A Christmas Card

 Since losing Karen three years ago, there are many changes in my life. One of those is that other that the kids next door, I don't send out Christmas cards. Instead this is my card to you. The gratitude and affection that I feel for each of you is still there, just too lazy to buy cards.

Merry Christmas

It's been a pretty good year for me. Other than the loss of my hot tub (16 years old) it's mostly ran pretty smooth. Of course I am tempting fate by even mentioned that, but what the heck. The covid mess that so many of you have been suffering from, has been pretty quiet, so far, in this area where "social distancing" is a way of life. Hopefully the rest of the world will be able to go back to "normal" soon with the advent of the vaccine.

I went out to get some more firewood yesterday, and Brick as is usual was busy sniffing all around the wood pile for the Bunny that uses it for shelter. Its funny that I have only seen him point one or two Jacks in the field, yet he is after this poor ole Bunny all the time. I have a few Bunnies that use the place here, but there really isn't enough cover for any kind of population to be present. I do not consider them to be other than an accidental prey item, and steer away from them if I can. Of course Hope and apparently Brick, does not share my generous attitude. These little guy's are pretty resourceful and have no compunction against climbing to get out of harms way.

Apparently it's warmer at the top of the stack.

I've been able to hunt for most of the fall without incident, and the minus weather that seems to normally plague us has not so far shown up. My freezer is full of Jack Rabbits to the point that I have been giving the Jacks that Hope catches, to Tami, for Yogi's consumption. I noticed this morning that Hope had broken a secondary feather while in the mews.

Bruce Haak has been coming over from Idaho to hunt his falcons, and has been doing quite well. I, at least, have some open water that holds enough Ducks for his falcons to fly.

My friend Sue, that lives close to Rome, observed quite a lot of rabbit tracks the last time that there was snow on the ground, so I agreed to go over there to hunt today. I was a bit sceptical as I had looked in the general area for huntable Jacks and really had never found the population high enough to hunt. Of course I had never been in the area that she was talking about, so I decided to go give it a try.

That ranch has some pretty big Alfalfa fields, and it was conceivable that some Jacks could be hanging around. Hope weighed 1004 grams this morning so I knew that she was going to be pretty hot if she only had the chance. It was 8 degrees this morning.

I picked up Sue and we drove out to the field that she had seen all the tracks.The Sage was pretty small and not all that close, so I knew that we were going to have a hard time of it. This is Eagle country, and a Jack would be a sitting "Jack" if a soaring Eagle was overhead. There was very little sign, hardly any rabbit poop or Sage cuttings to indicate that there was much of a resident population. Jacks tend to travel great distances to get food, such as the Alfalfa fields that this land bordered. So I was sure that they traveled through this area, but probably at night to get to the alfalfa nearby.

We made a large loop and were heading back to the fence at the edge of the road, when a Jack broke out of a small Sage bush that neither I or the Dogs saw or smelled when we passed by. Unfortunately for him we were much too close for him to have much of a chance to escape.

Fortunately she caught this guy, saving me from having to drive to another spot in Arock to hunt. I was very gratified that she was successful on the only flight that she made.

My wish is that all of you have a happy and safe Christmas and New Year!