Karen and I attended our State Falconry meet over the weekend, taking our Motor home ( my idea, as Karen will hurry to tell you. After all why pay $140. for a motel room when you have a MH ) out for one of the few times this year. It as usual was interesting. First we were out of Propane, so the heater didn't work, until we could fill up in Crane. ( 65 miles north) The coach battery was stone dead, so I couldn't start the generator to get what ever heat there was in the air conditioner. It wasn't so bad however since it was at least 44 degrees outside.

When we got the tank filled, things were a bit better, even warm. We then stopped at Les Schwab to get a new battery, which I had previously checked and was told would cost $108. plus $10.00 for installation. Only it turns out that it was a "misquote", ( sounded too good to be true. ) and it cost $202.00. Oh well, I needed one any way. Next stop was Pacific pride. $201 for 70 gallons of Diesel, then a run around Burns to try to find a windshield wiper. Nothing of course available, so I bought one of the inserts for $10.00 and modified (Mickey moused) the old one to accept the insert and we are off. The wiper was a good idea as it rained all the way to Madras, where the meet was held. West of Brothers on Hwy 20 the fuel filter plugged up. I managed to make it to a turn out, dug out the spare fuel filter that I carry just in case. Changing the filter was a piece of cake, but there was no diesel fuel to fill it with and of course without that nothing is going to happen. Pat Brewster was behind us, so we called her cell phone, and asked her to bring us a quart of diesel fuel. When she arrived it took very little time to get it started and we were off again. The rest of the trip was trouble free. I bought another filter and was told to get a quart of ATF to fill the filter with the next time. I was not aware of that, since I am at best a reluctant and fairly inept mechanic. That night the furnace quit working. I had prepared for that however and plugged in a new out of the box electric heater that was so full of safety features that it would not even get hot enough to feel any heat, so that night we used the heater part of the air conditioner. Not very effective however, but we couldn't hear any traffic over the noise of the AC. Betsy had learned her lesson and stayed under the covers all night.

We did not take any of the hawks with us, having fed them all up before we left. It was just as well. Every one needs to fly at the same time and I admit that I am spoiled. I hate to have to fly my birds in all that population.

I had put the birds in the three chambers that I have here, taking their leashes off and allowing them to fly free. When we got back Jessie was very interested in coming to me, in fact she was landing on my head in the hopes that I would feed her. I tried to get Karen interested in going hawking, but she was too tired, and I really needed to get the MH winterized again, all the lines blown out and stuff like that, so I fed her what I thought would keep her until the next day. Peg was just fine and starved as usual, so I fed her enough to hold her over night. Sylvester however was a different story. I use the vestibule of his chamber to store extra chicken scratch. I noticed that there was a rather large family of mice in there when I put him in. I am sure that is no longer the case as he was much too fat to even consider coming to me until today.

Monday morning dawned cold and a bit windy at the house. Jessie was too fat and would not come to me, Peg was fatter than I liked but she was up for anything, so we went hunting. At least I was, she was along for the ride.

The wind started picking up and by Tuesday morning it was fairly ripping. It hit 51 miles per hour before the day was over and kept that up all through the day and most of the night.

This morning Sylvester had run out of mice and was happy to see me again. Peg was at 831 grams, which was a much better weight. Even Jessie was glad that I was considering picking her up. I decided that two trips a day was just too much so we were going to have to combine them and fly every body in one trip, so Jessie went into the truck as well. It was still a bit windy and blowing at about 14 MPH with a 37 degree temp.

We noticed on the way to the Hwy that it had snowed on the Steens and there was a bit of a low pressure because the clouds were crammed down even with the top. A sure sign that the weather was going to get worse.


We went to a pond on the other side of the area that we hunt the Harris's, and found that there were lots of ducks on the pond and a lot of it was frozen, but there was still an open spot near the dam. This was the first time that I had flown Jessie in the morning, but I thought she would be OK as she was a bit lower than I intended her to be on this frosty morning. I got her in position and turned her loose. She proceeded to fly low over the pond and the ducks for a while before she started climbing. ( It would be nice if I could find some way to tell her that ducks that aren't petrified by her buzzing them are a lot more willing to leave the pond.) When she set her tail, (Falcons that are ready for the flush will spread their tail and set their wings when they are ready for the ducks) I jumped up and tried to flush them. They flew a 30 foot circle and splashed back down on the water. I tried harder and got some of them to start over the land, but they went back as soon as she started down again. She bounced one of them on the bank, and he promptly floundered back into the water. We did this until I was worn out, with her bouncing them on the bank, four in all, and Karen and I were so tired that Karen was cussing hawks and ducks. ( She can get cranky sometimes) We finally got one to leave the pond and Jessie started after him, which caused him ( Teal) to crash into a pile of weeds. I finally called her down to the lure and fed her a quail. She was lead astray by concentrating on the Teal, which are small flying rats, rather than on the bigger birds that were dumb enough to keep flying. Oh well, that is why they call it hunting, its all fun, although I did get another education in colorful language. (She claims that she learned it all from me. I don't believe her though)


Then it was time for the Harris Hawks. Sylvester was hungry and I was pretty sure that it wouldn't take him long to catch one, which he did in pretty short order. Peg never even saw the Jack jump, so she didn't get in on any of the action. Karen and I weren't communicating very well, and Peg managed to see the food that I threw for Sylvester before he did, so she got fed as well. I considered putting him up and just hunting her, but he seemed to be still game, so off we went. Peg was much better at 831 and was trying, although she is still so naive that it makes me cringe. She got a close slip on a Jack and pulled a bunch of hair out of his butt, but was scraped off in the brush. We kept on and she got another foot full of hair as did Sylvester, but the rabbit made his escape. Sylvester hit one Jack off a ways from me and the wind blew hair all over the place, a bit like an explosion. The wind by that time had picked up briskly and both birds were tired as we were too. It was a long cold trip back to the truck. Sylvester flying into the cover of the bushes to get out of the wind.

I am forced to admit that I over did it a bit today. We spent a total of four hours hunting the birds, most of it walking with the Harris's. However, I think I am getting closer with Peg. I do despair sometimes of her ever learning how to catch Jacks, but sometime she shows me something new that makes me believe that she will someday be able to hold her own. She saw a sitting Jack today and crashed into the bush narrowly missing him.