I’m in Montana this week chasing after birds with my dog and taking in the sights along the way…
…and what sights they’ve been!
I’ll have more photos then you’ll ever want to see once I get home to my computer and quick internet but until then you can check out Instagram (link in sidebar) for occasional updates!
Someone once told me that there are people who can jump out of bed and right into rational thought. But they told me about these so called “people” early in the morning and I was unable to determine over the course of the conversation if this is in fact true or just some fairy tale to further confuse those of us who have an extra hard time in the morning.
Today my foolish morning brain said, “Self you don’t want to wear your good jeans*, put on those old holey ones instead.” Had my afternoon brain been available it would have replied, “Dude, what are you nuts! I’m going bird hunting on the edges of a marshy mess known for it’s terribly thick cover that I will no doubt want to dive into because that’s where everyone else will have chased the birds to. Lets put on the good jeans*!”
Sadly my afternoon brain was sound asleep.
I wore the jeans with no knees.
Hours later I was doing my best human bulldozer impression. Having already become fed up with the terribly thick cover catching my hat, whistle, shock collar remote, game vest, sunglasses, shirt, neck, face and bare knees I was now pushing backwards, through the forest of ten foot tall, dried out plants. Each time I stepped back I would feel the tug of the 3/4 inch round stems, as their 60 grit sandpaper coating caught on my game vest and then I’d watch at my feet as they pulled out of the ground, each connected to a four inch plug of mud. Sometimes I’d get lucky and they’d snap off and stab me, occasionally I would tangle my feet and slowly, supported on all sides by the forest of stalks, sink to the ground in an undignified, swearing heap.
The vegetation behind my dog in no way resembles what I walked though. The vegetation behind my dog is like a golf course in comparison. In fact the only things that are similar between this picture and the experience above is that my dog is running and the sky was just as blue and beautiful.
Today was my first bird hunt of the year and I feel the dogs, the gun and I have left ourselves wide open for improvement. The dogs- will not wander off in the midst of a horrid forest of sandpaper stalks. The gun – will stay in one piece when I shoot it. And I – I will find my hunting clothes the night before.
* “Good” in this case has nothing to do with fit, wear or stains, only the absence of very large holes.
I guess it could be argued that the narrator of this tale takes his own sweet, round about time to get down to the story at hand.
But that would be the argument of someone who goes bird hunting just to kill things.
Would I recommend it? Yes.
Also, Jerry Johnson has an excellent blog at Dispatches from a Northern Town. Head over and check it out. Bells and Whistles is a great place to start, though you might need a Kleenex!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Horizon
Loading up after a day of North Dakota bird hunting.
The rumors are true. We went bird hunting in North Dakota for our tenth anniversary.
I know there are a fair amount of you reading this who think that’s grand- you’re probably related to me. I also know that there are a fair amount of you reading this who think I’m nuts. I know this because I’d been telling all sorts of people about our plans before we left. And while only a few were so bold enough to say such things as “Do you hunt?” and “Why?” the rest of them had it in their eyes.
The first question is an easy yes.
As for why we chose North Dakota over some place with sand and drinks with little umbrellas, well…
There are few times that I will willing get up before the sun rises just for fun. 
Very few times.
But if you don’t get up early enough to get some breakfast, get the dogs ready to go and get to the field, you just don’t make it in time to see mornings like these.
Mornings in a field of grass that stretches as far as you can see, where you are just as likely to flush an owl or a deer as the pheasant the dogs are searching for. 
Mornings so still and clear you can hear the dogs running and sniffing through the field ahead of you.
Or the cold mornings where the frost on the grass bursts off as the dogs run through it, leaving streaming trails of glitter in the sunlight as they hunt for birds. 
As the morning wears on, the birds move out of the easy cover and become harder to find. The dogs get tired.
I get tired.
But there are always more field to explore.
And you can’t stop yet, because there are probably birds, just over the next hill. And yes the hill might be a mile away but the dogs are looking birdy so you can’t stop now. And when you think about it, you find you no longer even want to. 
Suddenly the birds will be coming back into the heavy cover for the night, the dogs will be pointing left and right and when it seems far to early to be done for the day, the sun will go down.
Invariably I will be astonished that the day’s hunt is over, exhausted, yet still filled with plans of places we can go, fields we can try and combinations of dogs we can run – tomorrow.
And, if it’s been an exceptionally good day, there just might be a bit of extra weight on my back.
A bit of weight in a bundle of feathers that holds both the promise of a delicious dinner and the story of following a dog through a sea of grass to see what happens next.
I’ve spent the last week doing this:
With this guy:
And a pack of these:
A great week!
I’ve got to clean my gun tonight but I’ll have more pictures to share tomorrow!
A Friday ritual . A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Murphy’s Law that is.
Our bird hunting trip to Kansas didn’t go quite as planned…
The weather in Kansas before our trip was in the 50’s, the weather since we’ve been home is in the 30’s. While we were there – highs in the teens with below zero windchills.
The prairie dogs of Prairie Dog State Park did not come out to play.
Tyler and Sarah head out to lay on the frozen goose poop so they can watch the geese laugh at them as they fly over.
The reservoir froze over the night before the boats got there and the duck/goose hunters laid on the ice and watched the birds fly just out of range.
Kids don’t last long outside in temperatures like that. And our plans to explore the park turned into plans to explore the local library.
]We knew that the drought conditions this year meant that pheasant numbers were down. We figured we could make up for that with the ducks, geese (so much for that plan) quail, prairie chicken, and turkey.
Well, I saw two prairie chicken from the truck once and quite a few coveys of quail were unearthed but Murphy really got me in the turkey hunting.
The first day there John who went out hunting with Tyler and his girlfriend Sarah first was very, very nicely able to pick up my hunting license for me. But he didn’t buy me a turkey tag. Bemused but unconcerned I figured I’d buy one next time I was in town. First time I got out Tyler, Sarah and I ran into a giant flock of turkeys and I followed (admittedly somewhat grumpily) as they bailed out of the truck with the dogs. Turkeys flew everywhere, shots were fired, I watched Tyler’s dog (incidentally named Turkey) retrieve a turkey and my dog try to eat a turkey (sorry Sarah, he probably thought it was a really big chicken).
It was exciting!
I went and picked up my tag that night. The only other time I saw turkeys they were running away – safely beyond the Private Property sign. 
Then there was the virus. I don’t think it was the nasty virus that took out an unbelievable number of my family members after Christmas, but something got Clara. Shethrew up in the truck on the ride down, came down with an all night screamer of an earache mid-trip and still (now with the help of antibiotics) is working on recovering.
Below zero temperatures, sick kid, camper – bad combo – dam that Murphy.
And then there were the other things, like when John lost the antenna of my shock collar and then a few days later I accidentally broke his in half. Sarah forgot her shotgun at home. I got sick on the way home and we had a much longer stay at a hotel in Nebraska than we bargained for.
But even though Murphy came out securely on top it wasn’t a bad trip.
Jane was a happy camper and liked working on her dog training.
Ivy and I were able to get out hunting together one afternoon and she quickly turned into an expert pheasant tracker in the snow.
Everyone enjoyed hunting with their dogs. (Especially me!)
And now that I’m home I must say, even a disaster of a hunting trip is better than unpacking the mounds and mounds of stuff that are coming out of our vehicles since we’ve been home!
Yup, disaster of a trip an all I’m already trying to figure out how we can do it again, if we can just figure out a way to beat Murphy…
Isn’t he pretty!?!
Today’s numbers:
Four hunters, zero birds.
Three kids, one earache.
Good thing it’s beautiful here and my dog is awesome or it might have been a bad day!
Behind the Willows 