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.

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

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.

The Family that Preys Together...

Sandia's Aunt Camille ...and himself.

UPDATE 1/23/08: Some people thought that Sandia caught a second jack. Would that that were true! I just remembered this picture of Camille from a TCC hunt two years ago, (which also appeared in the Performance Sighthound Journal article on the Galgo), and how Sandia looked so similar with his jack. I wanted to put the two together. That's all.