Out in the hills

One of my neighbors also has a Shorthair and he and his and Jack and I spent last Sunday tramping the hills and doing a little bird hunting. It's very pleasant to have 90,000 acres all to yourself. There were plenty of birds. One rise had at least fifty birds and most of them appeared to be roosters. The dogs had a wonderful day and it was great fun to watch their pleasure and enthusiasm.

False Spring

A very welcome thaw over the last couple of days. Almost a heat wave compared to what we have been having. 35° at 10 a.m. is a gift indeed. Today it pushed up toward the mid-50s by noon with wonderful sun and balmy breezes. The dogs were over the moon with happiness. I could hardly get Jack to come inside all day.

We usually have a False Spring in January. Sometimes it lasts a week or more. According to the weather boffins this one is supposed to come and go for a while. As long as it stays within reach that’s OK by me.

On Patrol

Jack and Emma don't take No for an answer when it comes to the afternoon ramble. We GO, and that's all there is to it. Mags, however, has been begging off in the intense cold we have had lately. She has no tolerance for it, and more than once I have had to carry her back to the house when she bit off more than she could chew in her "go with" enthusiasm. She's a pathetic sight hobbling along on what she claims to be frozen tootises.

If you click on the picture of Jack and Em it will enlarge and you can see the deer up on the mountain, watching our progress down below. The dogs more or less ignore them, even when they're in the yard. They do not chase them, and I'm glad I never had to break them of that bad habit.

The 'Unpopulated Zone'

I guess that's what some folks would call where I live: "the unpopulated zone." But that just applies to people. Otherwise, there's nothing unpopulated about it.

I had to go to town on some errands y'day, something I rarely do, and on the way home I saw the scenes above. The mulies, 16 of them, are clustered near an old ghost town about three crow-fly miles from me. The antelope were a couple miles north of that point.

I glassed the deer to see if any of them were from my bunch that hangs around the house. None were that I could tell. That's probably because when I got home I found my nine all hunkered down on the front yard. The antelope bunch was one pod of a large herd of about a hundred that split up as my truck got near. They are lots spookier and more skittish than the mulies.

Such are neighbors on the High Plains.

Cold!

Sub-zero almost every night. Even Action Jackson doesn't want to stay out for very long. We still get our daily ramble but lately they have been very short indeed. We're do for a False Spring and it could come at any time for all of me. -16° gets old mighty quick.

And another visitor

Yesterday when we went out for our ramble (the same day we discovered the GHO), the dogs had been very antsy about getting out of the house and went right to the old shop/garage that is close to the house. Later I discovered the reason. I saw a shape against the dying light and when I went around to the other side I found a cat up in the shop 'attic' watching me through the copious spaces in the ramshackle old building's shake roof.

It didn't seem particularly alarmed and I chatted at it for a few minutes. I'm not really keen on having cats around, but if they are pulling their end and stay out of the way of the dogs (and do not use the garden as a sandbox) I try to be tolerant. I have no idea where they come from, but they rarely stay long. Eventually the coyotes get them.

By the way, that old dilapidated, dirt-floor shop building, about 15x20', is said to have been the first building on the place. The original homesteaders lived in it for the first two years while they were proving up the place. So says their grandson. This would have been about 1913. Those would have been some hard, hard winters.

A Visitor

Every day in the mid-afternoon, the dogs and I go for a ramble. There are days when, frankly, I would rather not, but Jack demands it and the others follow his lead. On every walk there is something going on. The other day I discovered that jack rabbits had moved into the bale area east of the house. They've never been around this close before. That same day I discovered we have a Bald Eagle hanging around. On another day I had to shoot a porcupine to keep the dogs quilless. Then there was the coyote confronted at a distance of six feet. Always something interesting going on.

Today it was a young Great Horned Owl sitting in one of the cottonwoods. Most of the older GHOs won't sit still for me and the dogs being too close to them, but this citizen just sat there as if he figured we were no threat at all. Quite small, too, so I figured it for a newcomer. As long as they behave they are welcome.

Afterwards the dogs discovered a stray cat in the old garage. Another visitor. Are we popular, or what?

And a New Year Looms...

I wish a healthy, prosperous, and happy 2013 for all. I hope it is a better year than 2012 turned out to be.

I have a talking dog.

I have a talking dog. Really.

Jack has been getting more and more vocal since he turned a year old. He has an amazing range of vocalizations. He also makes eye contact while he is using them and there can be no doubt he is struggling to communicate on the same level as I do to him. And he does pretty well at it.

Today, toward dusk, he really, really wanted to go out one more time. (He caught a pocket the other day and "knows where they live.") I wouldn't let him because I don't like having him out when it's really getting dark. He tried to explain how important it was. ROWR-urrr-woog-ROWR! We went 'round and 'round and finally he gave up and went off to his bed in the living room, but as he went he turned his head and had the last word. RUHR-gurrr-wooo! And then lay down and gave me the malochia.

Maybe I should buy him a typewriter.

The Blue Water in the morning

I had to go to a meeting early this morning down in the county seat. On my way I have to cross Blue Creek, called by the Indians "the blue water." It's a spring fed creek that runs strong all year. In 1855 there was the first "battle" between US troops and the Sioux on this creek. You can read about it by googling "the battle of Blue Water." It was actually an ambush of peaceful Indians by the Army, under the command of General Harney. Crazy Horse was there, as a lad of about 13. He had been hunting but arrived in time to see the results and help some of the wounded. You can see the cut-line of the creek bed in the foreground. At the time of the fight there would have been no trees here. The "battle" actually occurred a few miles downstream (to the right of the picture) but fleeing Indians came up this far and farther trying to escape from Harney's pursuing dragoons.

I have often wondered why it is that when the Indians win a battle it is called a massacre, and when the whites massacre some Indians it's called a battle. The answer is simple, of course: the winners write the histories.

Winter Approach/Avoidance

 October Sunrise

Not winter's. Mine.

Winter's onslaught always brings with it very mixed feelings. It gets a sort of bitter-sweet welcome in this house.

First, of course, is the loss of the outdoor lifestyle that rules the roost from May to October. Windows and doors are closed, the fans put away, screens replaced by storm windows, and anything that might be damaged by freezing comes out of the shop.

But for all of the negatives, the coming of winter offers some compensations. I have always been something of a book person, and the house if full of them. So many in fact that in a recent clean-up and reorganization boxes and boxes had to be packed up and relegated to storage. Winter gives me some concentrated book-time, and there is always a backlog of reading material of all types from the history of Ireland to the Little Big Horn and from oriental philosophy to the opening of the American frontier.

The "gun room" with facilities for amateur gunsmithing and ammunition reloading gets a touch-up in preparation for extensive use in the dark months of confinement. Notes and reminders scribbled when the weather was too enticing for inside work can now be fulfilled.

As a photographer I will now have time to refine, duplicate, and file what I used to call "negatives" and now must call "files." And in the office/workroom I can catch up on the print-making side-lined over the summer.

The lounging chairs will be removed from the front deck and a supply of fire-wood will replace them, under tarps to keep it free from snow and blowing rain. Kindling is stored in water-tight containers. The fireplace is cleaned, and a fire laid for immediate use when needed— soon no doubt. The propane supply is checked and refills for the thousand-gallon tank ordered up if needed.

Hunting seasons also loom, and though I do not hunt as much as I used to, Jack and Emma will not let me pass them up entirely— nor would it be fair to them to do so. It will also be time to consider topping up the venison supply in the freezers.

And so winter hath its hidden charms. Out here winter used to be the time when people went mad staring at the soddy walls and watching the snow infiltrate around the edges of the makeshift windows. Not a very likely outcome today, even without the glimmering eye of television. There's just too much to do, too broad a reach of activities and projects to have time to experience Prairie Madness.

But the best part of the coming of winter is that it is a punctuation mark in the flux of the seasons. There are four distinct seasons here, although spring and fall may sometimes seem to be demi-seasons rather than the full treatment that summer and winter give us. But there are four and they each have a character all their own. And winter is now on the cusp here on the High Plains, with its peculiar charms and particular dreads. But life is still good, and will spring will come again.

The morning ramble

 It went into the low 20s last night. The cold weather flips some sort of switch in Jack's brain and he has been an absolute PIA this morning, being as insistent as a small child with lots of presents under the tree.

He is the most vocal dog I have ever lived with. Has the most amazing range of vocals, with assorted UMMMs, OOOOs, YEEOWs, WOOFs, BOOFs, EEEEs, GURMMMMMs, and some that I can find no way to even approximately transliterate on the page. He is obviously doing his best to communicate, to "say something." We have many interesting conversations, with neither of us being completely sure what the other is trying to get across.

But this morning he came through loud and clear. And often. "Let's go out and walk! A long one!"

And so we did. All four of us. We've had a coyote hanging around lately and so I shouldered my little Kimber .243 and off we went. A nice long ramble during which we saw 13 whitetails that seemed a little jumpy this morning. No coyote, which is a good thing since Mags hates gunfire and I try to never shoot when she is outside.

We got back to the house and Jack still wanted to go. But he is a good compromiser and came inside with the rest of the "old folks."

He'll be at me again this afternoon and no doubt I will succumb yet once more.