Not just for the birds
"Range after range of mountains. Year after year after year. I am still in love." - Gary Snyder Spring break this year, we drove across the West and past many, many mountain ranges in Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Montana. I didn't dare sleep in the car or stare at my phone while being a …
Continue reading "Chukar Journey"
I almost didn't go hunting on the last day of the season. I woke up tired. The day before, I'd gone out with the dogs for my fifth hunt in seven days. Overwhelmed by the dread of the looming last day and already missing it, I wanted to take advantage of the unusually pleasant weather …
Great weekend around here. Friends spelled us from our default being together in our separatenesses, and they hunted with Leslie Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I thought I'd head up the old dirt road with them until they started climbing, and it was wonderful to get outside in the terrain I adore. Fog hung around …
WARNING: This has very little to do with chukar hunting. But it does have to do with people who read and comment on this blog. I went back to my classroom today for the first time since surgery 10 days ago, and saw some of what my students have been up to. Actually, I've been …
I am overwhelmed by the comments on Leslie's last post. It feels a little strange being so forthright about this spine surgery thing because it's really not that big a deal (he says, as he makes a big deal, as usual, about something that's not); as I write I'm aware of several friends living with …
The inevitable is here. Yesterday, was my last hunt with Bob for the season. It was also Bob's last hunt. We'd hoped he'd last until the end of the month but tomorrow he's undergoing spinal surgery. Our life for the past three months has revolved around his spine. Yes, our life. It's not that it's …
Haris Papadopoulos, Molly, and some evidence of a good day's chukar hunting on Cyprus Haris Papadopoulos contacted me through another blog of mine about two years ago with some questions about our dogs and the Brittany breed in general. He lives in Cyprus. We've been in touch since then, and just a few days ago …
Not everyone sleeps with dogs. We do. One of the purest pleasures I know is, upon getting into bed, having Peat collapse himself onto my left side, pressing his back against my ribs and torpedoing his head across my armpit, his nose inches from my face, and his relaxed amber eyes peering into mine as …
Yesterday, we carefully sneaked out of the house to head down to the canyon with just Peat, leaving Angus behind. The old warrior Angus has been running lots of miles hunting the past couple of weeks and against his will we forced him to take the day off. We knew getting ready to go wouldn't …
Our annual Christmas Day hunt this year was spectacular. Last year pissing rain forced us to abandon our Hells Canyon hunt and sully ourselves with a silly quail jaunt: it was a 5-minute hunt because I brought 3 shells, which I spent in the first two minutes and hit nothing. Peat was so disappointed that, …