Through the slower months many of you, welllll a few, were after me to post something, possibly as a proof of life. Now things are happening so fast that I can't keep up. Some of them may have the potential to be worth posting.
Hawking season, at least in the beginning, can be pretty intense. Harry Prosise is training his falcon as well and she is about the same place in training as is my Bud. We are both trying to build strength and somehow convey that their place of pride is over our heads at a decent height. The following pictures depict how Harry is working with his falcon, Breezy.
I had been promising Connie that I would take her camping, but it seemed as though something got in the way every time. Now that the fall is upon us there was one last chance to fulfill my promise. Saturday the 25th was the last reasonable chance to fit that in. So I loaded the quad on the truck, then started piling stuff in what ever nook and cranny that I could find. Tents, water, cots, stoves and a rug for the ground in front of the tent.
The area around Coyote Lake, just 32 miles west of us, had had a bit of rain so the dust was at a minimum. We got there around 1300 and began setting up camp. As we worked it got warmer and warmer, eventually hitting 97 degrees. As the day wore on it began to cool and we went on a tour of the lake bed on the quad to further cool us down. We should have saved a bit of that heat to make up for the inadequate sleeping bags that I had tossed in.
We spent the evening watching the stars. There was not a sound to be heard that was not made by us.
I had brought a black light so that we could check out the Scorpions that were just thick in the Sand and Sage humps on the Lake bed. The biggest that we found was only about 2 inches long, and are apparently called "Desert Hairy Scorpions". We also found a lot of babies that were smaller than a dime in size. We were amazed at how many Scorpions we found. The black light made them easily visible from quite some distance. You can be sure that I checked carefully for any that might have come to visit us before I went to bed.
The next morning as soon as it was warm enough to get out of our bags, we loaded up and headed back home since I had to fly Bud sometime that day.
The two falcons are used to looking to the sky to see where the drone and their lure was to be found. However today I thought to take Bud to the hill between the house and the road to see what he would do. Of course by the time 2 PM, I could get back and get ready, the wind had come up to about 15 mph. Bud not knowing how to use the wind, seems to really dislike it and will not fly any higher than he absolutely has to. I didn't take the drone, but did take a Pigeon that I hoped would take him up and give him some exercise.
When I turned him loose he stayed below the top of the hill in an attempt to keep out of the strongest wind. I tossed the pigeon and they soon disappeared down in the valley between the hills. After about 15 minutes he came back at Sage brush high, and landed on the lure. Apparently the wind had made him a bit spooky and he attempted to take off with the lure, it snagged on a Sage that jerked it out of his feet. He did not come back after that. I went back to the house to get a telemetry receiver to see where he was. I could not get a signal, so I went back to the house and put up a drone in the thought that he would see it and come back to the house. It ran out of battery power after about 15 minutes and landed. I decided to put up the Kite, which would be able to stay up longer. All this time I did not get a signal that would tell me he was anywhere around. The wind by that time was so strong that the kite took a nose dive from about 200 feet and slammed into the ground, breaking the main beam of the kite.
By that time I decided that he would either come back home, or I would have an lot easier season that I had thought. Around 6 PM, 1800. Connie and I, sat down to dinner. When I finished I looked outside and there was Bud in the lawn examining a rather large brown dog turd that kinda resembled my lure. I gave him the real lure and picked him up.
Today was Hope's day to fly. We had gone to Arock and while she had about 7 chances at Jacks and Bunnies she could not catch any of them. Today I went over to the Pothole Field at the ranch to see if there was anything there. We jumped 4 Jacks of which Hope caught the last one. One mile and 7 tenths was our total distance walked.
This year is going to be a tough one, it seems that Jacks are still down a lot more than I would like. With the price of fuel (bless the Democratic party) shoe leather is going to have to substitute for gasoline.
