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.
To