Dave was able to come home from the Hospital the day after his hip operation. Dave is of course Tami's husband. I was very surprised that they let him out so soon. After all they reconstructed his hip socket. I guess Buckaroo's are tougher than the rest of us. Tami at least was able to be overwhelmed at home rather than driving back and forth about 260 miles a day. Just one of the perks of being out of the rat race. Overall worth it.
As you can guess our hawking has gone into a holding pattern for a bit. Karen quite frankly isn't up to the rigors of Harris Hawking, and I can't handle two Harris Hawks by my self. The problem is Yogi and her default setting of hunting on her own. Pud would be just fine, but Yogi has a tendency to go off on her own, and is too big to share a T perch with Pud. It is just easier to not take them both hunting. I have tried Yogi on her own and it hasn't worked out. She tends to go off on her own without Pud there to focus her attention. The last two times I have tried it, she has ended up hunting Voles by flying off to any fence post around.
I did take Jessie out for some ditch hawking with Karen, and it too turned into a fiasco of the first order. The chance of getting the first flush right to the point that Jessie can get a Duck over land is fairly slim, and that day was no exception. She was a bit more selective, in fact to the point that I felt that she was refusing chances, but it is hard to tell. She could have just been waiting for a good opportunity. She finally ran out of steam about the same time I ran out of Ducks, and landed on the far side of the creek. I thought that I still had three Teal on the creek in front of me, and was prepared to wait, but she got up off the ground and flew as though she was going to remount, but she turned over and flew into the Greasewood. It was a bit strange as it looked as though she was after something, but I had not seen anything. I walked around for a bit, and then decided that I had better check on her.
When I crossed the creek and got to the fence, I saw her duck into the brush. When I got there I found that she had ground sluiced a Coot.
What a great flight that had been. Oh well, they all count one, especially to her. I went up to her, and she was on the fight, attacking me with beak and talon as soon as I bent down. I am not sure what was on her mind, but she was obviously feeling guilty and protective.
The weather after that got really cold, with the temps getting down into the single digits most mornings. My primary water source, a Frost free? faucet got so cold that I pulled the rod off of the buried operational part, so I am back to carrying water, until I can dig it up. The water line is about three feet down, so I was surprised that I had problems with it.
We have all had our Christmas, and a grand one it was too. Karen and I joined the ranch for Christmas dinner. It was quite a treat, with 5 kids, 9 adults and all the wrapping paper needed to make a Christmas for kids. Reuben had asked Santa for a BB gun, and Tami decided that was a good idea and got one for me as well.
After Christmas we had a storm blow in that brought the temps up in the 50's, but it also brought a lot of wind. We had gusts yesterday at 36 mph.
It calmed down enough that I decided that it might be wise to use the down time to reacquaint Yogi to flying to the fist. The last time we flew her near the house she ended up at the Chicken house trying her best to become a Chicken Hawk, so I decided that I would fly her on the creance. Not a big deal. I was preparing stuff while she was sitting on her perch in the weathering area. I found a nice creance that was secured to a piece of PVC with shot in it for weight. I had already fed Pud and left her in the shop so that she would not be teased by me calling another bird, and not being able to respond.
I decided to fly her in front of the weathering area as the hanger blocked a lot of the wind, and we were out of sight of the Chickens. I got the creance and tossed the PVC part out, unwinding the string. Yogi saw the PVC and bated at it. I knew that I was in for trouble, but what was done was done. I got her out, tied her to the creance and started to walk to the fence to call her. She stood on tippy toes and took off over my shoulder and onto the creance. She would not leave it. She walked around with it in her feet, tugging and looking for the meat that just had to be there. She came a couple of times to the fist, bringing it with her, but would not leave it alone. I finally got Karen out to help me untangle her, and Karen kept it in her vest so that I could get something out of the lesson.
Today the wind again died down and I prepared to fly her to the fist again. I set her on the fence and turned around to walk back a ways and she zoomed past me to grab the creance again. I had not tied her to it this time, and I had not moved it even so much as a twitch, but it didn't matter. I had tossed it out a couple of days ago and that was good enough for her. The only thing that works is to let her decide that there was no food on it, so I walked into the house to get my camera, leaving her stumping around on the ground with it in her feet.
http://vimeo.com/34357369
She had gone to the fence by the time I got outside. When she went under the fence with it, I went back into the house to drop off the camera. By the time I got back she had gone up to the chimney on the hanger without it. We finished her flights with no more problems.
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