Not just for the birds
Things that happen outside of buildings, usually away from “it all”
It's not at all "just" for the birds. It's not "just" for any one thing. It's for Angus, whose rapturous pursuit of birds expresses the epitome of equivocal desire: his instincts draw him toward birds, but he knows I'm also interested and - because he checks on where I am, even when he's birdy - …
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I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. -Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) Some of Leslie's chukar hunting landscape photos from this fall and winter... Have a wonderful holiday. Peace on Earth.
A comment I just responded to made me think of the interesting collective nouns for groups of creatures: a murder of crows, a school of fish, a congregation of alligators, a shrewdness of apes, a memory of elephants, a superfluity of nuns (?), a pride of lions... Chukar need a collective noun. I think they're …
Getting close. We've taken to sitting in the boat in the evenings now, imagining, strategizing, speculating, expectorating, and imbibing IPA. Chukar have serenaded us during every fishing trip this summer. Angus has filed away their crowing coordinates. We took a hike last weekend through a favorite late-season spot (which is the same place we took …
As we turn off of the highway and onto the dusty dirt road heading towards the chukar hills, our bird dog stands up in the back seat of the pickup and sticks his nose out of the crack in the window, snorts, and wags his stubby tail in excitement. The last time we turned up …
My wife just posted on Angus's summer in: Bird Dog Summer. via Bird Dog Summer.
Six more months. Spring is such a tease. Angus and his new little buddy, Ava (I wish I could say it was our new puppy, but it's a friend's) got into some Huns today in some nearby BLM land. Ava watched Angus hog the points and got snoutfuls of bird scent. She's going to be …
Feeling a bit surly, laid up with a nasty cold, reduced to scavenging through fields of youtube garbage for something resembling authenticity. Cats on treadmills (hilarious, for a while). The immensely popular FAIL video phenomenon (people seriously injuring themselves with the help of gravity, elastics, and small engines). I need to get out, but... Youtube …
I'm not a spring chicken anymore. Birthdays come at me with increasing speed. But what motivates me to stay healthy is knowing that to spend time in the hills with my dog I have to be pretty fit. The hills chukar prefer are steep. The steeper the better. The footing is usually terrible or worse. …
Angus and I headed to the hills yesterday to see if we could find some chukar. These birds live in steep, rocky, hard to reach places. It is always a workout, and those who hunt chukar regularly are obsessed with it, and in very good physical condition. And their feet usually hurt because of the …