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!

Malfunction Jct- Dec 22nd

It's been a bit stormy lately and that makes for some Sun Rise and Sets that are worth seeing.

 

 I think that I have found Hopes current bottom line as far as weight is concerned. It only took seven days. :-/ Of course there were one or two malfunctions on my part.

What was happening is that she would come to the fist for a tidbit, but if I made any move to pick up her jesses so that we could go out of the doors on the mews, she would fly back off the fist. This behavior has been occurring since I put her in the enclosed mews. Rather than walk away, as I should have, I was worried about how cold it was and wanted to keep her weight up so that she could fight the cold.  I managed to catch her jesses at least twice. Once I got her out of the mews she hunted just as she always had. Our last trip out she was tipping the scales at 1072 grams. She flew as hard as she always had. 

After killing the Coyote on the 15th, I skinned and fleshed the hide as usual. For whatever reason I threw the chunks of fat that I cleaned off the hide on the ground outside the garage door. Connie and I were going to go hunting with Hope, so I picked up all the pieces that I could find prior to going out to get her. After some games on her part I managed to grab her jesses. When I weighed her she was tipping the scales at 1070. We had crossed over the fence and immediately jumped a Jack within the first 30 yards. He made a break right across the open field going to the hangar. Hope was doing her best , but he outdistanced her, and they disappeared  by the fuel tank. Hope was convinced that he was hiding there and was not interested in coming back to me, so we walked over there but could not find the Jack. Hope was on the roof of the Hangar watching intently. She flew down to the ground and found a 18 inch long string of fat that I had missed. Of course the hunt was over for that day. That was the "malfunction".

After that she began to get cagy about me trying to catch her jesses. Of course that made me a little cranky, and I began to get more than a bit tired of the insurrection. I decided that I was done playing games, and if she could catch enough mice to feed herself, I would wait until she ran out of them. Of course it helped that we were having an unusual warm spell, and she didn't need to have as much food to keep as warm as usual. 

I would go out each day and offer her a tidbit, and she would grab it and fly back to her outside perch. I would give her three chances and then leave her to think about it. She was still flighty yesterday, and I walked away. Today she seemed to have a change of mind and was calling to me when I walked out. She weighed 1004 grams, she did not try to fly off.

The wind has been howling all day and up to 30 MPH at times. I thought that it might slack off by about 4, so I waited and got lucky. It dropped to about 5 MPH so off we went. The last two times I have hunted here, the rabbits have been a bit scarce. Today was no exception, and we walked about a mile before one jumped, fortunately right in front of us. He tried to cut across from right to left, and Hope had him before he had covered 15 yards.

 He was a big one and those are generally last years rabbits. I gave her a front leg from a previous kill and walked back towards the house. When she finished the leg, she flew back to the perch and we hunted on our way back home. We only saw one other Jack on the trip back and he managed to escape.

I needed some packages of meat for future flights so I cleaned this one rather than freezing it whole. As I skinned him I began seeing tape worm clusters. I was amazed that he was carrying so many but was still in good shape with quite a lot of fat. I have never seen so many on one rabbit before.

I have never seen them on the organs before. I can't imagine how that felt. we may well have done him a favor.

Hopefully The weather will remain warm and I can bring Hope back to her normal space in the weathering pen.