Jan. 14th

 I am going to have to quit feeding Hope the Liver and Heart. She gains too much weight. I picked her up today and found that she weighed 1050 grams. She hunts at that weight, just has to do it longer. At least that is how it appears to me.

I got her and the dogs in the car, but couldn't find my tee perch. Sigh! After a bit of thinking, ( apparently not my "long suit".) I remembered that I had leaned it against the bumper when I put her in the car after we hunted the last time. Not knowing how much traffic is on that road, and whether someone might have picked it up or driven over it, I made a new one that would work in a pinch. I was quite pleased to see it laying at the edge of the road, unharmed, when I got to where I had left it. I saw four rigs on that road while I was there, but apparently no one needed a tee perch.

I picked it up and went a bit further down the road. Its more than a mile across the flat before the ground starts to rise and there are grassy open spots with no Sage, along the road, and I was curious to see what they would be like. We had just started into the Sage when a Jack broke from cover. Hope took two shots at him, before he left her sitting on the ground. We had three more chances, most long range, before we seemed to run out of Jacks. I had walked a huge circle with nothing to show for it. I zigged, I zagged, I went into cover, then to the edge of cover, finding nothing. I eventually got so far from the car that I feared that she might catch something, and I would have to carry her back on the fist. So I got on the other side of the road and walked back towards the car,. We didn't see a thing. I crossed the road into some bigger Sage and just started walking away from the road. After about 1/4 of a mile We hit a long distance Jack and she gave chase, missed! There was a little rise in the ground, not much more than five feet or so, but it seemed enough different that some Jacks were using it. I think for a vantage point. ( then again, I could be imagining it. ) We jumped another and she rolled him, but ended up with nothing but hair.

I had just about decided that we were going home empty handed, when she took off after another long range Jack. This time she didn't come up on a Sage as she usually does after a miss. I marked the spot and took off, still doubting that she might have gotten him, as I didn't hear any screams. Joe had as usual ran to where she had gone to ground, but came back in my direction, so I slowed my pace. Finally I heard a muffled hum in the Sage in front of me, and there she was, right in the middle with a waded up Jack Rabbit. He was tied in a knot and couldn't scream. I killed him and gave her the little cup of joy that she likes so much.

 

We put in 9467 steps or 4.29 miles to catch this Jack. When I got home, I weighed Hope to see how much food I had given her and found that She enjoyed 200 grams, or 7 ozs of Jack Rabbit. We will see how much of that goes away when I pick her up again. It was quite warm,  52 degrees, so I don't think she will lose that much weight. Our really cold weather is in December and we skated right on through that. 

I had noticed that there didn't seem to be much "cutting" of any of the Sage, and paid special attention to that this time. I could see where the Jacks had fed on some of the Sage, just not that much, so I decided that the population using this area is not all that big, but they are there, just not in the numbers that I would prefer. I also examined the stomach contents of the Jack that she killed and all of it was green, and quite moist, so I decided that they were mainly feeding on the Sage. All the grass is dried and a tan color, and doubtful of having much nutrition in it at all.