53 years together

Today is our 53rd anniversary. It takes a bit of thought to get ones mind wrapped around such a mile stone. In case you are wondering it all hasn't been a bed of roses. There were fights, disagreements and lots of adjustments required to get to this point. What helped the most was that we were friends first, lovers second, and we wanted it to work.

In March of 1964 I was living in Southern California and staying with my brother. My sister lived in Cerritos and while visiting her, one of her neighbor's sister across the court, had a nose bleed that they could not get stopped. That happened to be the first time I saw Karen. I soon wore out my welcome with my brothers wife, so I asked my sister for lodging, right on the same street as Karen.

I'm the tall one with the "devil may care attitude". Looking back, it would appear that my presence could have been a little unsettling for both my sister and brother.

It was at this point that I first was able to realize and put into action my desire to participate in falconry.

Karen began to help me with this little creature of wonder, and soon we were both hooked on falconry and each other.

On Jan 1965 we married.

By the end of 1965 we followed her Mother and Father to Oregon. I worked various jobs that ran the gamut of selling Fuller Brush products to selling Sewing Machines and Vacuum cleaners in a chain store. Then on Christmas eve I received my Draft notice from W.Va. Wanting to have the last word, I went to Portland Ore and enlisted in the Army. I signed up for a tour of Alaska, simply because they happened to have the best and the most efficient raptors in the world. I figured I might as well enjoy the time that I had to serve.

Having chosen my place to be assigned, the Army was then free to place me in whatever occupation that they wanted. They decided that I had the makings of an Military Policeman. I was serving on KP duty at the time I found out and though I had never considered the idea, thought that it might be fun.

I was assigned to a Minute man missile site in interior Alaska just above North Pole Alaska. I met Jack Oar, a falconer, and he offered to let us live in a trailer that he had parked at a trucking company just outside of Fairbanks. The going rate for a one room efficiency apartment in Fairbanks was $350 a month at the time. He agreed on $10.00 a month as rent. I may still owe him some money. I was drawing $95. a month and Karen was getting $110, so that was the only way that I would be able to afford to have her with me.

It was only an 8 x 28 foot trailer, but it kept us warm and comfortable through - 55 below zero weather.

We were almost the only trailer in the park, which suited me just fine. Karen got a job at the Polaris Hotel in town and I hitchhiked back and forth the 40 miles to the missile site. The last day that I did so it was -40. I bought an old car from one of the guys that was rotating out. That is a story within itself, but I will spare you.

Eventually I was able to transition to Dog Handler, taking over one of the meanest dogs I have ever seen.

                                                     He looks so cute and nice, but he lived to bite people.

While Karen was working at the Hotel she made friends with Vernell and she and her Husband made the rest of our tour of Alaska fun and easy.

Her husband helped me butcher and bring my Moose back to town, helping our grocery bill quite a lot.

Karen reading my new orders to report to Ft Bragg NC.

Alaska was easy compare to North Carolina. Once again the Army didn't have the housing that they were supposed to have for married personal. We managed however. Even when I was posted to patrol in Washing DC after Martin Luther King was shot.

This is our first night staying in the basement of the Pentagon.

When I finished my hitch with the Army, we returned to Oregon. We settled in Canby south of Portland, doing various things until I was accepted by the Oregon State Police.  I asked to be posted to Klamath Falls, and stuck it out for four years until I decided that most of the population of the world did not deserve the efforts, and sacrifice that was required to keep them alive.

I then went to Oregon State and became a Farrier for two years until I was hired by the BNSF as a welder. I finally had a job that I liked.

I stayed in that same job for 30 years enabling us to receive enough of a retirement check to support our hobbies, and live where and how we wanted for the first time..

I find it a bit interesting in that some people rate their lives by accomplishment. Ours was measured in the animals that we had. My only real ambition was to be able to retire with enough money to play and do the things that Karen and I loved. Not having children, we were our kids. We both loved animals. For me it was raptors. Karen's thrill was horses.

Of course there was room for Raptors as well. The outdoors was our play ground, and we visited it as often as we could.

forced celebration after killing her second Antelope

catching the biggest trout of the trip.

My first Goshawk

Dinner after a hunt.

My second bear

My first Bear.

Our first imprint breeding Peregrine

 This was in my Farrier stage.

Our home in Klamath Falls

Falconry has been our goal and occupation from the very first day we met. We have raised Peregrines for the reintroduction of the species to the US. We were very active in the state organization.

Yes it has been a ride, sometimes a bit rocky, most of the time well worth the effort, and damn sure never boring.

Happy New year to all!

I am beginning to see the backside of this wonderful cold that I picked up on the 20th of Dec. The only blessing is, that I managed to keep it away from Karen. No touching, sleeping in a chair when I could sleep that is. I'm not sure if the severity of the thing is evolution of the germs or devolution of my wrinkled old ass. In any case I appear to finally be able to sleep long enough to have to go pee sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

Karen managed to get over her Candida or thrush, under her partial. We haven't heard yet as to the rescheduling of her surgery. I just glad that they postponed it.

All in all it has been a good year for us. Plenty of friends visiting, and in general things have improved. Its good to find that there is a possibility that Karen can get some of her energy back. Yes the prospects are scary, but it would be nice to have my pardner and best friend back again to share in all the fun.

The weather has moderated for us, and we are just about through the months with the shittiest weather. Just January left then the promise of sunshine and good weather.

I decided that I wasn't going to put any effort in Coyote hunting this year even though I bought a "gillie" suit that would render me invisible if I don't move too much. You will notice that the only thing you can see is my face, which I did not cover for the picture.

I went out once to a pond in the back country thinking that there should be a pack of Coyotes working it, but spent all evening with various calls and saw nothing. I had a grown young of the year come up in the field that I had to shoot, and skin, but I just haven't gotten enough ambition to try to add to it. I do keep an eye out however and get up to look out the windows to make sure that we don't have any visitors.

This evening about 4 pm Karen decided that she wanted to get into the hot tub. So we shed our clothes and piled in. We were having a conversation about whether the moon was full tonight or not, and I see a Coyote peering around the end of the Fifth Wheel. I peeled out of the side of the tub, ducked behind the cover and went streaking around the house and in the front door. The little .17 seemed to close 2017 quite nicely for him.

The funny part is that it seems to be an old dog, as his teeth were worn down quite a bit. Apparently he forgot that there are places that one does not go.

Of course that required me to skin the sucker, but actually the thought of it was tougher than the actual job.

It is our wish that all of you have a great new year!

Postponed

We have been scrambling all the last week trying to get everything done before the proposed operation on the 22nd. One of the requirements seems to be a visit to the dentist. All cavities have to be filled and a release from the Dentist filed. It seems that she had a small infection from her partial, so now the operation is postponed until that clears up. Karen is quite disappointed. It requires quite a process of acceptance to prepare oneself to such a serious and invasive surgery, not to mention the recovery time, and she I am sure feels a serious let down. Now she is going to have to go through all this again. Since she is on warfarin to keep her blood thin enough that her mechanical valve that she had put in 20 years ago, I have to give her shots of a different drug in her stomach until the surgery can be completed. Now we get to go through it all again. I am sure its for the best, but still a pain.

We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas!

Dec 13, 2017

It seems that I made the right decision. We have been fogged in for at least four days now. Visibility has been measured in yards rather than the usual miles. Hope has taken to the new plan with enthusiasm. She is up to 1140 grams. I will hand feed her for as long as I can. I take her tidbits in her tin cup and give her the main course on her perch. She is quite nice about it. I was telling Karen that she is the only hawk that I have ever had that isn't convinced that I really am plotting to take her food away as soon as she lets her guard down. Damn its only taken me 50 years to get it right. Now if I can only remember how it did it.

Actually the pictures do not show the lack of visibility, but the Hoar frost comes through loud and clear. The ground cover is actually frozen fog that has drifted to the ground.

Today however dawned with a bit of clear sky. The temps however were still at 12 degrees, even though the sun did come out a bit.

Hopefully this will be the worst of the weather for Dec, but I don't think I will hold my breath. We usually get a big chunk of below zero weather.

Karen will be going in to the hospital on the 22nd for repair of her mytral heart valve. She will likely be there for about 7 or 8 days. It will take her about 6 weeks to heal, or at least that is the normal routine for such an operation. As many of you might know, she has been getting weaker and weaker. The valve leakage keeps her from getting enough blood to her body, and its result is that she almost has to rest from walking from one end of the house to the other. with any luck at all she may be able to go hawking and do some things again. Before you ask, she picked the date, saying that she didn't mind missing Christmas but didn't want to miss our anniversary on Jan. 9th. It will be our 52nd.

Wish us luck!

A bit more explanation

I was a bit surprised to get an email from someone wondering why I would no longer be hunting this fall. I tend to forget that almost all of the rest of the worlds population knows very little about raptors. A subject that I have lived for most of 50 years. So I will see if I can find the words to make my decision to stop hunting this fall a bit clearer.

Raptors have evolved to suit their environment, and to the prey species available to them in that environment. Harris Hawks are residents of the deserts of the South West. Having evolved over time to live there, the most important factor for their survival would be the ability to withstand heat. There is very little rain, so the feathers did not develop the "bloom" that makes a Peregrine Falcons wings glow and water to roll off without soaking in to the skin. They are designed to shed heat rather than preserve it.

This is my world now and for most of the next three months. That is not snow that you see in the two bottom pictures. It is frost. Lots of humidity, lots of liquid, colder than a well diggers butt, even without the wind.

To get a raptor in hunting condition requires the obvious - exercise, stamina in flight, regulation of calorie intake. That means she is hungry most of the time. The only time she isn't hungry is when she kills something and is allowed to eat her fill. Her body fat is down to the single digits levels, and muscle burns more calories than she can eat, so she is single minded in her desire to kill and thus eat.

So for me to take her out in snow covered fields, which for all intents and purposes she is not suited for, and want her to slam into snowy Sage brush after an animal in its element, is a bit unfair.

Of course it would be very difficult for her to accomplish the task that I have set for her. I have rarely    ( perhaps twice ) fed her when she didn't kill. To do so would tell her that she didn't have to kill to eat. Not a message that I want her to learn. To set her a task that she would not be able to complete would teach a lesson that I would like her to learn either.

The appeal of falconry to me is the contest of two natural opponents on an even "playing field". If I wanted to just kill stuff, I would take my rifle. When the odds are stacked against the prey species, we call it a "Rat hunt." Indicating that the prey didn't stand a chance. While that gives me no pleasure unless it is indeed a Rat, It is not fair to the raptor to stack the odds against them either. For a raptor to achieve its best, it must succeed. Too easy and it is lazy.  Too hard and she can give up, and stop trying.

For me to stop hunting for three or four weeks to wait for milder weather, I would have a choice of either feeding her enough that she would stop straining at the leash to get my attention and hopefully divert my path to pick her up to hunt, or leave her so high in condition that she could develop enough fat to ease her hunger pangs. Then we would have to begin again the conditioning that would allow her to compete with a foe that is not handicapped as she would be at such time. Conditioning a raptor is a balancing act. You don't want them so lean that they are desperate to eat, or so heavy that they are not motivated.

There is also conservation to be considered. Jack Rabbits especially, are subject to cycles that normally run on a 7 year time frame. They get so plentiful that disease runs through them like the plague and they die off to the point that there is little left to rebuild the populations. Right now they are very low. However it was due to weather conditions rather than disease, but the result is the same. They say that a Jacks home territory is one to two acres. It seems to me more, since there are more places that do not have a rabbit to jump than there is. Under normal circumstances the best territory for a Jack would have a smaller less aggressive rabbit ready to move in to fill a deceased Jacks place once the bigger Jack was killed. That does not always happen out here. Too many choices.

The Jacks in this area will begin courtship in mid January. Gestation is not very long, so a lot of the rabbits that we would be catching would be pregnant females. The Jacks will have a tough time going through this winter. The Coyotes Eagles and Bob Cats will need to eat as well. The rabbits can hide from the Eagles, they can outrun the Bob Cats and Coyotes if they are healthy and smart. They cannot escape being chased and thus caught by Hope with my help,  if she is on her game. Don't tell the ranchers, that hope my presence will mean that there are less Jacks to eat their hay stacks.  The last thing I would do is affect the rabbit population adversely. Conservation actually means to leave enough to maintain their populations at their peak.

There is a time and season for every thing. It is good that the ending of this one seems too soon. That means that I am still having fun, and quitting while I am ahead. My first Harris Hawk lived for 34 years . There is time yet. Next year she will be three, smarter, and with some decent weather a Happy warrior once again.

Dec 5th 6th and 7th- fini

The weather has dropped into its December "normal". Upon spending our first year here, I was surprised that December is the worst month for cold here. Every other place that I have lived it was January. Most if not all our below zero weather last year was in Dec. It has been in mostly single digits for the last week, with temps climbing to 32 degrees or so during the day.

I have had 8 Harris Hawks in my career and none of them has hunted in the snow and cold. They just aren't suited for it. Hope has done the best. All the others just refused to chase with snow on the ground. Hope gives the impression that she would like to catch one, if she only had the chance. I am making light of the fact that Hope has not caught anything in the last three days of opportunities. Today she had perhaps 20 slips on Jacks. I don't mind the gas required to drive 90 miles, I don't mind the effort of slogging through the Sage for two or three hours. However I expect some blood on the ground and my hands at the end of it. I can't blame her, but it is obvious to me that these weather conditions are more of an obstacle to her than she is capable of overcoming.

Its too bad because I stumbled on an area that is loaded with Jacks just in the last two days. Unfortunately the area has about 1 1/2 inches of snow on it.

The area is close to what I had available last year as far as Jacks are concerned. The area is totally tracked up. I haven't seen anything to compare to it this year.

The areas that are bare of snow seem to cause the same problem, just because of the cold. I guess that I really wouldn't care to crash head first in to a prickly Sage bush either when it is this cold. On the fifth we tried over at the ranch. I walked two different areas and moved five rabbits in about 2.5 hours. That is what the places without snow can produce, most times, less. I expressed to Karen my reluctance to kill any more rabbits in my spots because I feared reducing the breeders to minus optimum numbers.

I had decided after this hunt that it was time to quit whether I wanted to or not. Then on a trip to town I stopped to see an acquaintance and he told me of a spot with all the Jacks. We hunted there with no success and plenty of slips. At this time I had not fed Hope since the fifth. I went again today with the same result, except when I got home, I fed her and removed her transmitter.

She will finish the season with 20 head of game. Nothing to "write home about",  but nothing to be ashamed of either. She is still the most fun and pleasant to fly Hawk I have had. 

For those who have followed Hopes daily progress, I thank you.  I have enjoyed relating her hunts, since it is a bit of a diary for me. I guess its time to dust off the elliptical again, and refresh my library card.