Dec 12th and 13th- #29

The sunrise and sunset on the 12th was pretty good. The lovely skies are a little more scarce in the winter, so they are worth recording and sharing when they occur.

The Sun just peeking over the Idaho Mtns.

We had to go in to Burns today to straighten up a problem with my drivers license, and it appeared that the Steen's is getting a bit of weather.

                                             Then of course the Sunset that evening was just as interesting.

I case you hadn't noticed, the skull is that of a wild pig that I found in N Nev.

The horns are a pair that I found by the Prairie nest where I got Leezard.

Tuesday the 13th

The temps were to drop below 20 last night so Hope got to spend the night inside. It was my intention to go hunting by about 11 AM to beat the storm that is forecast for later tonight. We are under a "Storm Warning" for tonight and tomorrow. We will see. I am sure that it will be pretty nasty around us, just not sure how much it will affect us.

It was my intention to get out around 11 AM as it would be the warmest and the least amount of wind, according to the forecast. I went out around 10 to do the morning chores and found that there was no water at the chicken pen. When I came in the house I also found that there was none in the house either. I turned on the cool room light to see what was going on and there was no power to the pump. I checked the breakers in the house and they all seemed OK. After getting an electrician headed out from Burns, I checked the output on the house breakers and all seemed to be in working order. I finally discovered that the power to the cool room is connected to a breaker in the Hangar, and it was faulty. Another one of the joys of a house built by amateurs. The cool room is connected to the house underneath the porch, but the power comes to it underground from the hangar. Any way, the power was back on, we had water, so I could go hawking.

I am still looking for somewhere to hunt here close to the house. I had been told that the well head a bit further down South was reputed to have a population of Jacks hanging out there. I had been putting off trying it for some time, but decided that today would be the day to find out.

I went down there and walked with Hope in a circle about a 1/4 mile across, and managed to jump two Jacks. Both of which eluded Hope. She got up at least three times on each of them, but they made their escape. I loaded Hope back in the car, and came back to Crooked Creek and tried the other side of the Creek. I saw one Jack. I loaded her up again and went to the "dump field" where I had entered her and had found so many rabbits.

When I got the the field there was a fairly large group of Cows in there. I drove past them in an attempt to not disturb or be disturbed by them. I have come to the conclusion that Cows have a guilty conscience. They just know that your only purpose in life is to mess with them, and the only way to combat that is to get in front of you and run like hell. Of course right where you don't want them to go.

I stopped the car when I was far enough past them that they had decided to run the other way. As I got out and was walking to the back of the car, a Jack got up in front of me and ran into the field. A good sign for a change.

I got Hope out and we were able to get him up again, but he snookered her, getting away and running towards the Cows.

I walked at least 1/2 mile down the creek without jumping another rabbit. Hope was getting so desperate that she was flying to the bushes with rabbit forms in them and poking around trying to find anything to chase. I walked all the way to the end without finding anything.  I turned around deciding that we probably were going home empty handed, and headed back to the car. I was trying to think where I was going to try next.

I was walking at the edge of the Sage, and looking over I saw what I took to be a pile of horse crap that had dried out. The only thing was that it was under a bush and didn't appear to have been able to fall there naturally. I stopped and took two steps in that direction when the Jack jumped and took off. So did Hope and she caught him in short order.

I ran up and decided to take a picture since she had him in the shoulder and he couldn't get up.

This is a rather convoluted grab on her part, and I hurried to help her. He managed to pull her foot out of his side and the rodeo was on. after 4 of my attempts to grab him in several of the bushes, covering about 20 feet. She was down to only the ankle joint on one hind leg. He made the mistake of trying to scrape her off on a bush, and I was finally able to corral him. I put him out of his misery and sat back to recover.

Hope ate her tidbits and I gave her a front leg off her last kill. She retired to eat it, while I bagged the rabbit.

At the top of the picture you can see my T perch. I am standing where the chase ended. I will not longer take any pictures of a live rabbit. Lesson learned.