Thanksgiving

The weather until yesterday has been quite windy, with storms all over the states. We were finally able to do a bit of Hawking with Jessie. I have discovered that the Ducks land on the lake to rest during the middle of the day. The Lake of course is the artesian spring that forms Crooked Creek. Its a bit difficult to get to due to a boggy piece of bottom land that you have to drive through or around. I had not felt that it was wise to try it until Monday. We got there at 1:30 PM. We had walked to a point just out of sight of the lake.  I was just getting ready to release Jessie, when the Ducks all lifted off the pond without any noticeable cause. I couldn't believe it! Since our options had just gone to nothing, I decided to go ahead and turn her loose in the possibility that one or two might have decided to stay for a bit.

Jessie climbed so high that I had trouble finding her. I guess I am not used to looking in that section of the sky. Once she got in position, we started over the hill only to find that the only thing left was Coots, which was not going to lift off the pond no matter what. I ended up calling her to the lure, and feeding her.

Tuesday was crap, with the wind howling like it can do here, so we went back to the Kite. I ran it up to about 500 feet and she worked her way up to it, in spite of the wind. It was good exercise if nothing else.

Wednesday all the storms blew out. I had a pair of new headphones for my plane to try out, so a test and recon was in order. The headphones worked really well, but I was very surprised to find that there were no Ducks at all on any of the ponds, the Creek or the lake.

This morning dawned with storm clouds, quite warm - 51 degrees- very little wind, so a flight was again in order. I was surprised to find that a new bunch of Ducks had come in overnight. The little pond that I really like was thawed out and full of Ducks.

I went to the Lake to check and found that my Coots were still there, but there was nothing else, so it was the pond.

I hustled back to the house and convinced Karen to come help me. I had to agree to vacuum the house when we go back just to get her to help, but she agreed. Its sad what one has to do just to get some help doing important things.

We loaded on up and headed over to the Ranch. A picture of the Steen's is a necessity of course.

The field where the little pond is, also is a feed lot for yearlings. The pond is in the far rear corner of that lot. There are feed bunks in about the middle. Karen and I walked up the road past the yearlings. Once we were safely past the heifers, I began to walk toward the back side of the pond, so that I could flush the Ducks away from the water.

I am sure that most of you have never had the odious chore of dealing with cattle. Cows have an inborn ability to foresee what you want them to do, and thus decide what course of action they can take to circumvent that outcome. I suppose it is some inborn instinct to combat predators, which of course is the way that you are viewed from a cow's perspective.

Well these critters decided that the best course they could take to accomplish that task was to run to the far corner of the lot. The fact that they had to run from behind me in a large and very noisy group to get around me and take refuge behind the pond, caused no hesitation on their part. The Ducks not wanting to be caught in the stampede, of course took off in mass to go to a quieter part of the ranch. There I was again, standing on the lip of a suddenly empty pond with a hawk on my fist.

I was considering crossing into the next field to go where they had set down in another little puddle.

Then I would have a whole new set of complications as you can see looking at me from across the fence.

At that time I got close enough to the pond to see that a Mallard Drake and hen had elected to stay in the pond. What the heck, perhaps this will still work. I turned Jessie loose and she started circling the pond. I decide to rush it, and at the same time the heifers saw Karen and turned back in my direction again in mass and in full stampede mode. Jessie was smart enough to know that if she grabbed one of the ducks, she would be right in the middle of a stampede. She wisely declined. I called her down to the lure.

Apparently from my posture, dejection is still the main emotion present here.

They say some days are diamonds, this one was Bullshit! courtesy of the heifers.