Jessie, a new year, late start.

Working out of town all through the month of Oct has us on a late start, at least for us. I generally begin taking Jessie's weight down the last weeks of Sept. and that gets us in the air shortly after Duck season begins. That leaves her to finish her molt while she flies. Waiting another month or so at a heavier weight hasn't improved her molt at all. She is just where she normally is when I begin cutting her down. Of course having her laying eggs in the hopes of immaculate conception doesn't do anything to improve stuff either. A raptor laying eggs will stop her molt cold for at least a month. No way to avoid it however. I did try a couple of years ago to put her with a male, but I guess she has a love/hate relationship with only me. She laid three eggs this year.

She has mellowed quite a bit this year. She actually seems to like me for a change. I am not going to hold my breath that it will last the whole season though.

There are two ways to condition a Falcon, generally speaking. One can just turn them loose to fly and build muscle, usually tossing a few Pigeons to make them go up so that they can actually have a chance at catching the thrown Pigeons. The theory is that when she goes high, you give her a pigeon that will not be able to out fly her. When she flies too low you toss your best Pigeon. One that will out fly her. I apparently am not smart enough to be able to get that theory to work. Jessie will fly them in a tail chase until she intimidates them into the ground, where upon she will grab them and eat the whole thing, gaining enough weight that it sets us back several days. I have found that eventually the raptor learns that you can be manipulated into tossing a Pigeon by her flying wide and out of position. Once they learn that, they begin acting as though they are going to go off wandering, just waiting for you to weaken and toss a Pigeon.  I am sure it is a matter of judgement on my part, so I have given this method up completely.

The method that I prefer is either a kite or a balloon to give her a reason to go up and to stick around. Apparently helium is running out, and they don't want to sell me enough to blow up my weather balloon. Normally wind is not a problem here, in fact generally there is too much. That is until I want to fly Jessie. In years past, Jessie has wanted to fly enough that she will go off on her own to get some altitude, and when she begins to tire she will come back to take the lure and her meal. If there is wind she will check the kite height, search for a thermal to help her climb and then come back in to grab the lure and her meal. Last year I had to take her down to the high 700 grams to get her to behave. This year she thinks she is starving at almost 900 grams. (in case you are wondering there is 28.5 grams in an ounce.)

Yesterday the wind died completely, eliminating the kite for the flight. I have been turning her loose and tossing the lure for her if she looked like she was going to land. She has been using the hangar roof for her perch. The last few flights of hers have been pretty short, with her showing no sign that she is even a little bit tired, so I ignored her landing. Karen was yelling at her encouraging her to stay in the air, while I walked away. She landed on the roof finally, but again flew off immediately when I did not toss the lure. ( It takes no time at all for the rascals to pattern you. ) this time she strafed my head. Karen yelled that she was coming back also at head height. I turned to face her, she landed at my feet, ran up and  "footed" my boot, looking up at me and threatening me. Brick the new dog went up to see what was going on, and she started after him. He took the hint and vacated the premises. I of course had to feed her. It is the second time that she came to me without waiting for the lure. Two days ago she hovered in front of me until I stuck up my fist.

Today it appeared that we were going to have enough wind to keep the Kite in the air. I ran it out to about 225 feet. As soon as it got in the air, the wind began to die down. I went back into the house to eat dinner and hopefully come out to a bit more wind. No luck, the kite went back down to the ground. I again put it up and went back into the house. Finally the wind came up a bit, and I went out to look. The lure had come loose from the attachment and was on the ground. I pulled the kite back down, and the wind again came up a bit, so I ran it back into the air.

We got Jessie ready and while it was still up, it was only about 125 feet. I turned her loose and she took off, powered around grabbing the lure on the first circle. Perhaps she is in better shape than I thought.

https://vimeo.com/146461978

If the wind doesn't improve shortly, I may just have to go hunting ready or not.

Retribution!

After discovering the carnage to my Pigeons, I began setting traps. The one above is the only one that I set that is lethal, instantly. Therefore I set it so that the only thing that could be hurt was a varmint that intended to kill pigeons. I set some "Dog Proof traps where the Coons could access the area.

Having Dogs and Cats I have to of course be careful about how I trap and where. There is an area behind my captive Chicken house where Racoons have traditionally entered the area. There is a rock wall with a gap that they have used. That one has a Steel trap, but a Dog couldn't use it. The Dog Proof traps are basically a steel pipe that can only be triggered by grasping toes stuck in there. Racoons use their front paws a lot like hands, and these traps take advantage of that. I sometimes catch Ground Squirrels that are inside trying to get the bait with them.

I had just about given up hope of catching the Coon. It had been so long and there was no real reason for him to go into the Pigeon House. Nothing there but a few bones. Not even the surviving Pigeons were going in there.

These traps are very effective and scary as well. They are so strong I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a few bones broken in this critter. As you can see the trap jumps forward when triggered. dIt is a major chore to set the darn thing and worthy of a bit of sweating, but there is no messing around or suffering with this type of trap. There is no way to remove it without a special tool to do so. That is why I am so careful about where I set it.

I am a happy camper, revenge is always sweet.

Tan Rat

Well I finished the Rat today, and she turned out pretty well. I had some problems with her tail when I was splitting it during the skinning process, I split the skin but didn't realize that about two inches of it didn't have a bone in it. That part was pulled off. Crap, but stuff happens. Then after it was tanned and I was making it soft and  flexible, I broke another little bit off, by being to aggressive with the process of breaking down the drying fibers. Sigh! She still looks good and feels amazing, but still, their tails are quite striking.

Varmint revenge

I had thought that things had gone pretty well at home while I was gone. There were of course many things that needed catching up on.

I knew the Dogs had missed me, but the cat was a surprise.

On the surface things seemed to be just fine. One of my little "Old English banties" had hatched four chicks in the garden among the radishes just before I got back.

 As usual with these types she was insecure with babies among all the giant Buff Orphingtons, so she was hiding outside with them at night.

 I also noticed that the Pigeons were not eating all their food. Deer were trashing all the trees in the yard. I also noticed some quite large Pack Rat turds scattered all over the back porch. On the face of things, all was in fair shape, just needing a bit of my personal attention to return things to normal.

The Deer showed up in the early afternoon of the first day home. So I did a bunch of yelling and firing a shotgun over their heads. They didn't seem to be too impressed, so when they got out about 80 yards, I lowered my aim. They finally moved off, although reluctantly. The next afternoon about 5 PM here they come again. Four Does walking up the hill headed for the house. I got the shotgun and again shouted and fired the shot gun over their heads. Same evening back again, so this time I burned a few of them. Next day here they come again as if it was all a mistake. All in all it took 5 times with me progressively peppering them with shot, before they finally seemed to take me serious. It finally got to the point that I had a hard time keeping from dropping the lead doe permanently. Its a good thing that Karen had already put a Deer in the freezer. I finally was apparently able to convince the Does that the place was off limits. This morning while standing outside searching the area for the Coyote that I fed the last coons to, I saw this Buck down by the creek.

 It is the peak of the rut for Deer. To say they get a bit distracted from the normal world is a bit generous. The dogs and I were standing in plain sight by the pool, and he walked to within 50 yards of us, only leaving because Brick began barking at him while I was getting the camera.

Now for the Pack Rat. I baited the "Gangplank with a fresh half of an apple, then proceeded to winterize the place as we seemed to be on a fast track to cold weather. The Fifth wheel went pretty well, I blew out the lines, dumped the black and grey tanks, emptied the hot water heater, then flushed the lines with RV antifreeze. Blew out the sprinkler system and insulated the distribution lines.

Then I discovered that the reason that the pigeons weren't eating all their food was actually due to the fact that I only had 12 birds left.

When I opened the loft, I found only bones and feathers. The Raccoons had killed all but 12 birds that were not sleeping in the loft because it was so crowded. I estimate that they killed over 70 birds total. They also killed the mother hen and her babies. Now there are traps covering the entry area, with another 1/2 dozen "dog Proof" traps coming. I will be running a trap line for Coons this fall. Its too bad they aren't worth something as furs.

I checked the water trap the next morning and found that the apple half was totally gone, but no Rat.

 This happened for three nights. I finally began to wonder if it was actually a Rat, or something else taking the apple off the bait wire. I decided to put the trail camera out there to make sure. The rascal was walking the edge of the tub and eating the Apple right off a 12 inch welding rod. Unfortunately I erased the disc, but it was for sure a Pack Rat, and a HUGE one at that. This one was a trophy, so I retrieved one of my Hava Hart traps. That proved to be her downfall, and she woke me up the next morning rattling around in the trap. I put her out in the hanger to keep the dogs away from her.

I decided that this one would go on my wall, so I needed to keep the hide in as good shape as I could, so guns, and dogs were out of the question. The quad and a spare vacuum hose solved the problem.

After running the engine for about five minutes I melted the vacuum hose, so I cut a slit in the bag to see how the Rat was doing. She wasn't, she had fortunately succumbed to the fumes nicely.

The sucker was as big as an Eastern Grey Squirrel. I have spent the last three days tanning her pelt. Soon he will join my other trophies on the wall.

I have finally got Jessie down in weight to the point that we can start training. I flew her to the lure on a creance last Friday. Today she was close enough to her weight that I turned her loose. She is pretty weak, but seemed to enjoy the chance to fly. When I threw the lure, she struck it three times, just to show that she could I guess.

I was quite pleased, she is acting better than she has in years. Her manners are as close to perfect, as Jessie ever gets. She came to the fist with no hesitation, every thing was perfect. I decided to give her an entire quail since I wouldn't be flying her for another two days. Then she freaked me out by not being able to hold the entire quail. I have never seen that before. I have seen her eat almost an entire Pigeon. Now I will worry for the next two days that something is the matter with her.

Temporary insanity

I guess it all began when I didn't get much in the way of Fire Calls this summer. Goodness knows every thing in the West was either on fire or going to be on fire. My company, for what ever reason, got almost none of the calls for Water Tenders. I admit I was a bit frustrated. My bags were all packed, and I could be on my way in less that an hour. No one called.

I had wanted to get a Sauna for the place here, it seemed like the perfect addition for those cold winter nights and evenings. Finely, I got a call for Northern Nev. and spent about four days. Netting about $1100. Things were looking up. The Sauna's went on sale and they had the one that I wanted for $900. 00 off. Its a sale, right? So I jumped on it, and soon had it together and installed in the Shop.

 All that worked out great, but I was still a $1000.00 in the hole. I wanted at least another job to finish paying for the thing. That led to me volunteering for other work that the company is doing. He is always short handed and having difficulty to find someone who would work. Something that I always find amazing, but not too surprising since it appears to be easier to get "free" money than it is to work for it.

Well it just so happened that he had a contract to "treat" about 724 acres of mixed Juniper and Pinion Pine forest. By treat, I mean to grind up enough trees so that they were spaced out about 30 feet apart. Basically a park type setting. I assume it is to slow any fires that might come that way, nothing is for sure however as there is really no rime or reason visible to the naked eye as to its real purpose.

This was to be accomplished with a couple of machines that are realistically "tree mowers".

This is the one that I ran.

This is what the forest is supposed to look like after we were done. The shredded areas used to be trees.

Some of it was pretty easy, as it was mostly Sage, the rest could go to 

thick, "dog hair thickets".  Lower down, the trees were fairly small.

Higher on the hill, to large formidable trees.

So we began getting every thing ready the 9th of October. Three days of hauling machinery and setting up camp.

The camp is at 6500 feet altitude. Every thing went well for a week, and by working 10 hour days, we were making some headway. Then on the 6th day of work the belts that powered the grinding head burned up. I will admit, that it was my fault. Bad technique I guess. Well that took about three days to fix, so I went home until they fixed it. The drive is 7 hours, so its nothing that I really am interested in doing on a regular basis if I can help it.

I went back on the 21st and met the new guy, who took the Boss's place, while he went to Colorado to work on another project. The idea was for the two of us to compete as much of the project as we could before the weather set in and stopped work. Kenny Smith is a rancher that has worked for EC (boss) for years and is very good at it, but doesn't work all that often. He mostly does Fire Boss work in the summer, and spends the rest of his time working on his ranch. I guess he too thought he needed some cash.

Kenny, being a Cowboy also prefers to cook with a campfire. My own particular motto is " patience my ass, I'm going to kill something", I preferred my gas griddle, but what the heck, never insult the cook. Even with a bit of Sage brush thrown in to flavor the fire, I have to admit he did well. 

The weather of course kept getting a bit colder, but nothing really out of the normal range of comfort for a coat or jacket. My machine apparently has a hole in the heater core, so I had to glean whatever heat I could get out of the air conditioner side of the set up. If I tried to use the  heater, the entire cab would fog up and I couldn't see a thing. As you might imagine with a whirling grinding wheel about 6 feet across and carbide teeth all over it, dust could be a bit of a problem. Visibility is a premium and a necessity. Windshield cleaning was a regular feature of work.

I had worked my way quite high up the hill and came on a great Pinion tree. It towered over all the other trees around it, and was crowned with lots of cones.

I guess the Pinion only has cones every third year??

Apparently this is the year.

These are where the seeds are. Notice the yellow at the ends of the cone "leaves", that is pitch. Lots of it! The area supported a lot of Ravens, Pinion Jays and Ravens. I only saw about 15 Jack Rabbits, two Coyotes, and six Cows. Nothing else there.

I noticed a skull over to the side of the Tree.

A wild boar! I was amazed, but I learned later that there were a few of them in the country.

The interesting part is the 30 cal bullet hole between his eyes. Its a bit low,  but it was just high enough in the head to at least shock his brain and stop him. A very good thing for the shooter, Pigs really get pissed if you shoot them in the sinuses.

One good thing about the work, is that I had no time to take a nap. I got up at 5:30 in the morning, ran outside, started the generator, then perked a pot of coffee, made a lunch and breakfast.  Work until 5 PM, fix dinner, read and try to stay awake until at least 9 PM and do it all again. I had cell service, barely, and thanks to a cell booster that I bought for $325.00, was able to get emails and call out. Its worth it to be able to talk to Karen on a regular basis. That way both of us could rest easy knowing that every thing was OK.

Then last Sat. my cell phone began dumping to a non existent voice mail, or just cutting off after two rings. The only place that I couldn't call was home. I could send an email however and could request Karen to call me. I spent one entire evening talking to Verizon and three days later I could again use my phone to call home.

We had gotten almost all of the easy stuff "treated" and then my machine again broke down. This time, it wasn't my fault, just general maintenance.

One of the problems that I was having was my left knee began hurting, bad! As the result of an old motor cycle injury in 1970, I had over the years developed a bit of Arthritis in it. Somehow working on the machine aggravated it so badly that it was swollen up and I had trouble walking or much of anything else. I was using a heating pad along with Ben gay and aspirin. None of it helped.,

Karen and the dogs came to visit on the 27th. and I took half of a day off. We had a good time and she went home on the 28th. Two hours into my shift the seal on one of the hydraulic heads went out. I limped back to camp, and after notifying the Boss, spent the rest of the day sight seeing. The day was a bit of a bust any way. It began raining after noon and there was snow on the higher parts of the job. 

I visited the town Of Eureka Nev, and just drove around a bit. The next morning after talking with the boss, learned that it would probably take a week to get parts for the machine and to get it repaired. I elected to pack up and come on home. It is only going to get miserable, and more difficult as the month wears on. I was afraid to leave the trailer there for a week, with no one in it to keep it from freezing up. I just checked the forecast, up to 7 inches of snow by Monday. Time to go home. I had 128 hours, going to have to be enough.

It had been raining all morning, with a few snow flakes mixed in. The clouds were hanging just above camp, and the area that I broke down in had a skiff of snow on it.

The Mountains were all covered on their upper slopes.

On my drive home, I could finely see where the clouds part, and where all our rain goes. This is McDermitt, Nev. right on the border. If you will notice to the right is rain falling behind McDermitt, and to the left rain is falling on the Oregon Canyon Mt's. In the middle it is basically clear, and right in the middle is where our house is 49 miles north.

An evening in the hot tub, does wonders for sore knees. I even managed a good nights sleep in my own bed, and even though I was still grinding trees in my sleep, I woke to a new day, a new promise.

This is the sunrise that I was blessed with as the sun rose.

Its kinda nice to be home again. I think I will give retirement a try- again.

Varmints aftermath

I had thought that I had gotten by easy, and the Coons hadn't had that much time to cause problems. I was wrong. What you see is only what they didn't eat. The birds on the floor would have provided Jessie with enough food for 20 days. Its hard to say how much 4 Raccoon's can eat at one sitting. So it is likely that they consumed a couple of months of Jessie's food supply.

I raise Pigeons for Hawk food, and because I have always had Pigeons. I don't seem to know how to stop raising them. They are about the best food available for a Falcon. There is enough there for two meals, and the meat is high in all the things that a high energy raptor needs. The bones are tough enough that they will help keep the birds beak in good shape as well as keeping the back muscles in tone. Too much soft food is not good for them. They need to tear and pull to get their food.

Ahh well, such is life in the high desert. I cannot blame the predators for trying. That is one of the realities of living here. I am up to the task, and willing to accept the risk.

2015 Fly-in and Varmints

Our fly-in this year was mostly in name only. It was really more of a "Friend reunion". John Hauck and Nell drove out in the spring, They ended up staying a while so Nell could recuperate from a fall that she took off the trailer steps. They then toured Alaska until it started getting cool, then came back to the house for the fly-in. Boyd Young drove out, because of vacation restraints and iffy weather for his return. Karen's niece Mici took the train and Mike was kind enough to take her for some rides in the cub. Toby had a run in with a tree while his plane was on a trailer, and had to turn back. Mike Marker and Jan flew in with a new Carbon Cub, and Roger trailered over. These folks are the core of the group, and every body else was occupied with other commitments. While we missed them, it was a much easier and relaxed time for Karen and I.

We had a few good days, and then the weather that Boyd was worried about came in, so we relaxed and just enjoyed each others company. Every body has slowly trickled back to their homes. The last, John and Nell, left Yesterday to continue on with their slow travel back to Alabama. We all had a great time, and Karen and I really enjoyed each and every one of them.

Over the last week or so, I noticed that I was losing baby Chicks. After a lot of trouble and three setting hens, I had managed to get four Aracuna chicks to hatch. My old Roster is infertile, so I had to depend on Tammi for hatching eggs. The Chicks although pretty good sized begin to disappear. Then the other day  I saw where a varmint had grabbed and carried off one of my older hens. I am actually missing three Buff Orphington full grown Chickens and three young chicks. Of course my first thought was Coyote. There have been a bunch of pups hanging around the place, and I thought that one of them was sneaking into the yard and grabbing them. I  noticed today that the nest that one of my hens had been setting, and left four addled eggs in, was now empty. Brick was sniffing around the area pretty intensely. I now know that he was smelling the Coons and the left overs from the rotten eggs.

I have been watching pretty close but haven't seen anything until today. Josie my little female Brittney, is my eyes. Her vision is much more dependable than mine. She doesn't bark, she just "Uff's" when she sees something. She is a great watch dog, and is so much more valuable to me because she doesn't go nuts and run around barking and scaring every thing off. She just watches and alerts me to potential problems. She has slowly become so much more valuable because of this trait. She warns of of Snakes, chases off the Harriers and Ravens if they get too close, and now seems to be developing into a "seeing Eye Dog" for her apparently rapidly aging owner.

This evening we were sitting outside by the hot tub enjoying the evening, when she began to "Uff Uff" while looking across the creek. I got the bino's and looked and looked, but could see nothing. Finally I expanded my search and saw the Coyote that I had been looking for, going up the Creek. By the time I got ready to shoot him, he was out of sight up the creek.

The sun set had lit up the few clouds that we had, with their full colors, and I took a few pictures of them.

I stayed outside and read until it begin to get dark. I then locked up the Chickens against the varmints, and gathered up the dogs to go inside. Josie was sitting in her regular spot on the couch, and I had walked over to close the door. She began "Uffing" again while sitting on the couch. She wouldn't quit either. I let both of the dogs out, told her to show me what she was upset about, but Brick, ( aptly named, due to the thickness of his lovable head) kept trying to get her to play. Eventually I saw something in the Elm Tree that didn't belong. When the smoke cleared these are the responsible parties to my Chicken losses.

I owe the Coyotes an apology apparently. I have had more Chicken and Pigeon losses to these guy's than I care to remember. They are relentless once they discover a food source. Its too bad for both of us, but there can only be one outcome, I just got them before they did too much damage this time.  It is normally much more difficult and I usually have to resort to traps to get rid of them. Of course I would prefer to not have to kill a mother and pups, but sometimes there is no recourse. A couple of years ago one actually tore a hole in the roof of the Pigeon house to get to the birds inside.  Perhaps now things will settle down a bit.