Finally a chance to go hunting.

 Sunrise over the desert.

Things have been a bit screwed up over the holidays, and I just holed up rather than try to work out the logistics of hunting by myself. Tami and I have hunted Jasper a bit recently here at the house, but the Sparrows are wise to our tactics, and so far it has been a draw. We are in the process of getting some more sites usable, but haven't had a lot of free time to get them operational yet. I really want to explore some kite training for the little guy, but the wind has been so calm that it will not support a kite. I know, hard to believe, isn't it? I thought that I would be able to fly it the other day, so I drug every thing out and started running the kite up in the air. I got up about a hundred feet and one of the walls of my reel came off and we had a 1000 feet or more of kite string to untangle. It only took about 3 hours.

Tami and Grace assisted me with the girls here at the house two days ago. I am finally doing some hunting on the rabbits that have spent the fall mowing my lawn. We went out in the Sage north of the house and found a few Jacks. Puddy even pulled hair on one of them, but there are no dumb ones left. While I haven't hunted them, the Eagles do on a regular basis. Dumb ones are scarce this time of the year.

Tami was off to Boise to get Dave's staples out today, so I asked Karen to go with us here at the house on a rabbit hunt. She agreed, and we picked up the girls and climbed over the fence. There is a bit of a hillock or hump in the ground about a 1/4 mile out that seemed to hold the most Jacks the last time Tami and I went out there, so we made our way there. Tami spoils me a bit since she is so fit, while Karen with her heart afibs isn't getting enough oxygen to keep up. I made her promise to remind me when I forgot and went too fast. She mentioned that she had forgotten to bring a camera, and I told her that we were now guaranteed to catch something.

We were doing pretty good, and had a couple of chases where the girls where taking some pretty good shots at the fleeing Jacks, but nothing connected. We started our way up on the hump when the girls both took off after different rabbits. Yogi landed on a Sage bush quite a way out, but Puddy came back to me and landed on the perch. I started that way as I was sure that one of the rabbits had hidden somewhere near where they had lost him. I had covered about half the distance when one of them lost his nerve and broke cover. Puddy gave chase, and Yogi much further out, started an interception course and was climbing all the way. Puddy made a shot at him, but missed. Yogi continued on and then folded into a twisting dive and soon the welcome sound of a Jack Rabbit in pain floated back. Puddy whipped up off the ground and went in to help.

I got there as fast as I could and saw the front end of a Jack straining to pull away. I grabbed him and broke his neck, then began to look for the other hawk. I could only see Puddy. She had a limb between her legs and the branches in her face. I reached up to attempt to clear it and found that Yogi was under her wing, but they both had the rabbit in the middle. There they were, their heads side by side and their feet were also side by side. Karen was a bit surprised that they were working so well together on the kill without fighting.

I gave Karen a front leg, that I had carried just for this type of situation, to give to Puddy. She for once willingly let go of the Jack to consume the leg. Perhaps it was the fact that she was stretched way out of shape, or perhaps it was the Sage bush stuck in her eye, but whatever, she was quite nice and better than she has ever been.

I gave Yogi another one and she stepped off the Jack. I took it out of the way and cleaned it, cutting off both hind legs the feed the girls with once they finished their other pieces of meat.

I asked Karen which hawk she wanted to carry, Yogi or Puddy which is about half a pound lighter. She chose Puddy, and we started the almost half mile walk back. Pud is lighter, but she is much more clumsy, and difficult to feed. She has no clue the best way to eat on the fist, or for that matter what her feet are doing. We stopped and laughed at her quite a bit before we got back home.

Its a shame, Karen is finally getting to the point that she is able to hunt a bit, but she is scheduled for a hysterectomy the 12th of this month. That will take care of the rest of the winter for her. Since she has never had children, the easy way to do that is out, and the recovery time is 6 weeks or more.

 Sometimes the sunsets and sunrises are just too much to resist.