The count down begins

Oct 14th. first serious day.

Karen and I took Pud to Arock to see if she would be able to catch anything. Her weight was 840 grams. We got there a bit later than I would have preferred, and it didn't take long for me to shed my sweatshirt. Pud actually did better than I thought she would. Of course the few Bunnies that we encountered were flown hard, but Bunnies are much harder to track and catch than are the Jacks. Their smaller size of course makes them much more appealing, but it is deceptive, because they stop, start again, hide and all those things blow a young hawks mind.

We walked a lot! Poor Karen's knee is bothering her again, and the rough terrain doesn't help at all. Pud actually made some pretty exciting tries for Jacks. Once she managed to turn inside a Jack but only hit him in the ears, and he squirted out the other side and was gone.

 Actually I was quite pleased with her. She is going to make it, if I can hold out long enough. She is much more excited by the ones that flush close to us, and run hard. We had one hop to within 15 yards of us, and she just watched it. She got into the middle of a large covey of Quail, but couldn't connect with any of them.

When I finally started feeling sorry for Karen, we made our way back to the car. All in all Pud probably didn't get more than 10 tidbits. She hopped into her box and we came on home. She screamed her frustration when I tied her to her perch without giving her anything more to eat.

Then it was Jessie's turn to see if she could remember what it was like to work for her food. She remembers, but she isn't admitting it. I tried to call her to the lure on the creance. She tried to fly off.
After she landed on the lawn, she came back to the lure. After she finished the half of a Quail breast, she walked over to the fist, looked at it and turned to try to fly off again. Less food, more time, she will come around.

This evening around 6:30 I picked up Pud again. I tried putting her on top of the house to ambush the Jacks when they came in to mow the lawn. Well they didn't come in, so I called her to the perch when it started to get seriously dark, and we walked a big circle outside the fence. She had two chances at Jacks and did her best, but it wasn't quite good enough. We will go out again in the morning and see if she can make it happen tomorrow. Again she got no more than 5 or 6 tidbits.

Oct 15, New day.

Karen decided to stay home this morning, so Pud and I got to the field at about 8:30 AM. There were plenty of Jacks in the field. Pud managed to ignore almost all of them. Finally after at least 8 had wandered off, and we had stood on the top of a little rise watching one just 20 yards in front of us eat for 5 minutes or more, she decided that another one might have merit. Of course she got nowhere close to him. All in all I walked for at least an hour, flushing Jacks at fairly regular intervals. She had chances at Jacks, a few Bunnies, and a hand full of Ducks on a handkerchief sized pond. We will go out again in the morning.


I arrived back home and rolled out the plane for a trip to the Alvord. There was supposed to be a bunch of planes from Nampa going there over the weekend, and since I had not flown much at all this fall I thought that I would fly over to see what was going on.

This is the first year in my memory that the Alvord still has water on it. It is normally dry by the middle of June or earlier. Not this year for sure.

The Aspens are beginning to turn up on the mountain, the snow level has been down to about 7000 feet here recently, although most of it has melted off.

Unfortunately there were only two planes on the lake, so I didn't even land. The weather this weekend was as good as it ever gets in the fall. Winds were calm, temps were supposed to be mid 70's. There was a group of wind Sailers a little further down the lake bed. I'm afraid that they are in for a dull day, as the wind is only forecast for about 6 MPH.

I turned and headed for home across the desert with a bit of a tail wind. As I got over the ranch next door I could see the crew separating calves for shipping this coming week.

Looks like I am the only one to get to play today.