Thursday, October 27 Hunt

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A light drizzle , at first

....started out to be questionable.  It was raining as I drove in the dark to the meet, and the forecast was for showers all day, winds to be out of the S/SW ( the exact opposite of Tuesday), and mild temps  in the mid 60's to low 70's.

I was the first to arrive, and although the heavy rain had abated, it was still drizzling lightly as I took Rap off the trailer. But it was warm, 60 degrees, and no wind.  The trees are about at their peak of autumn foliage , and with the heavily overcast sky the color saturation was enhanced.  It  was really a very pretty morning. And probably the last warm one we would see for a long time.

Which made dressing for the days' activity  problematic. I rummaged around and found a black ,waterproof  jacket I had purchased at the Devon Horse Show years ago, but had never had the need to wear. It is cut like a show jacket, very lightweight, and the fabric is so waterproof that you can pour a glass of water on the sleeve and it will bead up and roll right  off. Arista might  be the name of the maker. Have never seen them since the Devon show. Anyway, with my thin Barbour vest and a turtleneck underneath I was confident I'd stay dry and not get too warm. (Unlike when you steam from the *inside* out wearing those damn Barbour waxed jackets -hate them!)

At 7:50 I was mounted, Bobby was ready, and we were pondering the whereabouts  of Andy and Howard .  A call to Andy revealed that he had an urgent family matter to tend to and would not be hunting. Uh-oh. It was now raining again, we had one hound truck, one person on foot, and one mounted. Undaunted, we called Howard, who lives only minutes away. He was happy and willing to bring his hound truck ( he has no hounds at the moment), and give us a hand.  By 8:10am, Howard was with us to road whip, and Bobby and I made the first draw with the now-abbreviated pack of only 5 cple.  ( I had left Marney and Lark at home to make it an easy day. Marney can be hard to break, and Lark was sore from Tuesday. We didnt need to be having any hounds not with the pack when it was time to quit on a rainy day)

The farther we walked into the woods, the harder the rain came down.   Almost an hour later, after the draw had encompassed a huge loop through two coverts , a cornfield and alongside two bean fields,  Howard met us with the hound truck and we loaded.  We had one short burst on a very cold trail and that was all.

It was now  about 9:15.  The rain had stopped again and the sun had even poked out for a very brief moment.  It was a pretty day.  My horse was still fresh. The hounds still eager. And Bobby was really hoping that I was ready to call it a day. Nope.  I never want to have to say we had a blank day. Everyone looked at each other as several seconds passed  in silence.  I must have had a huge grin on my face when  Howard piped up with  "I've got all day".  So then, did I.....and Bobby was out-voted, 2-1.

Howard drove Bobby and the hounds back to  Bobby's hound truck, while Rap and I worked our way back through the woods to meet up with them .   Our second cast would be through the woods behind the C & R Center Lodge,  and this time, unlike Tuesday, we were expecting to find a fox in this end of the forest. If they werent laying-in where we usually find, then they must be "down this-a-way" !

As we  walked the pack through the woods , a nice buck got up about 50 feet in front of us and took off running.  Well, if nothing else happens today, we will at least see how steady our hounds are.  We walked them right over the bucks' line , and not a voice spoke.  Only one hound, Repo, lifted his head and looked in the bucks' direction. A quiet "no" was all it took to regain  his attention  . We emerged into an open field behind the Center Lodge  where Howard was waiting with Bobby's hound truck , ready to load if we needed him .   The walking huntsman (I  keep telling him he needs a horse!)  and the mounted one  were less than 200 yards from the Lodge discussing where to go for breakfast  when....  my Marilyn (!!!) suddenly put her nose down to the ground, then up, as she made a bee-line through some tall weeds  for the woods edge. A split second later, the others followed and  Howard's voice crackled over the radio: "You got one, didnt ya?!"   They were in full cry, and running back through the woods, away from the Lodge.  I turned Rap around and rode the pack while Bobby got to Howards truck.

This fox made a nice run through the woods,  staying  behind the C & R Center  .  But by  10:15, the rain  started up again not long before our fox decided he would make his way  across the dirt road through the forest and on towards the Beagle Cl;ub grounds on the far side of a paved road.  If we'd had one more  road whip,we would have let them go on.  But when they checked at the dirt lane ,  we opted to hold them up and call it a day. 



I  was happy! Marilyn had been the first to wind that fox, all the hounds had been steady off the buck, and we had a nice little chase to finish the morning. Considering the weather, it was a good day out with hounds.



Raining, at the start of the first draw



the one and only moment when the sun peeked out

Hound stuck in a drain pipe!

Tuesday,October 25.  Another beautiful morning,  49 degrees and calm winds when we began the draw @ 8am.  Larry, his uncle, Andy, and Howard were out with us. 12 cple cold-trailed a fox through the woods for about 20minutes. I was positioned on a ditch bank and was waiting as the hounds  made their way towards me. A large tree had fallen over the ditch  which is easily 15 feet wide and the same, or more depth, with about 2 feet of water at the bottom. Hounds trailed the fox to the ditch and over the downed tree to my side.(with a few hounds getting a nice dunk in the water!)  I turned the camera on as they began to feather furiously along the side of the ditch. . Their fox was actually in a drain pipe which ran underneath where my horse and I were standing, and exited into the woods off to the left..  I  turned the camera off, and a few seconds later was surprised by Reynard bolting  out the woods side of the drain pipe..  Some of the smaller hounds followed him through the pipe, while others came overtop, right in front of me ..  I was about to follow them on, when I heard a hound in obvious distress, howling.  It took me a minute to find where the drain  opening was, I jumped off my horse and had to climb down an embankment about 6 feet into some thick brush.  There was Radio, one of Bobby's hounds, stuck in the pipe! The pipe was bent inward, crimped, about 3" with a sharp pointed edge, and this was preventing Radio from getting through. it .  I have no idea how the camera captured this, as I had to have had one hand on the radio, one hand pulling on the dog, so??? The camera was around my neck. There are  a few seconds of blackness, and then the camera must have flipped around and captured me pulling poor Radio out!

..."we know he's in there,!" ..hounds have got their fox inside the drain pipe and he's about to bolt out the other end. 

Hounds ran this fox for almost an hour before denning him in an earth near the old farmstead where we put one in last week here.  All but three hounds were gathered, and we spent the next hour trying to locate them. Farting around, they were.  Finally, we decided the best thing to do would be to make another draw, get another fox, and have those 3 outlaws hark to the pack. Well,  Diana must have been  with us, as not 2 minutes after hounds were put back in covert, they jumped another fox. This one ran no more than 10 minutes before going to ground., But the plan worked! All hounds were accounted for this time!!   Larry's hounds had only been out once or twice this season, and he never turned back out. By the time we got all hounds loaded it was almost 11am.

After I pulled Radio out, I hopped back on the horse and took off to try to catch up with the pack.. They were swinging right towards the dirt road I had left earlier. While galloping down that road,, my radio popped out of its case ( didnt know it, of course).  Later, after realizing it was gone, I thought perhaps I had forgotten to pick it up off the ground after i pulled the hound out. When the hunt was over, I went back to look for it and took some pics of the drain pipe that show the bent edge. Someone else found the radio on the road....

that crimp in the pipe had a sharp edge facing inward, which is why the hound didnt want to come out. I was afraid to pull him at first, thinking he might slice his side up . But once he cleared his shoulders, I knew I'd be able to pull him out



The drain pipe runs under this path separating the ditch, off to the right, and the woods on the left.

 

the end of the drain pipe that empties into the ditch. It was quite a feat for hounds to get into it, actually,as there is alot of air underneath it!



Hunt # 16 : Hounds hit the ground running!

...Well, almost. :

Tuesday, October 18,  Bobby and I took our little pack of 5 1/2 cple to  the C& R Center in Delaware. Deer laws in Maryland and Delaware are hampering everyone's foxhunting pursuits during the month of October. This week, we can't run hounds  in Maryland, but we can  hunt in Delaware any day except Friday and Saturday. ( should clarify that we hunt a trencher type private pack and during the week only a few of us are getting out this early. By November, our combined pack will increase to anywhere from 15 cple during the week to upwards of 20 or more cple on weekends)

Tuesday was a beautiful fall morning. The temp was 51 degrees when we pulled up to the state-owned forest and the winds were calm at 7:45am.  This was to be our second time hunting this country and although the corn was standing during our first visit, it had been partially harvested and the equipment was sitting in the fields when we pulled up to Cye Haines' gate. We knew we had but a few hours to get in a chase before the harvest was to begin again.

The wind was to blow out of the N/NE, so we left Cy Haines' and drove into the forest via the only dirt road that cuts through it. Our plan: we would draw around the small pond here:

there's a small pond right in front  of this tall grass, it cant be seen, as it's in a low spot

and  head through those woods.  The old Cy Haines homestead lay about  a mile on the other side, with

cornfields between it and the covert.

We unkennelled the hounds and walked no more than 50 yards when the entire pack opened in unison.

In a flash they were off  in full cry.  The time: 7:52. They walked right on top of a hot trail that began towards the right side of this photo. Reynard must have been visiting the pond  for a froggy breakfast !

Although a third hunter was suposed to join us, he had not yet made an appearance  and it appeared as if  Bobby and I would  have to stay on top of the pack ourselves.  I headed out the forest lane to position myself on a bad bend in a paved road that would put me downwind of  cry . Bobby headed through Cy Haines' gate and  past the homestead to position himself as close to the pack as he could. get .  As I stood on the road taking in the sound of 11 Pennmarydel voices screaming behind their pilot,  Donny , our third hunter, finally pulled up.  "Hurry, drive down Cy Haines' lane and you can get your hounds in!"  .... But, alas, he had brought none.  Too bad, but at least we now had another pair of eyes and ears to keep the roads covered.

Donny was wishing he had his hounds as he listened to ours run this fox through the still-standing corn, making one wide swing towards the road I was on, but down a good mile from where I had sat at the bend.

I was able to stay alongside of them until they bore back from the road and into the woods behind the Center Lodge.  From there our fox made a run alongside a ditch until he found an earth  about 80 yards from the old farmhouse ruins.  Our chase lasted 40 minutes. Not as long as we had wanted, but all hounds were on and we felt fortunate to have had the chance to run them in this last stand of corn.  But we werent ready to call it a day just yet!

Heck, we had an extra person to  road whip!   We knew we needed to move farther into the state forest and draw away from the corn.  Halfway along the dirt lane there is a  bridle path, albeit a very soggy one, that leads through another covert and into some fields behind the Center Lodge. Bobby  would start the draw from the dirt lane and walk the pack through the woods, while I headed around to the Lodge. We both knew that this cast would probably be blank, as we never , ever jump a fox in this area. But, there's always a first time! And if nothing else, we would get the hounds out for a bit more exercise.

 We had sent Donny to sit at the locked gate in front of the Lodge. I waited a few minutes where we turned out and then headed that way, too.  I unlocked the gate and positioned my hound truck as far back behind the Lodge as I could get it. It was only a few minutes before we could hear Bobby coming through the woods and into the clearing behind the lodge. Not  a peep out of a hound, but then, hey, we kinda expected that!   By 9:30, all hounds were back in the trucks  and the only decision left was where to have breakfast.

Next Tuesday we will have at least 2 other hunters joining us when we return here, and that means I will be able to hunt mounted. The state of Delaware only mows the ditch banks every other year, and unfortunately, this is NOT the year. I had  been reminded of that fact  last Sunday when I hunted Rap at Taber Woods. The weeds and brush were chest high on my horse there, and the ditches here dont look any different. Fortunately, the chiggers seem to have abated for the season. Regardless, it's gonna be great hunting this country on a horse again!



Video of a chase from Last March 20,2011

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. Since the foxhounds must remain in kennels the rest of this week while the deer hunters do their thing, i decided to go back through my videos from last season and post some of them here. 

Our hounds had just put a vixen to ground on the far side of this field. I had sat on this point and watched her cross this cornfield three times.  I was about to head towards the earth when I spied this big, yellow dog fox coming at me. He was heading away from the earth and was so intent on drawing the hounds attention away from his mate that he failed to notice my horse and me directly in his path.

He came within 100feet, maybe less,  of us,and was closest to me when you see him stop and look back..
He never bolted, but just continued on his jog towards the woods. I galloped  across the field to get to Tommy and Bobby and the pack to  lift them to the line. Charlie  had a good 10 minute lead on them before they struck him right at the point where heslipped into the woods.  Hounds had much trouble smelling him over the fallow field, but scent obviously improved as soon as they got to the woods.

My horse stood stone still, but I was shaking with excitment, so please excuse the wobbly camera at times.

Sunday,October 9 hunt

Rap, ready to go

a few mintues later,  when it got a bit lighter, I took another shot.The horse hadnt moved a muscle.

so, what's in this pic, taken from atop Rap?

Before the dawn, waiting  to release the hounds

We are in the midst of a gorgeous Indian Summer-like weekend here on DelMarva, although it cant actually be called that since we have yet to have a frost.
Cool nights, with lows in the high 40's give way to warm afternoons and temps soaring upwards of 30+ degrees. The humidity has been vanquished by cool, crisp nights that dawn into cloudless blue sky days. Perfect cubbing weather, as long as you get hounds on the ground not long after sunrise.

Which we did this morning. A small pack, only Bobby's 3 1/2 cple and my 2cple, drew the cornfield at Taber Woods at 7:30am. It was 46 degrees, a heavy dew, and dead calm.
I could see Raps' breath as he stood perfectly still waiting for the hounds to be unkenneled.

The corn has been planted right up to the hedgerows and I had to keep ducking my head to avoid being smacked by branches. Good thing I left the 17.2 h horse at home, and chose to ride my little 16.1h QH.

At 7:40, hounds opened briefly in the field to my left but then shut up again within seconds.
A few moments of silence were then followed by a lone voice way off in the next cornfield, to the right of the hedgerow. Who was that??? Not Part Time, known to strike off a bit from the others at times, but often the first to find. SARA?? MY Sara?? What the heck is she doing way over there?! I waited, and saw Part Time and a couple others cross tnrough the hedgerow and hark to her. By 7:45,all hounds had honored her (FIRST EVER!!) find and we had a nice little chase going through the corn, across a ditch and on into a very nasty cutover we call the Pistol Range. ( although there is no such thing remaining, there probably was one, o maybe 50 years ago, lol!)

The sides of the ditches are overgrown with thick weeds that came up chest high on Rap as he pushed through them to get back to the road. The hounds were running the dense cutover of the pistol range, but headed right for Burrsville Rd. As we hit the pavement, i looked up to see a truck follower riding the macadam. And the cry of the pack was right alongside him.
Damn. Our fox got doubled. But as the hounds spilled out onto the road i was overjoyed to see Sara in the lead with Part Time by her side. WOOHOO!! Regardless of what happens the rest of the morning, she has made my day!

And that WAS to be the highlight of the hunt because hounds could not recover the line. Charlie gave them the slip in the mess of the overgrown and boggy cutover.
We tried for over an hour, but hounds were unsucessful in finding their pilot. We had a few promising-sounding moments as the pack cold trailed through the Pistol Range, across another ditch, and on into the woods behind Tagglers Gate. There things deteriorated as the pack
busted up inside the woods. We had 3 bunches headed in different directions. 3000 acres, one mounted hunter, one on foot, and the afore-mentioned truck follower.

AND, the temp was rising as rapidly as the sun. I had on a long sleeved polo, quilted vest, and Barber jacket. I could feel the sweat sliding in rivelets down my back, Rap was steaming, and it was now high tea for the mosquitoes. And although they swarmed in clouds around us , at least my clothes were protecting me from becoming their feast. But yeah, it was time to get these suckers and call it a day.

The last 3 hounds were loaded around 9:30am. Cant say I regret not keeping on. My horse had had enough of slogging through deep going alongside fresh plough and thick weeds and briars. He did super for his first hunt of the season.

And Sara found her first fox, ever. THAT, alone, was worth getting up at 4am!

Finally Fall

... and as soon as the weather breaks,  the blanket business gets slammed with folkswho proscrastinated getting their horse blankets done until they felt the first chilly night. 

And I had to take my mom to the ER last Friday.  Shes out of hospital, but far from being well.  Awaiting test results to explain severe anemia and reduced kidney function. But at least she is home. Not -so -good news.

New employee to handle the sewing is doing super. Good news!

My farrier,after being trampled by a 2 yo stallion, is back to work and both horses have new shoes,ready to go with borium tipped nails and/or studs. (3 broken ribs, a lacerated kidney and had to have  his spleen removed).  Very Good News!

AND THE BEST NEWS: Hunting  HERE tomorrow @ 8am:

The Last Day of Summer

...and the temperature is still almost  80F at 8:30 in the evening.  It's time.  Time for the flies to stop annoying the livestock, ,time for the curtains to billow in a cool, crisp breeze, time for a deep blue sky and the golden burnished light of  an early autumn day.

Here on DelMArVa we are supposed to get 2-5" of rain over the next  36 hours.  Flood advisories are posted and everyone that could, cut their grass today.  My horses wont leave the barn at dusk due to the mosquitoes.  (Wait until next week, boys ....)

...and  fall  seems so very far away. 

We plan  to hunt this Sunday.  Hopefully, the weatherman might get it wrong and the rain will blow through taking the heat and humidity with it.

Meanwhile, the birthday hunt on 9/21 was as good as we could expect, under the circumstances. We had only a few acres of standing corn left in which to draw. There was a heavy fog, temp was 63 degrees @ 6am. Winds were to be out of the S-S/E @ 5-10mph ,but it was dead calm as we drew the pitiful looking stand of corn with only 5 cple.  

Shamrock,one of Bobby's steady gyps, made the the find at 6:10.  We had hoped that only 5cple might keep the fox within the corn for a little longer than he stayed. But every hound was throwing tongue just as loud as they possibly could and their pilot bolted .  He flew across the lane right in front of Black Bills house ( an abandoned bungalow named for the  man who used to live there),  into a small covert bordering  Baker Rd.
He was aiming for the chicken houses across the road, and we could not let him get there.The fog was getting thicker as the minutes passed.  Hounds were held up within the covert after a run lasting  a short half hour.( I dont think Charlie  made it across the road, but I dont know what became of him. ) All were loaded within seconds.  It was done.  We had a  birthday chase, albiet a short one, on a day with horrible conditions, in a now-risky country.

Our cubbing in the corn is done now. We will hunt Georges Branch on Sunday\ and then we might not  go again until October 1st,when we are able to hunt in Delaware. It will be a different ball game then as we won't have to be holding up hounds anymnore.

Maybe fall will have arrived by then.

Enjoy  my birthday song, sung by:  Lark, Marney, Sara, Shamrock, Pearl, Whip, Roscoe, Radio,Part time and  Repo. ( we have alot of sopranos.... and a squeaky screen door  hinge!)

Raven, sleeping in a sunbeam

Raven, awake

So what now?!

....the corn came off of  the fields around George's Pond on Friday.  That left us only Burliegh's fields to hunt on Saturday, and we knew it would be our last hunt there for awhile,too. Heavy equipment was lined up along the road there which meant it,too,would be gone before Sunday.

Most of the corn in Burleigh's was flattened by Hurricane Irene. It is hard for the hounds and for us to manuever through it. Hounds have to be constantly jumping over every stalk that is laying on its side. Hard for a hound to keep its nose to the ground while  doing that! I had to hyke my knees to my waist with every stride.
 It was a less-than -ideal day,weather-wise.  Cooler by almost 20 degrees from the last hunt @5:30am.. But winds out of the NE @ 10-15mph made the air heavy and  also made it impossible to hear unless you were in one location, ( and which was NOT where the hounds were most of the day .)

The best run of the morning was the last, and that fox threatened to cross the highway once.Thankfully , he turned back.  I was the only one there when he came close to the road, and as soon as he turned back, it was only seconds before I couldnt hear *anything* again. Wind was all wrong, all day.  I was glad when it was over @ 8:30am.

Its bow season in Maryland now, and foxchasing doesnt open until October1st in Delaware.  Our only hope is maybe a chance out next Sunday morning @ George's.  Realy looking forward to hunting C & R Center after October 1st!!  I  will definitely be mounted for those hunts,and I'm hoping Shirley will want to join us on General  ( or Rap! I'm trying to convince her to hunt Rap this season,so I can hunt Mel more often)

Today, ,Sunday, I cleaned ALL of my tack. Wormed ALL of the hounds.  Rode Mel, which meant I had to clean his tack all over again. Customers came with more blankets ( procrastinators!). Got domestic and made Crab stuffed Portobello mushrooms (moms favorite), and was gifted with a precious bag of Pole Limas,so I stretched them by making succotash with some of the last of the fresh corn.

Mom came over and took some pics of the puppies :

Enough already

.....I'm sick of it. Sick and tired of this humidity. I can stand the heat, but this morning it was 70F with 88% humidity when we drew the corn. Like a sauna. Not quite as bad as last Saturday, but close. I did a lot of running on foot, in the dark, keeping Charlie in the corn where we wanted him to stay. The mosquitoes are really bad right now, so a long-sleeved top is a necessity. I had grabbed a heavy cotton cable knit sweater to throw on over my shirt - the weather report SAID it was going to be about 65 for a low, but it neglected to mention how much moisture would be in the air. I was so hot, but taking off the sweater was just not an option due to the bugs. The moon was high overhead, no longer full, but illuminating the country as if God was shining down a flashlight. At 5:15 when we unkenneled, we could see every hound. A fox had been close not long before our arrival, and all the hounds were smelling him. I was keeping a close eye on Lark, expecting her to open first, but Part-Time beat her to it. Part-Time jumped the fox at 5:33am, and Lark and the rest of Bobby and my hounds were in full cry in seconds. Freddie and his dad were just pulling up to their point on the irrigation lane that runs right through the middle of the field. He was upwind ( wind out of the S/SE about 10mph) and could not hear our 51/2 cple. Neither could his hounds. But the fox conveniently made a swing in their direction, and by the time Charlie made his way back towards where we turned out, all hounds were on. Being downwind, Bobby and I could hear the pack as the fox led them on a circuitous route through the corn. Freddie could only hear them when the hounds got close to him, but his vantage point was crucial, and he knows to stay put. If the fox gets across that irrigation lane where he is positioned, it's only a couple of hundred yards to Baker Rd. Our fox made many big swings in the corn, and then started acting like he wanted to go somewhere- either into the branch(mucky wet bottom land within a woods) on the north side or towards George's back lane on the south side. At 6:50 he made a couple tight swings on the south side and then Freddie tally-hoed him as he crossed the irrigation lane. We had already agreed that we would pick up the pack at the first opportunity - they had been running for close to to 1 1/2 hrs, and we knew they'd be hot. Bobby and I flew to the back lane and made a left onto the irrigation lane to get to Freddy. Just as we made the turn, Charlie cooperated by popping out onto the lane. He was running right AT us, between Freddie and us. When the fox saw us, he jumped back into the corn, back to the side where he had been circling for so long. How freakjn' lucky was that??! We were right there when the pack poured into the lane, and it didn't take much to convince them to quit. All on!! All so very, very hot!! We made a bee-line for the overgoin' ( see last blog post for definition!), backed the hound truck right up to the waters' edge and dropped the tailgate. I so much wanted to join those hounds as they splashed around in that cool water. But I had a customer to meet @ 7:30 am in the nearby town for a blanket pickup, and mixed company made that NOT an option anyway. Got home, put hounds up, changed into dry clothes and loaded Mel for a hack at Redden. Sun beating down, no breeze at all, and the temp reading 84. Huh. , the high was not to get above 80. We got through it, both of us soaking, sopping sweaty by the end of only an hours' ride. Sick of it. The long-awaited cold front is supposed to arrive within the next few hours, and the low tonight is forecast to be 50. I'll believe it when I stop sweating.

Saturday, September10. Poetry in motion- kinda

Another early morning chase ( yawn).  I could've slept an extra half hour,as one person didnt arrive until 5:30, and I was at the meet @ 5am.  Listened to "Coast to Coast" on the drive over,as usual.  George Noury spooked me enough this morning that I stayed in my truck with the windows locked until someone else showed up!


Drew the cornfield next to Georges' Branch again-it's the only corn field still standing that we can hunt in at the moment.  Can't remember another year in which all the corn came down this early. 67 F, no wind, but very humid still.  Hounds jumped a fox @ 5:51am and our little pack of  9 1/2cple had a good chase for 70 minutes.  We had to break them again and I was almost wishing we had done it earlier. Of course, Mr.Fred said, " what??? let'em run till suppertime!"  Those hounds were so hot that  we ran them down to the overgoin'  and unloaded them into the stream  to cool off. Yeah, overgoin'. Obsolete phrase, ( over going ) used by Shakespeare as a verb in King Henry VIII.  Pretty sure these fellas didnt learn it from him....
.
Took me 3 years before I figured out what they were saying...The "overgoin'" here is a creek crossing-no bridge- just a firm spot with rocks on the bottom (imported rocks, since there are no indigenous stones here on the Eastern Shore!) through which  you can drive a vehicle.  That is,  unless there has been a recent heavy rain. Like last week.


Anyway, I was glad we had the opportunity to cool them off quickly 'cause a few of them, including Shamrock, weren't looking so good. But a quick dip and a cold drink  revived them, and my three  (Marilyn is still in heat) had a comfortable ride home.

Great hound music, as this fox kept making circles in the corn, coming close to us several times. "Alarmin' the castle", as Freddie would say.  Another Eastern Shore foxhunters' term ( at least, I've never heard it anywhere else,  somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) that also has nothing whatsoever to do with Shakespeare. Just another way of saying they were tonguing their hearts out.

This was @ 50 minutes into the chase.

Wednesday, September 7 huntt

DelMarVa was spared the torrential  rains that western Maryland , D.C.and PA experienced on Wednesday and when I checked the radar @ 4am  it looked like we would have no problem getting our hunt in. But when I stepped out the door to head to the kennel- holy cow! The atmosphere was saturated, and the temp was 74 degrees .And although the wind was forecast to be out of the S/SE at 10-15mph, at 5am it was dead calm.

I grabbed rain gear, but the thought of having to put it on overtop of long pants and  a longsleeved shirt was not appealing.


We drew Burleighs cornfield @ 5:15 am., Freddie walking his hounds in from Janes back lane while Bobby and I walked ours down the lane that leads to the irrigation pump.  The corn around us was flattened by Hurricane Irene  making it slow going for us and the hounds.  Freddie fared better than we, and @ 5:20am, we heard two of his hounds tonguing in the distance .  We  were upwind and it was hard to hear them. They were headed towards Baker rd, so we turned around and started out of the corn.  Our hounds stopped dead and listened,trying to figure out how best to hark. Some chose to work their way through the downed corn, while most decided it was faster to run out the irrigation lane to the road and run down the road to cry. In the dark, I hoped there were no cars coming down Baker rd.

By the time we got to the road, hounds were in full cry and running the cornfields behind Black Bills. My clothes were soaked , and the humidity was stifling.  I thought about Sara, and wondered if I should have left her home. (She supposedly has a heart defect, and she does tend to run out of gas during long chases.)

Our fox made a couple tight swings in the corn behind Black Bills and then we could hear the pack headed towards a small woods that borders Baker rd. Across that road lies chicken houses and  "Georges' little branch".  We did NOT want the pack getting over into that country this morning.  We all got to the road before the hounds, and probably turned our fox back. (It was  still too dark to tell if Charlie had made it across the road, yet   it sounded as if the hounds were coming right to us).  We didnt wait to find out, and broke the pack before they got within 100 feet of the road. Right in front of someones house -our hollering probably didnt wake them up, since the pack had to have run right behind the house only minutes earlier.

All hounds were there , except for my Sara and Bobby's Shamrock, but  Sara popped out of the woods only a couple minutes later ( BIG sigh of relief!), and Shammy turned up  in an unexpected location shortly thereafter.

The time was only 5:50am!!  It was unspokenly agreed to that we were done.  Not a long chase, but given the forecast, and the actual horrible weather conditions, it was enough.

Later that  morning, the wind did pick up, and the humidity dropped considerably. Enough so that I got home and loaded a horse for a very pleasant hack @Redden SF for almost 2 hours.  Returned  home by 10:30am, and heard that DCwas getting hammered with torrential rains from TS Lee.  Alex called  me from PA and told me his barn  was flooding and at mid-day had already received more rain than they did during Irene.

6:38am, on the way home from the hunt. Ominous looking wall cloud that amounted to nothing!

We never did get any of the remants of  TS Lee until later that night.

Puppy pics and catching up

...from the Labor day weekend. Saturday's hunt was a good chase for just over an hour. Nice heavy dew, cool  temps.  Sunday, totally different conditions,  very warm, muggy, and  not a drop of dew. Hounds trailed and trailed for way  over an hour.  Bobby got close enough to them to break them,all loaded except for two of Freddie's that kept on. Bobby and I left, Freddie turned out on his two again and they ran for about 45 min.
Im not sorry I left. Just not  a good morning, I should have stayed in bed!
 Went home and rode both horses.
Monday, took both horses to Redden by myself., first Rap, then came home and got Mel and took him. Windy and warm, ok as long as I stayed out of the sun. Spurs on Rap- when he was younger, it would insult him, and I  have never worn them while riding him.  But he needed some waking up,and they do the trick now.
I like riding alone cause  the horse and I get really tuned in to each other.

Sunday Marney cut her ear. I've had hounds come in with cut ears lots of times, but this one was especially bad.  when it didnt stop bleeding after 7 hrs., I taped her ear to her head so it wouldnt move whenever she shook her head. That worked, and I was able to take the bandage off after a couple hours. She was making a bloody mess of the kennel,  literally!

Puppies are just over 2 weeks old now, and starting to move around,eyes open.  I took some pics.

Hunting @ 5:30am tomorrow, if this rain doesnt mess us up.

MArney with her tampon and duct tape .

My female is on the right.Might have to name her Irene!

my girl, the only female

She is also the biggest of the lot!

August 31- felt like autumn

My bitch,  Marilyn, is in heat and I had no intention of bringing her this morning but when I loaded up the hounds at 3:55am, I guess I was still half asleep. She jumped right in the hound box and it hit me right then that I should have separated her while they were still in the yard. All four of them were wound up, anticipating what was to come and attempts to pull Marilyn back out of the truck merely created more excitement. I decided to let her ride along - she would have probably barked like crazy in the kennel by herself anyway. And since the cool night meant folks would be asleep with open windows, I didnt need her waking up the neighborhood at 4am.


It was 53 degrees with a starlit but moonless sky as we drew the cornfield next to Georges Pond again. As we walked the pack along the path separating the corn from the woods and Georges Branch, I almost took a header when I walked right into some fallen tree branches . So much for somebody riding the edge in daylight to check for storm damage from Hurricane Irene. ...


Marilyn kept quiet until the remaining 9 cple opened inside the cornfield at 5:15am. First Bucky, Freddies old gyp, spoke. In the ensuing moments voices could be heard harking to Buck-buck and by 5:18 we had a pack in full cry pushing their pilot through the corn. Roscoe , Pearl  and Marney were a bit slow to hark, and by the time our fox crossed Baker Rd with the hounds not far behind, we could hear two of them trailing up behind. At the highest point in the cornfield, winds from the storm had flattened several acres of the cornstalks. This made navigating through it especially difficult for the younger hounds and my Marney decided to come back to me. I ran with   her back to the trucks and loaded her into  the back of Bobby's . He would follow cry and head to Baker Rd to hark her while I took the now-wailing Marilyn in my truck away from the cornfield in an attempt to quiet her down.


By now, the fox was running Burleighs cornfields on the east side of Baker Rd and was heading away towards Baboo's. Marilyn had shut up as soon as I got to the truck, but rather than risk her turning the fox should he want to come back across the road, I headed to Baboo's . From my vantage point there, I could hear the hounds well.  Charlie ran the pack close to the back of Baboo's house ( have no idea how that old abandoned place got it's name) before turning away from me and heading deeper into the corn. About 10 minutes later the pack could be heard, faintly by me and clearly by the guys, still running the corn but nearing Janes back lane on the south side. I arrived back at Baker Rd just as the fox made a swing towards it . Charlie wanted to go home, and we wanted him to do just that. Marilyn was quiet as a mouse.


A car passed by, coming at Bobby, Freddie , Mr. Fred  and I. Afterwards, we could tell that it had influenced our pilots course-he had wanted to cross the road about 1/4 mile down from where we stood waiting- but hounds could be heard running parallel to it now  and only a few yards within the stalks. At 6:13am they over- ran his line and spilled into the road. Meanwhile,  the fox made a turn to head deeper into the corn. During regular hunting season, we would have left the pack alone to recover the line, but right now an hour's run is duration enough and we picked them up. All on, once again! Freddie and Bobby would get to work on time,even though old Buck-buck had jumped into Bobby's truck and decided she wanted to stay there awhile.  It was comforting - and amusing- to know that I'm not the only one to have trouble getting a stubborn hound to leave her hunting buds.

Looking forward to the weekend as we plan to  hunt Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Hoping to take a horse at least one of those days, even if it means riding in the dark.

Getting a chase in before Irene blows through

....Last  Wednesday, 5:15am. 9 1/2cple again. Hounds found in the cornfield near George's Pond. Charlie made a few loops around that field for about 20minutes, then he headed into George's Branch and out the other side, now running another large expanse of corn  on the west side of the branch.  This fox stayed on the west side for the blance of the run until he made a sudden move back into the branch.  He went to ground in an earth  on the edge of the woods only a  hundred yards from where hounds found him. All on!!!! Run lasted just over an hour.

Waiting for Irene

Thursday was a killer . I scheduled a blanket delivery run to Middleburg, VA so that I could empty the shop of as much customer inventory as possible in anticipation of Hurricane Irene flooding us out( or worse).

I had about 200 cleaned and repaired blankets loaded into the 10 x 12 box trailer hooked to my F250 which normally pulls the horse trailer. But by dinner time on Wednesday, it became clear that Irene intends to have a major impact on the Eastern Shore. I made a quick decision to try to find refuge for my two horses and since I was already headed to Middleburg, it seemed like the obvious choice as time would become precious over the upcoming days.

Social networking enabled me to find a barn in the area that would welcome my guys on short notice. ( Thank you Devon, Patricia and Blue Ridge Farm). I had to unhook the box trailer, hook the truck up to the horse trailer and unload all the blankets from the former into the gooseneck dressing room area of the latter. Can't believe I got them all in and still had room enough for 3 bales of hay and a bag of feed.

By 3:45 am Thursday, I was on the road headed west with both horses and the blankets. By 7:30, I was entering Middleburg, and by 8:30 I was leaving my horses behind In Upperville as I worked eastward making my deliveries. Even had enough time to stop for a great breakfast at Salamander's before my last few deliveries on the east side of town.

An uneventful trip around the Beltway found me back home at 2pm. I spent the next 4 hours securing objects around the pool, house and barn, all the while thinking that I would get a good nights' sleep at home in my own bed before having to make another 3 Hr plus drive to PA....
WRONG!

I stopped to grab a sandwich around 6 and switched on the local news. Mandatory evacuation orders had just been announced for Ocean City, MD and Rehoboth and Dewey Beaches in DE. Uh-oh. With only one road out to the north, my plans to take my84 yo mom and my foxhounds out of harms way to relatives in PA just got moved up about 15 hours.

By 7:30, I was pointing my truck northward with hounds on board and my mom followingclose behind in her van. By the time we hit RT 1, there was already a steady line of taillights moving in front of us. At least the severe thunderstorm warned appeared as if it would missus completely. Even tho mom would have to drive in the dark, at least the roads would be dry. WRONG AGAIN....

All seemed well until we neared Wilmington. Raindrs began pelting the wimdshield with increasing intensity . By the time we reached the on ramp of I-95, it was raining so hard traffic was almost at a standstill. I took the orotundity to call mom on her cell to warn her of the difficult trafficpattern we were about to enter - I wanted her to stay right on my tail and follow me thru the many necessary lane changes in the now bumper to bumper traffic.
It was pouring torrentially. Why did I not see this on the radar screen I had checked before we left??

Mom answered her phone: " Didn't you hear me beeping???" with urgency in hervoice. "o no," I thought, " this is too much fo r her to handle. WHY did I attempt this tonight???"

" I have to pee."

O, mom. I didnt know how to tell her that her last opportunity to go was 2 miles back at Christiana Mall.

I was so tired, and it was hard for me to not feel irritated by this new problem.

"There IS NO WHERE to go now, we just got on the Interstate"

"okay then, I'll just pee my pants then" Click. She hung up onme.

Now it's raining so hard that I can't discern the lines defining the traffic
Lanes. Our speed on the 10-lane wide road was down to 15mph in a driving thunderstorm. What the he'll do I do now?

About 5 miles down the road, i495 splits off around wilmington. Most of the traffic seemed to stay on i95. I could see that the shoulder of the road was as wide as a traffic lane, so I eased thebig rig over to the side and dialed her cell. She didn't answer. When I looked inmy side view mirror, I couldmsee why: she was out of her van and running to the side of the road.
It hit me that she planned on going right there next to the road. Jeez. I slid over to the passenger side and jumped out the door -and right into an ankle deep torrent of rapidly moving runoff. After recovering from that shock, I looked up to see my mothers bare behind
Mooning in the vans headlights. Mind you, it is still raining down in buckets and we were both soaked in a matter of seconds. I screamed so she could hear me over the deluge and the sound of the traffic: "ARE YOU CRAZY?"

"I don't care,I have to go NOW" she snapped.

Was i really standing ankle deep in rushing water on the side of the Interstate, in the dark, in the pouring rain, with my mothers bare ass shining up at me???? She looked at me and we both burst out laughing hysterically.

"How can you tell if you're getting wet from the rain or pee?" I shouted in disbelief at what I was witnessing. "Come on, you are getting soaked" . ... "and I don't need you getting pneumonia" was left unspoken.

Where Mel and Rap vacationed during Hurricane Irene!

.

Puppies!!!!

When I got home from the hunt on Saturday and took one look at Reno, I knew that I would not be at the Sunday morning hunt. Most likley I'd be up most of Saturday night checking on her. Couple that  with the stomach bug that wouldnt quit, and you get a slim chance that I would be ready to run my hounds at George's Branch at 5am. ( which really means, 4:30am, since Freddy AND Jeff would be already running by 5).

When I saw the overnight forecast, I really didnt mind missing out on the hunt.  The low was to be only 70 degrees F, almost 10 degrees warmer than our low for Saturday morning..  And the air was sticky and heavy , not cool and crisp as before.  Nope. My girls could have some liberty in the exercise yard to work out the kinks from yesterday's run, and that's good enough for me. The more hounds there are, the longer the guys are gonna let them run....(What IS it about the male ego that takes control over good common sense in these situations ,anyway???) lol. Deep inside those cornfields, the air is dead and hot. More than and hour can cook a hound, fry their brains. Nu-uh, not worth it.

I checked on Reno at 10pm -no puppies yet, but it was obvious she would be whelping tonight. I checked again at  midnight. DAMN. She had had 3, but one was stillborn.  Still warm to the touch, but she had made no effort to chew off the membrane.  I felt bad,  If I had checked only a few minutes sooner.... .Called Bobby and he told me to go to bed and  leave her alone.  I checked her  again at 2am-there were  two more pups squiggling around and  Reno seemed to be doning fine. I went back to bed.

I guess the stomach bug really hit me harder than I realized, cause I didnt wake up again until almost 5:30. Shoot. I had wanted to check her every couple of hours. I was too late again. ....

Reno whelped 6 squirming, squealing puppies: 4 males and 2 females. Even though I get the pick of the litter, my choice has been narrowed to one of the two females. PLEASE, Reno, dont squash either one of them.

Checking to see whos' what.

One of the two females!

Saturday,August 20- Hunt #3.

9 1/2 couple were cast into the corn @ Squirrely Hill again, but we opted to start at the east side of the parcel rather than the west, hoping to discourage Reynard from crossing Burrsville Rd like he did on Wednesday.

It was much cooler- I wore a jacket to ward of chiggers ( dont want what my poor mom got!). 60 degrees, and a thin ribbon of mist hung over the tassles of the corn. It felt like September.  Although we unkennelled the hounds at 5:15am, it wasn't until almost 6 before the pack roused a pilot skulking around the stalks. Since I never laid eyes on him, I cant say  for certain whether it was the same one or not.  Freddie viewed him one time as he busted across a dirt lane, and I believe this was the only view of the morning. We were spread out on three of the four sides of the country. I was on Wilhelm Road. Freddie told me I;d never hear them there. Five minutes later, the pack is roaring in the woods about a hundred yards from where I was standing. Bobby and Freddie radioed they couldnt hear a thing....I told them where the pack was headed and Bobby radioed he was on his way.

The pack left the corn at Squirrely Hill, ran thru the woods near the "junk cars", crossed under some power lines s and kept on going towards another huge expanse of corn near "the crazy ladies' place".( Gotta love the landmark names, yes?!).  The corn is irrigated here, and towered over my head.  No chance of being able to see corn stalks moving to help locate the hounds over here. We had to rely on cry only.  To make it more interesting, the pack had split. Some hounds could be heard running along the branch almost to the Dead End, while the larger bunch was out in the middle of  this freaking HUGE field.  Wonderful.  They had been running for almost an hour at this point, and  although the sun was  just beginning it's climb above the horizon, the temps were rising. I had to shed the jacket, and along with it  I shed any thoughts about chiggers or mosquitoes.  All I had on my mind now was getting close enough to those hounds to get them stopped. We were out of the Squirrely Hill  country again, but on the west side (not the east side like Wednesday), and this fox was definitely NOT planning on making a swing back.

Freddy radioed that he got the  2 1/2 cple running the fox near Dead End  stopped and loaded: " all of yours, Janice, except for the black backed bitch"(Marilyn). His Travis and Dina made up the balance of that little bunch.   Travis......yeah,  I think I know how THAT split happened...LOL!

Not 10 minutes later, Bobby and I hear the other bunch coming towards us.What a lucky break.   His dog Part Time was up ahead with  a few others and Bobby stayed parallel to them on the road, hoping the fox would come closer to it before he'd have to try to break them. They couldnt have been more than  30 feet inside that corn, but their pilot must have heard us on the road and was beginning to veer away from it. "THEY ARENT GONNA GET ANY CLOSER, BOBBY!"  He had his pistol , I didnt have mine. BANG.
A few hollers and the first couple of rows of corn began to rustle back and forth in an assortment of places as hounds  worked their way to us.  All jumped in Bobby's truck except for Part-Time, who was still trailing his fox  and was now a good hundred yards away.Good old Part Time. Sigh. A great fox dog , but tougher  to break than Marney,   most times. Which is my saving grace seeing as I got Marney from Bobby.

As Bobby raced off to catch up with his darling Party, I heard  more hounds coming from deeper in the corn.
I stayed put and broke  those five and was glad to see Marilyn come flying to the sound of my horn. I was loaded. Unless you have your own hounds , you'll never quite get just how GOOD that feels....

So, it's now almost 6:30am,. All hounds are loaded save for Freddie's  Lily and  Bobby's Pearl. Both young gyps.  We re-grouped back where we had turned out, and for a brief moment, the couple could be heard running their own fox in the middle of the Squirrley Hill corn.  Pearlie-girl and Lily ran another 45 minutes on their own. I usually stick around until the last hound is loaded, but not this morning . I  was fighting an intestinal virus which decided to peak this very morning.... 'nuff said about that.

I excused myself by saying I needed to get home to check on Reno. I think they bought it.

No fun being pregnant in the summer!

Reno's close to whelping. Poor girl just stands there looking sorrowfully up at me when I let her out for some sunshine and grass. 60 days tomorrow, so hopefully she won't take her time about it.

I've got some names picked out, but any suggestions for "Re____" names are welcome.....

First hunt of the 2011-2012 season!

For weeks, DelMarVa has been suffering from extreme heat and drought conditions. Our first cub hunt of the season was delayed until we finally experienced a night time low temp under 70*F. We usually start August 1st, but it was August 12th before we found our first morning low temps in the high 60's.

I set my alarm for 4am, but Lakie terrierist Mitzi seemed to sense I needed help arising and had me up by 3:30. My darling puppy has discovered that early morning trips outside to relieve herself result in startling the cats sleeping around the pool. A short but frenzied chase ensues as cat(s) escape through the fence, leaving Mitzi imprisoned by the fence posts and barking frantically. This, of course, arouses the hounds in kennel. A cacophony of hound barking -which sounds NOTHING like hound music- ensues. Thank goodness I don't have any close neighbors - yet. ( the nearest house has been vacant, but recently sold and is awaiting settlement. Hope the new neighbors like dogs.....). But I digress....

By 4:30am, horses have been fed, Mels stall picked ( he was born in it,and even though he has 24/7 access to a large, grassy paddock, he has never figured out that the stall really isn't meant to be a toilet), and foxhounds loaded into the hound truck. It's a 35 minute drive to the meet, 45 if I obey the law. I usually make it in a half hour.

You see, the meet time was set for 5:30am. But when a certain fox hunter friend (Freddie)is hunting with us, one must automatically back it up at least 30 minutes. If you don't, then hounds are running by the time you arrive at the designated time, and you miss out on the find.

They waited for me, and we dropped the tailgates at 5:15. 10 1/2 couple of purebred, Eastern Shore PennMarydels (btw, WHY isn't the "d" also capitalized???) flew out of three hound trucks. I decided to leave Marney home, so only Sara, Marilyn and Lark came lunging out of mine. Marney can be hard-headed and very hard to break off a line. Since I was planning on attending my 40th high school reunion in New Jersey later that day, I opted with eliminating the risk of having to hunt down an errant hound. Although they didn't say it, I know my hunting partners appreciated the gesture, too.

Conditions, quite honestly, sucked for scent. Any other breed of foxhound would have probably quit and gone home. 68 degrees, 60 percent humidity, no rain to speak of in months. Dry. Dry. Dry. Calm winds ( big whoop). The soil holding up the cornstalks was as grainy as the sand at the beach. It took awhile before two bitches finally opened on a red fox lurking in the corn adjacent to Mr. Fred's barn. This may be partly due to the fact that hounds took several minutes getting re-acquainted with each other.( I saw more hound noses up rear-ends than close to the ground for the first few minutes of the draw. No bitches in heat, so no worries there....). It was 5:58 when the rest of the pack harked.

Charlie ran our little pack 'round that cornfield for a short half hour. We listened as the hounds' voices peaked and waned, wondering all the while how long it would take before our pilot would tire of the game. Around 6:25, the cry started to fade off towards the direction of Knife Box Rd. We did NOT want hounds getting across that road. Bobby and I got to the road just as the hounds spilled out of the corn and into the middle of the macadam.
Hot hounds, they were. Panting with tongues hanging and sides heaving heavily. A shout out to Freddie to GET HERE, as we broke them. All on. All done! It was just after sunrise as I headed back home. Hunt number 1, " in the books ". Sort of.
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