2 to Ground before 8am

Hounds lost their fox on this gravel driveway at 7:30am.  We quietly called them out of the yard so as not to awaken the residents!

.....Since  someone  needed to be done by 10am today, our meet time was moved up to 7am. It was another foggy morning with the temp at 53 degrees. The East wind just will not quit, but it is now slightly more NE than SE, portending colder temps as it eventually swings around to the north. A hard feeze is predicted for tomorrow night!

 I actually preferred the rainy conditions of yesterday over today's very foggy , cold dampness.

Tommy walked his hounds into the first covert and no more than 2 minutes passed than they sang out on a fox at 7:06 . The rest of us harked our hounds, and a chase on a vixen ensued that would last for only 20 minutes. She handed the pack of 11 1/2 couple over to her mate at about 7:30. Charles James rose to the task of luring the threat  away from his lady by breaking covert and running the open for a good 1/4 mile. We know this because we all viewed the vixen on her single turn around the covert, and Tommy viewed the much larger dog fox as he went away. Tommy lost him in the heavy fog, and when we caught up with the pack they had checked in the driveway of a neighboring  house. When the hounds failed to recover the line after about 4 minutes, a quick decision was made to load them and go look for another pilot. ( It WAS only 7:30 on a Sunday morning, and we surely didn't want to wake up those folks!) It was a short drive upwind to the next covert, where another red was roused at 7:35. With the pack roaring behind him/her, this pilot decided to head for safe haven , also. It was another short run ending with another fox gone to ground at about 7:55am.

A long draw was made even further upwind, without much success. Just as all hounds were loaded, Tommy mentioned that Twister and another of his hounds weren't  present. It was now 8:45am, and the fog had turned into a cold, heavy mist. I opted out of another draw, and  Curtis and Bobby followed suit. No sooner said than done, however, and we all heard Twister and his comrade tonguing in the distance. Tommy was with them, and since he needed to be done early, there was no debate concerning whether or not we would turn out on Twister.

It was all over by 9am. And I was actually kinda happy to be getting home on a Sunday before 10am.

Marilyn got a good poke in the eye this morning, most likely a thorn from running all the briars.  Reno is 3-legged gimpy.  Sara still hasnt got her endurance back ( what little she has, lol!) from her latest flareup of Lymes. (I left her home today).  And Marney... well, Marney is Marney.  Unpredictable, but to give her credit, she has been very good about coming up at the end of the chase of late. (And that is her only "issue".)

What I'm getting at is this: 20-30 mph winds, with gusts to 40mph are forecast for tomorrow. I do believe I will leave my bitches in kennels and just follow the other hounds on a horse. Safer, and less stressful! 
But if I had Larkie- she would be goin'. Never had to worry about Lark. Ever.  Just not the same without her.... (Hey, when you only have 2 1/2 couple, losing your best one is tough!)