Nov 10

It has been stormy for the last week or so. As compensation, the Sunrises are pretty spectacular.
We are right at the bottom edge of a pretty good storm. The wind was due to come up at 10 AM according to the weather report. While I knew that it would eventually get bad enough that I wouldn't be able to fly, I have found that they are generally an hour or so early with their predictions. Hope had not flown for three days so we made our best time to the rabbit field.

I took a bit different course this morning to avoid being patterned by the Jacks. I also wanted to hunt a spot that I had not been visiting so that Karen could see and follow the hunt with the car. She of course can't keep up on foot, so this allows her to at least see whats happening.

We surprised a few Jacks that got up close, in fact so close that Hope overflew them on the first try, giving them a chance to escape. Quite frustrating for me, as I want to kill something and get back home so that I can fly "sweetie Pie" other wise known as Jessie.( More on her later.) Just as I was about to rejoin Karen in the other field, we jumped a Bunny and Hope burned him down quickly. If she flew Jacks with the same abandonment, she would kill the first one every time.

She was quite proud of this one, and I only heard one little squeak out of him. The Sage was better than waist high, and the flight was out a ways, so I had to search for her. She was apparently hoping that she could avoid me so that she could keep this one all to herself. Unfortunately for her I have been doing this for some time, and soon turned her up. I took four pictures, and I think the rabbit is only visible in one of them.

I fed her a front leg and my tidbits and worked my way to Karen and the car, which was still quite a way off. She chased a couple of Jacks while we were doing that, but couldn't make contact. The wind was beginning to come up, so we hurried back home so that I could fly Jessie.

The wind had risen to about 12 MPH when we got home, so I discarded the thought of using the Drone, and decided to just turn her loose, calling her down to the lure when she indicated that she was done flying. I swung the lure as one would in "Lure Flying", and was surprised to see that she was winded after only one or two passes. Unfortunately my assessment that she was indeed getting old is correct. If she were capable of hunting she would be in condition to fly hard within two weeks or less. I am afraid that we are indeed a pair of old used up hunters. Both crippling around trying to hold on to what we still have. At least neither of us has dementia yet. No second opinions needed.

The day after her leg climbing incident, ( by the way if you envision a linesman climbing a telephone pole, you will get an accurate idea of how she climbed my leg.) I flew her on the drone, and every thing went well, up until I walked up to her. She stood around a bit, reached down and picked up a small chunk of the quail leg, and promptly flew off. This time there was a transmitter on her leg, so I had a bit more security than before. I finished rolling up the line and walked back to the Hangar. She lit on top of the Hangar on the back side. I ignored her. Pretty soon she was peeking around the top trying to see if I was coming or not. When I ignored her, she then started strafing me trying to get me to offer her something. The tables were turned! She had flown off, but neglected to take her lunch, so she still needed me. I continued to ignore her and she began to try harder to get me to call her. Eventually I tossed a bare lure on the ground for her. Now, she knows as well as I do when a lure doesn't have food on it, and will ignore it, normally. Today she was't sure, so she landed on it and waited for me to pick her up. I did so, feeling rather childishly that I had showed her. I find her to be immensely entertaining and a bit frustrating at the same time.