The reason for the title is that two people wrote to wonder why I hadn't been posting. Worried that something might have been wrong. In short, its because nothing is happening that I consider interesting.
It has been cold! Most nights have been below zero. The coldest so far had been -11. We also had about 2 inches of snow with it. I have been keeping Hope in the Shop, and at least a couple of the days I didn't even put her outside, much less think about hunting.
I've kept snapping pictures of the various Sunrises for you.
even the dullest is worth seeing.
This one was -11 degrees.
Yesterday we had to go to town for a 2:30 Appointment. Man what a nightmare. It was 40 degrees in Jordan Valley and in the Treasure Valley with the inversion it was 19 degrees, and raining. It was 40 degrees above the inversion and the moisture was falling as rain. We managed to get back by 8 PM. Eleven hours of nerves on edge. The idiots were driving bumper to bumper at 65 MPH, with rain falling on 19 degree pavement. There were plenty of accidents, but we weren't one of them.
I went out to the hot tub to try to get some of the kinks out and was serenaded by either a Bob Cat or a Cougar in heat down on the other side of the creek. What ever it was it was far enough away that I could not see any eye shine with my spot light. I compared the calls online and either one could have been making the calls. I didn't stay in the hot tub all that long.
I weighed Hope when I got back last night and she was tipping the scales at 1000 grams, so I decided that if the weather stayed close to freezing I would take her out and we would give it a try.
This afternoon she weighed 987 grams and we trundled on down to Richard's place on the Whitehorse road about 25 miles South. Unfortunately the wind had come up and the temp was 29 degrees. The air was nicely clear and sharp so I took some views of the Steen's from a couple of different areas.
These two are from my driveway.
A couple Feral Horses grazing along the Hwy.
These are from the White Horse Road.
This one shows a well in the foreground with
Coyote Lake in the Back ground.
Hope, even at 987 grams is perfectly willing to try to catch Jacks, I just don't think that she is able to twist and turn as she would be at a lower weight. I assume that she would be able to survive the cold temps at a lower weight, but unfortunately I was over zealous in her feeding as usual. She tried her best on each and every Jack that she saw. She pulled hair from at least one of them. She had flown after a Jack that she missed and was sitting on a Sage Bush trying to find where the one she had chased had gone. She was slow to return to the perch, and was intently looking at this one bush. Finally she decided that there was something there. However she wasn't all that sure. She dove into the bush, the Jack that was actually there, jumped about three feet in the air over her head when she crashed into the ground where he had been. I am sure she did not find it nearly as funny as I did.
We hunted for about a hour or more, and I could see that she was getting pretty cold, so we went back to the car and on home.
With Antelope the Bucks have a black band under their chin.
On the way out a really large group of Antelope
ran up the valley towards the ranch. I guessed the herd at about 100 animals.
When I arrived back at the house I gave her a Jack front leg to hold her over night. If the weather stays near zero, we will go out again.
The weather here in this part of Oregon improves drastically by mid January. When it does I intend to hunt her as long as I can this year. I am not going to get all that excited until the weather moderates.
