Winter keeps hanging on, Now its too late.

I have been waiting and hoping that the weather would moderate so that I could get out to do a bit more hunting. Its just not to be. We still have several inches of snow and ice on the ground.  Even if the weather turned nice enough to expose her to it, the ground either has to freeze or dry up enough that you could travel over it to get to a hawking spot, much less be able to walk on it.

The ground here is most likely different from any thing that you would know or experience. It is not used to much moisture at all. Most of the water runs off and if it ever gets soaked in, there is little bottom to it. I would have to stay on pavement or heavily graveled dirt roads if I didn't want to tear the roads up. Even if the weather cooperated it would take at least two or three weeks before I could safely get out into the back country. The Jacks will be in the middle of the breeding season by the end of Feb. Its time to except reality and give it up.

I also have another incentive to quit. When I went out to pick Hope up from her day perch I found this. A nice secondary was lying by her perch. Ah well, there is always next year. I had been cutting her back a bit, but not soon enough.We will try for a clean Molt, and plan to be ready about the middle of August.

If you recall early in the season she pulled the sheath off her little toe. There was some question of whether or not it would grow back. The answer is no!

All the areas around us are buried in snow. I think there is about 3 feet on the flat at Burns, for sure in Vale and Ontario, both about 100 miles North. It will make for a good water year, and they will probably be able to raft the Owyhee until the middle of June.

We escaped the wrath of Obama and still have our land. I guess he was too busy trying to screw Trump up to mess with us. Perhaps it was the hornets nest that he stirred up over the Bears Ears in Utah and the enlargement of another National Monument in the Oregon Siskiyou's. Whatever, I am just glad that he didn't screw this area up.

Things will quite likely be a little quieter here until the weather gets good enough to do some flying of the mechanical sort at least.