Connie helped me line up the truck to connect the car trailer and we prepared to head out. Connie had put her cat in her car, and I, Tiger and the dogs in mine. Chili, her cat promptly stepped on the door lock, and of course the keys were in the car. It took about 30 minutes to unlock the car with the help of some wedges to pry the door open far enough to get a rod inside to open it up. I managed to not screw up the door, or maim said Cat, either while or after opening the door.
One of Connie's friends had left a bunch of stuff at her house, so we loaded it on the car trailer to take with us the next morning when we went to Salem. Upon arrival in Salem we unloaded that stuff at a friends house and then drove to Sandy and Scott's House and loaded the mews on the trailer ready for our departure the next morning. We made it back to Burns with no problem, and I left the trailer with all the material at Pat's house and came on home last night.
Hope was begging for food when I got home yesterday, but I decided to not feed her until today. She was hanging on the wire begging to go hunting this morning. I thought that she must be starved. When I weighed her she was 968 grams ( more than an ounce heavier than I prefer her to be when we hunt. She will generally try, just not hard enough to actually catch something however. I didn't have anything else that I wanted to do, so I decided to go hunting anyway.
I drove to Arock and tried a new portion of the field that I usually do not hunt. There were a few Jacks, but all were jumping way ahead of us, and she wasn't able to catch any of them. There just isn't as many Jacks this year, and I was trying to find where the ones that were still alive were hanging out. In about 1:45 minutes of walking I had jumped only about 8 Jacks. All at long distances, and Hope had missed all of them. Not by much, but enough that they all went free. I decided to turn back towards the car and eventually jumped a Bunny. Hope burned after it and slammed into the ground at the entrance to some rocks. A feeble little squeal announced her success. I killed the Bunny, tore off a front leg and gave it to her. When she got off the Bunny, I picked it up and walked off. When she finished it she flew to the perch and I went on hunting.
As is usual when I have attempted to double on kills, it takes her a bit to get back to her original enthusiasm. She was not putting her all into the chases as she should, so I sat down, and made the dogs stop and rest. She was sitting on a bush where she had given up on a half hearted chase after a Jack. Pretty soon she flew towards us and landed on a Sage about 10 feet from us. She sat there for a bit then hopped down to the ground and began walking towards us. I was quite surprised when she walked up to Brick and started swatting him with her wing and acting aggressive. It would appear that she was not happy that he was sitting down on the job. We got up and started out again. Within about 75 yards we jumped another Jack that ran behind us. Hope gave chase, slamming into the ground. soon his death song floated back to us. This time I gave her her tidbits, and a large chunk of Jack, taking the Jack off to be gutted. I kept out the liver for her. She soon joined us and was given the liver, as well as another large chunk of Jack as her final reward. I of course managed to go off without a camera, so nothing could be recorded for the blog.
We walked for 2 hours and 45 minutes on this hunt, but we came home with some food. Good trade.
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