Gambel's Quail, and other birds. I took Sandia out to see his first jacks. Took a while, but we were finally successful. I tried to video it with our new Fuji Z10 compact digital camera, (More about that in another post), with little success. But here it is...


It took me 3 or 4 viewings before I finally picked out the running jackrabbit. Good luck with that... :) Tomorrow we'll head out in earnest to some of our favorite fields.. Fanny will begin Sandia's training. Should have better video then.

Announcement 2: Pictures from the weekend trials in Hutto TX are now uploaded and available for viewing and purchase at our website.

Close, But No Cigar.

TCC, (The Coursing Conservancy), held its flagship event this past weekend at a location somewhere in a Southwestern state. We were interested in the results, because all of Sandia's relatives were entered. We figured any one of them would be a lock to win it all. We were wrong. So, congratulations to "Red".. (shown here running with Rally last February... the run where Rally's plantar ligament bit the dust). There was good news, though, as Sandia's mother, "Gogal" was second, and his Aunt "Camille" was third.

We're parked for the night in Fort Stockton, TX. Tomorrow, we'll finally be in New Mexico, and by Wednesday Sandia will finally see his first jackrabbit. And Randir will amaze me yet again. It's about damn time!

Salesman of the Year.

When Patriot's QB Tom Brady finally retires from football, and owns every major record, he should consider a career in sales. He sure sold this play against the Jaguars

Flying Fanny.

Holy cow! Where did that come from? I'm used to getting shots like this of Buffy, but I've never caught Fanny in this position. She's peaking at just the right time and will be in the best condition of her life when we hit New Mexico next week. Not bad for almost 8 years old. Jackrabbits better look out!