Stormy deluge



upper left corner!



The point of light  is Bobby's flashlight!

Saturday night and through the day Sunday, DelMarVa got hit with a barrage of severe thunderstorms.    The training  storms dumped 4"of rain at my farm, but some areas received as much as 13 1/2".  The lightning  and thunder lasted all night.

When I arose at 3am, the radar showed that although it was pouring on the east side of the Peninsula, it was dry to the west where we hunt ( at that particular  time, at least!).   The hunt was on.

Loading the hounds was done in-between bolts of lightning ; the storm cell was directly overhead and the lightning strikes were almost non-stop. The deafening thunder ,however, didnt seem to faze the hounds at all.
It was coming down in buckets as I pulled out my drive.

The temp was 70 degrees with a slight  east wind  when I arrived at the meet.   Pitch black here , but the light show happening over my farm could be seen   far off in the distance.  We drew Burleigh's field, then alongside George's pond where the corn towered overhead.  The tall stalks made it difficult to notice that the lightning was moving closer.  Rumbles of thunder gaves us a heads up, and it was quickly decided to load the hounds and get out of that area as we didnt want them to jump a fox and get down into the swamp with a storm approaching.

At that point, it was about 5:30 and I was happy to have my bitches in my own truck.  Freddy decided to try and draw the cornfield we hunted yesterday,as it's right behind his house. I guess he figured  if the skies opened up he could go home and his hounds would eventually come in on their own, lol.

Bobby, Curtis  and I waited while Freddy cast his hounds.   Just as they began to trail, the lightning and thunder moved directly overhead.  .  It was now light enough to see down the dirt lane, and Curtis and I viewed a fox cross the lane. But it wasnt the same  fox  Freddy's hounds were trailing, so we didnt turn out.  After 10 minutes or so, Freddy's  trail blew up.  It was lightning and thundering in earnest now , and we can see the storm clouds moving in swiftly above us. So what does Bobby decide to do? He turned his hounds out and ran them down the lane to try to pick up the line of the viewed fox.  Well now,  I couldn't be the only one with hounds not on the ground, so I dropped my tailgate and followed suit.  Dumb and Dumber, yes?!

As we were walking  in the open on the  lane alongside a bean field ,  it occurred to me that this WAS a pretty stupid idea.  A loud crack, and some pretty scary bolts was all it took to convince the other two. When our  hounds  didnt pick up the scent right away, we hurried them back down the lane and into the safety of the trucks. ( ARE they safe from lightning  in the bed of a truck with a hound box on it?? I know one is safe inside a vehicle as long as one doesnt touch any metal, but what about the hounds?? Just curious).

So, we didnt run a fox this morning. And I have to say that I am really not disappointed about that. Hounds got out, and we  all came back safe and sound.   There's always next time....

 (By Sunday afternoon, there was widespread flooding in many areas of the Shore.  We received more rain  from these storms than we did from Hurricane Irene last summer.   In four days, the mosquito population will be exploding.... just in time for my company, dammit).

Saturday,. 8/25 hunt

Leaving the  meet togo home, before sunrise. "Red sky in morning, sailor take warning....it POURED later that morning and afternoon.

The video is captioned,so no need to be redundant. But in addition to being very humid and warm, the ground was very dry and dusty . We could use some rain.(Which we did, in fact, receive in copious amounts later in the day -good for tomorrow's scenting!)

10 couple.  Reno opened on a line out in the cucumber fields  early on, and our hounds ran it back to the branch, where it blew up. Right after that, Freddy's hounds hit this hot line at 5:34am , and all hounds harked.
We heard Rebel open for the first time!!

All were on, including all new entry, when the fox popped into a hole at about 5:55am.  Hounds were panting like crazy, and very hot. It was enough, since we  will go again tomorrow.

Hunt #1 of 2012-13

..8 couple of PMD's  were cast into the cornfields across from Mr. Fred's farm at 4:50am.  It was 62 degrees, with   a starry  but moonless night overhead as we walked the hounds along a wide,shallow ditch that  splits the cornfield in two.  A  dirt lane that runs back to the irrigation pump intersects  this ditch, relevant later in this tale.   The weeds were waist high and very,very wet. It was not until 5:34 am before hounds  opened  "with authority" (!) and settled into a good chase behind a  red fox .  This fox was found on the south side of  Ellwanger road, an infrequently used dirt road that runs behind Mr.Fred's farm.  Hounds were running well, but just as this fox was about to cross over Ellwanger to enter the corn on the north  side, the lights of a tractor trailer could be seen turning off Knife Box rd onto Ellwanger. What the???? We hardly EVER see a tractor trailer on this road during daylight, so it was the last thing  I would have expected  to encounter before 6am.  The big rig turned the fox, and I was glad of that- rather have the fox get headed than have HIM get across, and the hounds spill out into the lane in front of that huge rig.  It was a tense few seconds as  there was no way we could have gotten there in time. Charles ran back and forth on that side of the dirt road for a couple of turns before surprising us by crossing Ellwanger about 1/2 mile away,not far from Mr. Fred's back lane.   Bobby got there in time to see the hounds cross in the pre-dawn light.  All on, and flying. The video gives you  an earful  of a few seconds of the almost hour-long chase. It came to an abrupt end at around  6:20,when the fox popped out onto that irrigation lane. Curtis viewed him ( it was light enough to see by this time) run the lane down a few hundred feet and then pop back into the same side from which he emerged.  Hounds checked, and in spite of all of our efforts to encourage  (Curits wasnt real clear as to WHERE exactly the fox came out),  could not recover the line.   The chase was over sooner than we wanted, but was really just enough for the hounds' first run of the season.  All were loaded by 6:30. I had left Sara and Marilyn at home, both in heat.  Reilly ( my puppy), Marney and old Reno did super -a very good start to the season.

The irrigation lane where hounds checked- trying to help them recover the line ( hounds are in the corn).

Ellwanger Road, the  hunt over before sunrise!

Finally some rain and the promise of cooler morning temps!

..we've gotten about 2"of rain here at my farm over the past 4 days.  Everything is green . Mel got a belly ache 3 nights ago because I let him stay out on the pasture for  3 hours without a muzzle. Which means the grasss is growing again. .. and the bugs are out.

But Freddy took his hounds out  this past Sunday morning at  5 am.  Another foxhunter, whom shall remain nameless, was already in the cornfield that Freddy  was to draw, only this fella had no hounds.  Thanks to him, it took Freddy's hounds almost an hour to find the fox , and once they got him up, Charles ran right straight to the hole. A run lasting no more than 5 minutes. (Sure glad I didnt get up at 3am for THAT!)

Bobby and I will go with Freddy this Sunday for certain, and perhaps Saturday, also,  if it's cool enough. (Forecast is for 66 for the low on Sunday morning, not quite that cool for Saturday's low.)  Humidity  and dewpoint is key. ...

Everyone is clamoring to get out!

Sweltering, suffocating heat and humidity...

.... kept hounds in kennel this past Sunday.  80 degrees and 90% humidity.  We hunt the cornfields around Freddy's farm this early in the season. Freddy  ran his beagles on Saturday and had to break them after only 15 minutes because they got overheated that fast.  He called off the fox chase Saturday night- it was still 88 degrees at 9pm!

As soon as the thermometer dips below 70*F, we will go- regardless of what day of the week. However, the first day that is forecast to happen  is not until this Sunday. And even then, , the low will be 69. 

Right now, we have corn and soybeans planted in all of our hunt country. We cant let the hounds get into the beans, so we have to try and keep the fox in  the corn.   But the air inside the cornfields is stifling ,and  even when we do go this time of year, the chases will be short- about an hour- unless we get a really cool night. (That's an hour from the time they jump their pilot before we hold them up).  Of course, things dont always go as planned, but we've always been able to get to them and stop them in under 90 minutes.

Might get a call  to hunt during the week this week,  but only if the humidity lets up, since the lows forecast all week are in the 70's.

And so it begins....

Today is August 1st, the start of another season.  It has been very hot and very dry here all summer (as in most parts of the country), and any crops that are not irrigated are looking like a loss.

Several  mid -day storms did blow through the peninsula  today, a phenomonan (sp?)  not seen a single day in July. (storms usually roll through late in the day).   A few miles away, a cell dumped 3" of rain locally, while my farm received a light shower that lasted all of a couple of minutes.  It's been like that all summer. The ground here is like cement ( I have a band of rare clay that runs through my property, so I dont have the normal sandy soil everyone else has).  Which is one reason why I hack my horses at the state forest, 5 miles away -very sandy, soft footing there.

Anyway,  the activity in the  tropics is heating up, so perhaps this first full August moon ( there will be another this month) portends a change to a wetter, cooler weather pattern. 

And then again, maybe not: Temps are to be in the 90's   into the weekend. We expect to have our first hunt this coming Sunday. The low temps will not fall beneath the 70's. All we can hope is that the humidity lets up a bit.  It will be a short hunt, but all the hounds will need.

This early in the season it is usually only  Freddy, Bobby and me hunting. No one else is willing to get up for  a 5:00am meet, lol!   Freddy has 1 cple of new entry, Bobby has 1 cple, and I have one young bitch to enter. Tommy has the 4th littermate to Reilly, Rebel and Raven, but that dog wont be seen until Tom starts to join us in late September or October....

I got a new horn!  Well, not brand new, but a good S & A that has a nicer tone than my other horn. All of Bobby's and my hounds are used to it now ( first day, when I blew it while the hounds were out, they totally ignored it, lol!).  

I took some pics of the hounds during exercise today, just to compare how they look now with later in the year. Marilyn is so fat!!!!

Marilyn

Rebel, Repo and Reilly

same trio

Part-Time ("Party") in foreground,  Raven in back

3 of my 2 1/2cple: Marney (front), Marilyn (l), and Reno (r)

That's Raven (l), Rebel (c), and Party (r), with Radio's white head in bottom left of pic

Reno

Pearly Girl

..and off by herself because she just came in heat, Sara. (Here is where she let me know that fact, lol!)

There should be 6 cple:
Raven, Reilly Rebel - new entry
MArilyn, Marney, Sara, Pearl, Reno, Radio, Repo, Part-Time,  Roscoe

Freddy will have  3 1/2 cple, for a combined pack  of  9 1/2 couple to start off cubbing. 

So, we'll see how it goes.....