New twist, same result.

It was a bit foggy this morning and storms were all around this afternoon, but still not that bad an afternoon. The temps were 33 when we pulled out of the yard to try once more to catch a duck with Jessie and end this dry spell. I normally quit about this time of the year mostly because of the scarcity of the game and opportunities. Last year the weather was just plain miserable with high winds every day. This year it is a bit more moderate, but the game is tough. The Lake has provided me with a lot more chances than I have had in the past, but you can only go to the well so many times before the chances start to dry up. There are ducks on the ditches at the Ranch, but you have to bracket them just right or they just fly down the ditch and discourage every one, so I thought to try the lake one more time and hope that there was something on it that Jessie could catch. Then I could gorge her and take three days off before I had to hit it again.  As you can see from both the Blue mountains

and from the Steen's the weather is a bit worse all around us. It is strange, but it is like living in the eye of a hurricane, most of the bad weather goes around us, with the exception of the wind. Jessie seemed to take forever to fly off my fist. I was getting tired but Betsy held her point until Jessie finally took to the air.

She flew straight out over the lake and just as quickly circled back over us. I knew that something was wrong, as she never does this. I continued on towards the lake, Jessie strafed me close enough that I jumped. She then strafed Karen, and flew back around coming straight towards me. I bent over with my back to her in case she intended to do more than fly by. I was more than surprised when she landed on my shoulder. She has never done that before, ever! In fact she avoids landing on the fist or anywhere that I can get hold of her. She knows that once she gets on the fist, flying is over. I stood there with my ears trying their best to look small and unoffensive, since this is a new experience for me and I had no idea what was going to happen next. While the statement that " they go for the eyes", is totally false, I am not sure how ears play into the situation. I am happy to report that I still do not know the answer to that question.

I tried to get her on the fist, but she would have none of that, and flew off and landed on a bush on the hillside. I told Karen that there were no ducks on the Lake at all and we walked forward to see for ourselves. Jessie was right and the Lake was empty. Some birds you could call to the lure, pick up with a little tidbit and go fly again somewhere else. Unfortunately Jessie isn't one of them. I thought it over, and decided to give her the ration that I would have given her if she had caught something, and fly Peg on the morrow. I took out the half Mallard breast and waved it in the air to her and she flew over hit the fist and tried to rip the food out of my hand. Of course she failed at that, but while she was hanging upside down holding on to the food, the little darling reached up and bit my little finger as hard as she could. This made her feel better and me to laugh.  One wouldn't want to think that she was getting soft, now would you?

We went over to the ranch to drop off some stuff that I had for Sharron and of course the ditches were lousy with ducks. Some times are like that.

When we got home, we found that three of the neighbors cows were inside the gate. There are a couple hundred of his cows here eating the tumble weeds and anything else they can find. They had so far stayed out of the fenced area, but these three wandered in. We drove past them and attempted to move them out of the gate. One of them of course felt that she had to go over the fence, leaving a lot of hair behind from the barb wire. She managed to stretch the wire enough that I will have to tighten it later.