Yogi's turn

Today was Yogi's turn, and she had gained a bit of weight since our first time out. I guess that I am going to have to shoot a Rabbit or two to get us started. Apparently Coyote is a bit too rich for a bird with her metabolism.

I released  my frustration at not being able to hawk last year by Coyote hunting. Of course there is more to a Coyote than his fur coat. For instance one can glean 31 Harris Hawk  (molting) meals from an adult Coyote. It took a bit for Yogi to learn to like Coyote, but when you do not have a choice in the menu, one adapts. I am guessing that it is a bit strong, it does sure have plenty of calories in the meat. When I am only flying every other day, I like to reward my bird with a full meal. Apparently 4 oz of Coyote is a bit too much.

Yogi weighed 1150 grams this morning , up by 25 grams from Sunday. Since the object of today's exercise is to get some muscle on her, she doesn't have to be razor sharp, only fly a bit. She first checked out the Chicken pens to see if there was any easy stuff available. I finally had to drag out the lure to get her to join us.

She did make a couple of passes at Jacks that jumped in front of us, but she is nowhere ready to catch anything yet. She also made a pass at a Coot on the Creek, but she decided not to go swimming for him.

While we did not accomplish anything other than to reestablish the fact that we will now be hunting and reconnecting with us in that regard. We now need to get a lot of muscle built up on her so that she can catch one of these fleet footed critters.

Beginning conditioning.

It appears that there will be a hawking season this year. It is still very dry and almost none of the ponds have any water in them, but there will be hawking this year. It just remains to be seen what the quality will be. There is always the ditches for Jessie, who will be 10 this year. There appears to be a good number of Jacks this year, unlike 2013. We have about 15 that are helping with the lawn trimming. Last year I was afraid to kill even one Jack for fear of slowing the recovery of the species.

I picked up Jessie for the first time on Saturday. Her weight was about right at 835 grams. I just need to get her back in the groove of flying. After all she has sat for two years now without any real hunting. I put her on a creance to call her to the lure for her meal, and she did quite well. Of course she hates the hood, but that is normal. I let her eat her meal on the lure and then called her to the fist for the rest of her meal.

I picked up Yogi on Sunday, and Karen and I stood about 20 feet apart and took turns calling her back and forth to each other. She did very well when she discovered that there was a tidbit involved in each flight.

She is of course very out of shape, and didn't take long to land on the chimney to rest. She did quite well. Once she regains some of her normal strength she will be her normal rascally self.

Its been a fairly interesting year so far. We have hosted two fly-ins, which were a lot of fun. I did not work any this summer. The fires were such that they had enough crews to handle them without calling the company that I work for. That was good and bad, but I will live.

I seem to have a bit of "old age" creeping up on me. I have something wrong with my right foot, such as a bone spur, that is causing me a lot of pain when I try to walk. I have an appointment this Friday to get it checked out. It won't bother me with the falcon, but would be a serious problem with hawking Rabbits.

Finally, Spring is here.

Spring seems to have finally arrived. While we have had a pretty mild winter, with little problems other than a relentless wind. It still seemed to take forever to arrive. Perhaps it only seemed that way because I have been looking forward to this year with a bit more than my usual impatience.

The first event that seemed to never get here was the arrival of one of my childhood friends. My father was a minister in Sandlick, W.Va. for four years. Bill Lynch was my main friend and mentor the four years that we lived there. We moved away and lost track of each other until a few years ago. He had gone to Michigan and I to the West.

I began to think of him more and more, and finally decided to contact him. I found his email address and after a few telephone calls, invited him to visit. Karen and I just returned him to the airport yesterday. We had a great visit, and it was as though 57 years had not passed since we had last "run" together. Our relationship to me at least, was as comfortable as it had ever been. However the contrast between what I remembered and reality was pretty funny. Two old codgers trying our best to even wade a creek without falling down, and all the time the pictures in our minds were of two graceful fleet footed rascals jumping from rock to rock at a full run in the creeks of rural W.Va.

 Somehow the weather got better and the wind stopped for a while, just as Bill arrived. All of a sudden sunburn was more of a threat than frost bite. We took advantage of the change by visiting one of my favorite fishing holes. The water year here is down from what is perceived as normal, so the River was low enough to fish.

                                            15 inch trout

We caught Trout, Bass and Catfish all in the same hole. The trout are a bit thin, but the Catfish and Bass were fat.

                                Bill's first Western Channel Catfish.

                                This one measured 24 inches exactly.

Bill has a bad back, so I got to clean the fish. Actually that is normal. I always clean the fish. We had enough for a nice fish fry and enough left over for five additional meals.

We had a great visit, and hopefully we can do it again. It would however be nice if those two sun browned boys that my mind sees were a little closer to reality.
_______________________________________________________________

Each year here in the high Desert is an adventure. I guess that is one of the attractions for me. It is never boring! This year it is Mice.

Every thing seemed to be "normal" at the beginning of August last year. We had Jack Rabbits all over the place. The Quail were plentiful. Then it was as though we had stepped into another dimension where there was no wild life at all. The Rabbits and Quail disappeared. All wildlife seemed to have died. There was little water, so few of the Ducks even stopped here. It was bad enough that I fed the hawks up and did not hunt them for fear of killing the few critters left that might eventually bring forth the next generation. Well I did not need  to worry about the base layer of the food chain. The Mice are booming.

We have two house cats that spent most of the winter with little in the way of distractions. Well that has changed. I first noticed the increase in Mice during our trip in the fifth wheel, and set a few traps. We changed the mattresses around from the Motor home to the Fifth Wheel, and I spent a night in the Motor home to check the comfort level. The Mice had discovered a roll of toilet paper and unraveled most of a roll on the floor for various new beds and nests. It was still in the holder on the wall too. I bought some poison and some traps to try to get them under control.

It soon became clear that the poison wasn't working all that well, so I bought traps where ever I could find them. The full reality of the situation finally became clear the morning that I found a pile of shredded papers from the side pocket in the car. Then I found mouse crap on the seat of my plane. That was the final insult. The war is on.

I began an all out assault on the rascals. So I set traps in the car, Motor home, Fifth wheel, and the plane. I caught 8 in the car, five in the plane, and about 14 or more a day in my various traps.

                                                The nights catch.

                                          Some of the trap line.

                                                The water trap.

I use ultra sonic devices in all the places I can, such as the attic and behind all the refrigerators and freezers, and while they don't nest there they do traverse those areas. The water trap works quite well, and I caught five Mice in it last night. I have to remember to replace the Peanut butter trail to the jump off point each night. The dogs like Peanut butter as well as the mice.

I had been feeding the Mice to Yogi, the Harris Hawk, just to get rid of them. Plus they are a natural food item for all hawks. Since I was not really serious at that time, I only had enough to supplement Yogi's normal food. Jessie being a bit of a Princess, was only getting Quail. I noticed that she was acting as though she wouldn't mind a Mouse or two as well. So when I got serious about the Mouse problem, I had more than Yogi could eat. I offered one to Jessie and she thought it was great, so Mice are now on her menu as well. I am saving about $2 a day by feeding Mice to the birds. Its not quite lemon aid, but one does what he must.

Owyhee Dam

 This is Owyhee Dam from the top. In the distance to the right you can see the "Glory Hole". It is the concrete colored thing. Its purpose is to provide a quick relief if the water gets so high that it might top the dam. As you can see from the pictures that the water is actually about 20 below the level that it should be. The reservoir's purpose is to provide irrigation for the "Treasure Valley". That would be Vale and Ontario Oregon. Both of which are a major producer of food stuffs. Onions are one of their biggest crops. The altitude is about 2500 feet and the growing season is very long.

The impoundment is quite long, and I would guess at 30 to forty miles. My favorite fishing hole is just up above the actual lake, where it is still a stream. The Owyhee River provides drainage to Nev, Idaho and Oregon High Deserts. It also flows North to dump into the Snake River at Adrian Oregon.

The dam was finished in 1929. It is about 400 feet high and about 500 feet across at the bottom. It is the first dam to ever have an elevator. It was built to test the design for Hoover Dam, and was the tallest dam until Hoover was built.

It is snugged in between two rock cliffs, and actually not all that wide at the bottom. 

As a reward for our services to the School kids, the adults were offered a tour of the Dam. I was very surprised when Karen decided to go along. She is very claustrophobic, thanks to an older brother that liked to lock her in closets occasionally.

I did not use a flash on any of the pictures inside the dam, primarily to save peoples eyes from the flash.

We are about 150 to 200 feet into the insides of the Dam and I was amazed that Karen was still handling it. For crying out loud, she gets nervous driving through tunnels! You don't suppose its my driving rather than the depths?

She appeared to be fine, until the guide wanted to show us what maintenance was like when the power goes out. 400 feet underground is quite dark. He kept talking and leaving the lights off for what seemed like a long time. I had put my hand on Karen's arm when he shut off the lights to try to prevent a runaway, if I could. When he turned the lights back on, she announced that she would wait outside.

                                 There is a power plant with the dam. 

These are the valves that open various chutes throughout the dam to control however much water is required. These things are about 3 feet through.

There are four observation platforms in the dam face. Two almost at the top and two close to the bottom.

This little ski slope houses the three large 4 or 5 foot tubes that really let the water out.

                          This is the tubes and the valves that open them.

Inside that room are some cracks in the structure that have developed over the years, and the pins that allow the workers to measure them to see if they are growing.

This little feature allows one to climb to the top of the dam if other avenues do not allow. The guide assured us he had never tried it.

                              This is one of the higher observation ports.

There were a lot of Carp feeding in the water around the base of the Dam. This one was a really old one about 4 feet long and covered in moss.

This is the escape for the water than goes into the "Glory Hole" that I showed you in the first picture. When it is active it is a giant whirlpool, and very impressive.

Owyhee Field Day

One of the ladies that we have come to know in Jordan Valley coordinates a field day for fifth graders at the various schools. This is not just one or two schools in the area. It covers schools both from Oregon and Idaho. The size of the schools varies from 20 students in one or two room schools, to large metropolitan areas. I guess she knows a sucker when she sees one, and she was relentless in the understated guilt that she laid on me, and of course I agreed.

The date was April 31 to May 1st at Owyhee Reservoir. We were given a half brother to Josie, our Brittney. His name is Brick, and he is 1 1/2 years old.  It was a given that we would have to neuter him. I arranged the surgery at a vets office that was on our way to our campsite. We dropped him off, and continued on to our site. It is at a campground that also houses the Dam personal. The road into the area is a bit more rural than I would have thought. We of course had to drive through Idaho to get there. I am sure that you have heard of various sites, as in- "You can't get there from here". The road there was built in 1927 or 1928. I am sure that it was a bit of a challenge to build at the time. I went back to get Brick later that day.

I am molting the two girls on the block, so it wasn't all that much problem in dragging them along as the stars of the show. The programs were quite varied and I am sure, interesting to the kids. There was everything from Fur trapping to wild horses to gold panning. I am sure it was much a more interesting day than sitting in a class room. The program covered two days of demonstrations to 15 kids at a time. FFA teens were the guides for the kids. There was about 600 or more kids that went through the programs.

I put together three short video's that covered the aspects of hunting with Falcons and Hawks, and the rest of the time was taken up with questions and petting Yogi. Of course the hit of the show was that wonderfully patient sweetheart, Yogi. Almost all wanted to pet Jessie, but I explained that we just didn't have enough band aids to cover the wounds that were bound to occur.  Not all of the kids got to go to all the presentations, but Yogi allowed 120 kids, their guides and various parents and teachers, to pet her.

It was a bit cold at first, but the classes didn't start until 10:AM, and the two days were the very best days thus far this year.

The only time that there was any panic was when Yogi made a really clever sneak attack on poor ole Brick, the new dog. After that we put him in his kennel to keep him safe.

He's trying to recover from it all this evening.

Finished Raccoon and desert flight.

After I had skinned and fleshed the Raccoon, I salted it and rolled it up to begin the tanning process in the morning. Of course I managed to forget that I didn't have enough chemicals to complete the process, so back to the computer and the drawing board. The skin was then put in the freezer to await "Priority mail" to deliver the ordered chemicals.

The tanning process to me had always been a bit of a mysterious and daunting process. I was quite surprised to find that the method that I am using is amazingly simple and fast, about four days at the most. 24 hours for the "pickling process", 24 for the tanning chemicals to do their stuff. Then a shampoo, drying and "breaking" the hide. Since I do not have the advantage of a compliant Native American female to chew the hide, I have to do it the hard way.  What the process consists of is to rub the hide over an edge to "break" the fibers and keep it soft. It is the weak spot of my expertise so far. Most likely brought on by my innate laziness.

"Laziness is the mother of invention" or so I have always been told. I have invented a number of sometimes brilliant solutions, sometimes not!

Thinking about the upcoming "softening process" I remembered a Clothes dryer that I had relegated to the "farmers dump" up by the runway. It had been hauled up there after a Civet Cat moved into the Dryer where it had sat in my hanger. Although the heating part of the dryer was a bit iffy, I felt that it might just work for me since I didn't need the heat part. Thinking that a couple of tennis shoes bouncing around on the hide should soften it while cool air was blowing and drying the hide at the same time.

My problem with "breaking" the hide is that it is done over a long period of time. One is supposed to flex the hide as it is drying and I can never decide which is the right time to do so. I don't mind the work, it just seems that I never do it at the right time.

So I fire up the quad, hook up the little trailer and off to the dump I go. I turn it up on its top, shake as much dirt out of it as I can. After getting it back to the hanger, I spend the next two hours trying to find the electrical pigtail that I obviously took off when I stored it originally. Finally after looking every where, at least three times, I find it hiding under my shoeing anvil. Then there is a search for the right tool to loosen the little weird size nuts that secure the pigtail to the electrical board. The little Bakelite board does not allow one to use anything other than a socket, and it needs to be a deep socket as well.  It only took five trips back and forth to the tool box before I finally hit on the right combination. Finally I get it on and attempt to plug it in to the 220 V plug on the wall. There are two different types of Dryer plugs. You guessed it, I have one different than the pigtail. Sigh! Finally I just grab a spare unused piece of wire and wire it direct. Get the vacuum and suck the lumps out, never thinking that I might need to wash the inside of the drum.

Every thing worked just perfectly, so I tossed the perfectly shampooed shiny hide in the drum, put in some shoes and start it up. After about 10 minutes I open the door to see how things are going, and was dismayed to see how dirty my nice hide had gotten. So I kill the power, and hose it out. Then its back in the house and a new shampoo. Then I stretch the hide on a metal stretcher to dry. The sun is shining and the temps are about 64 degrees, so while the hide is drying, I start work on my summer tan. It was that nice.

When I thought the hide might be dry enough I toss it back in the dryer and run it through two cycles of 70 minutes each. When I took it out that evening the hide seemed to be quite flexible, so I hung it on the wall with the rest of the furs.

 
This morning I checked it and found that the entire day yesterday was a total waste. It was as stiff as a board, so I turned it inside out again and started doing what I should have done yesterday. You win some and lose some, and waste a lot of time as well.

Now I have been brutally honest with you for quite some time concerning my foibles, and quite frankly I find the traitorous way that my mind sometimes works to be quite amusing. It helps if one is smart enough to not take yourself too seriously. You might think that I am the only dumb one reading this selfless confession- MULEMUFFINS! You are not fooling anyone!

Today was just as beautiful and nice as it was yesterday, and I had nothing else pressing so it was time for my plane to get a little attention for a change.

I flew East to check an area called Sand Springs, then over to the Owyhee Canyon, back to Rome and up Crooked Creek to the house. The flight was one hour and 7 minutes. The OAT was 54 degrees and I dressed too warm. By the time I got back home I was sweating except for my feet.

https://vimeo.com/87624835

password: owyheeflyer

The further misadventures of a novice

As you know every thing in the desert revolves around food and especially water, since that will concentrate the food. The creek down below the house is nice, and I wouldn't like the property as well if it were not there. However it supplies a never ending list of things that like to eat Chickens and Pigeons.

The first year we were here we had a Badger kill 18 of my Chickens on Christmas Eve. He dug into the Chicken Pen, killed all he could and then dug a burrow to wait until he could stand to eat a bit more Chicken. Every fall or winter I get at least one Raccoon taking advantage of the abundance of protein here.

This year it was two Bobcats and at least one big Raccoon. One or the other dug a hole through the roof of my Pigeon house and almost decimated my pigeon population. They killed more than 20 birds. I had been counting on the excess of Pigeons for help on the winter food supply for Jessie the Peregrine.

With the help of my "trapper buddy" we set a live trap that he had bought just for catching Bob Cats. Well, we caught a Boar Raccoon in it and that rascal bent it enough out of shape to get out. In the mean time I rebuilt the roof of the Pigeon house and put a metal roof on it.  I set about trying to catch the varmint, any way I could.

One day before Christmas one of the passing raptors killed a Mallard Duck down on the creek. The next morning the carcass was gone, so I knew he was still here. Time for plan B. I had bought a steel trap on one of my trips to Cabelas, so I did all the research I could on line, and proceeded to set that trap for him. It took a few days but he came through again and got caught in the trap. I could see the area where the trap was from the house, and could check it with bino's from the window.  After a few days I went to check it and see about replacing the bait. Well the area was pretty torn up, and my trap was pulled through a Greasewood bush that I had wired the trap to, but it was empty. What ever had been trapped, pulled its foot out of the trap jaws. I had put a "trail Camera" where it could see the trap, and it showed a Raccoon peering in to the camera. In checking with my mentor I was told that Raccoons are very hard to keep in a trap. He suggested a rock for a drag rather than tying it hard and fast. I considered that option and decided that I didn't like the idea of searching through the Sage looking for a critter dragging a trap. I decided that nothing could uproot a Greaswood bush, so I used some aluminum wire that I found lying around the house, to secure the traps that I set to the Greasewood bushes.

I was so disgusted with the trap that I had bought from Cabelas That I ordered some bigger ones from a Trapping supply store on line, as well as some stuff to neutralize the smell.  Nothing is as simple as a bullet, but one does as is needed for the problem at hand.  My problem was that these guys were moving through in the middle of the night. When I sold my Coyote skins, I bought some prepared scents that were geared for Bobcats. Raccoons are merely a nuisance, Bobcats are worth something. I knew from tracks after a snow fall that a Bobcat some times moved along the the creek heading over to the ranch across the road.

When I got the new traps prepared I went down and replaced the one with the Cabelas trap and set a new one a bit further up the creek where I could see it from the house. I set the trap in as I would for a Bobcat, and put the scents in that I had bought. Not all that surprisingly, Skunk makes up most of the lures ingredients. Cats for whatever reason really like the smell of Skunk spray, be they domestic or wild. All through most of the rest of January nothing happened.

Then at noon on the day of the super bowl, I got up and did my usual look out of all the windows, of course looking for anything to shoot. I was quite surprised to see a big Bobcat down in the Sage coming up the creek towards the house. My rifle was right by the window, but I couldn't get a clean shot there so I went out to the rifle rest where I normally shoot, to try to get an angle that I could shoot him. Karen and I each saw him two more times, but so quick and fleeting a glance that I could never get my sights on him. He was not alarmed or even knew that we were trying to shoot him. They just move very stealthily from cover to cover, and it is rare to even see on in the wild at all. They blend so well that when they stop they literally disappear. Finally somehow or the other he disappeared and I never got a shot or another sighting of him. He apparently jumped the creek and got into the heavier cover and moved on up the creek heading for Tami's.

This morning I decided to check the traps and see if the baits needed refreshing. I was alarmed to find that I had again caught something, but this time the trap and the critter was gone. The ground was torn up all around the Greasewood bush, and I could see where sharp claws had dug up the ground. I of course assumed that I had caught and lost a Bobcat. I had wired the trap to the bush with a piece of the Aluminum wire that I had found here at the place. I liked it because it was very easy to bend. I never in my wildest dreams thought that a critter could break it, but there it was. Feeling like a idiot as well as a cad, I went back to the house and got the dogs which were my only hope of finding it.

Now my two dogs are designed to find birds, but they were my only option. Josie seemed to be interested, Betsy sniffed the spot and dismissed it immediately, but I was hoping that if they came face to face with the critter they would have sense enough to somehow let me know.  I drove on down the road on the quad while the dogs ran all over the Sage looking for birds. They do cover a lot of ground and I was hoping that on one of their trips back and forth one of them would find it. I was not happy to think of the poor thing out there with a trap on its foot. No chance to survive at all.

I got down the road about a half mile, and did not see Josie. She had been last seen at the end of our fence. It is a place that the Deer like to sleep in as there is quite high Sage and good places to hide. So I began to back track and eventually Josie came down the road looking for me. I was bummed, as I had hoped that she would have the critter bayed up and holding it for me. Her predecessor would have done so, but she was raised differently. I decided to go through the cover anyway just to make sure. I had walked through most of it and was standing there watching the dogs for some sign that the object of my search was here. Josie came around a big bunch of Sage and I heard something strange. I almost dismissed the thought, but decided to check it out. As I rounded the bush I heard a chain rattle. I hurried around expecting to find a Bobcat, but there was a Coon tail sticking out of the bush instead. I had caught it by the hind foot. I am not sure that I could have found it if the trap had been on the front foot.

I called Josie and she was a bit interested, but she had run right by it, and what alerted me was the Coon growling at her as she ran by. It never occurred to her that was what we were looking for. Betsy came by and barely even glanced at it. She apparently doesn't point Coons since they don't fly.

As you can see it is not a very big one, weighing only about 15 pounds. They can get up to 30 or 40 pounds.

So having my nose rubbed in it, I have decided to listen and use a rock drag. I am also using some much more serious steel wire. I cannot explain why I always do things the hard way, apparently it is a pattern that I am not going to break this late in life. Sigh!