Hunting Saturday September 20th, 2008 - 8:30AM
Valley Green Farm (Bridlespur Kennels)

Huntsman: Eleanor Hartwell (Jack)

Whips: Jill Wagenknecht (Camo), Gene Deutsch (Waffles), Lee Deutsch (Belle), John Korenak (Rocky)

First Field: Mary Hensel (fieldmaster)(on Lark), Leslie Ayers (Gabe), Sarah Zenisek (Sebastian), Deborah Daugherty, Leslie Granger (Maurice),

Second Field: Anne Hoagland (fieldmaster), Armand Hoffstetter (Kaiser), Werner Kugler, Janelle Allton, Sue Hamilton, Karen DeGrand, Gigi Harrow, Deb Hogan

Junior Field: Lei Ruckle (Mo), Geri Washausen (Floyd), Mackenzie Bussard (Bert)

Wheel Whip: Tess Fleishli

16 ˝ couple hounds including 3 puppies

GPS readings 8.38 miles We were out over three hours.

Lunch/Brunch – Provided by Geri Washausen. Pizza leftover from the Hunter pace and fresh salad by Geri.

Even with all the rain we had in September it did not appear to be too wet and muddy. The temperature was 61 degrees when we started and rose to 70 degrees. The wind was from the south which does not normally yield good scenting conditions.

This was the first day of official cubbing. There was a good turnout although some people seemed to be confused by the start time, most everyone was there for the 8:30AM start. There were some new horses in the Field. Lei Ruckle had her Tb mare out for her first hunt. Armand was out with his horse, they had not hunted in quite some time. It was good to see Armand out as he does so much work for the club. The Illinois members were well represented also.

We headed down to the creek and then followed the west side of the creek north drawing along the creek. We got to watch Lee Deutsch make a beautiful jump over a coop from the property to the north into the Valley Green property. We crossed the creek and headed up to the dark house which is the east entrance to the farm. Eleanor stopped and gathered hounds here. She then took them down the draw to the pipeline while we followed to the east on the trail which borders the property. We Then turned east along the pipeline and jumped a couple of the new coops that Eleanor had built into this new territory that has been made available. The new part was beautiful. The hounds spoke a few times but there were never any sustained runs. We came up into Tim Brown’s field. We waited in Tim Brown’s field for a while. The horses were hot and the weeds were itchy. Armand’s horse decided to lie down. Everyone was ok and Debbie Daugherty was kind enough to go out and look for a nice fallen tree for Armand to use for a mounting block and assist him in getting remounted. The rest of the field then crossed over to the Trail to Nowhere and then on to the Hog Farm. As we had been out almost three hours we then started to work our way in while gathering hounds. All hounds were with us when we got back to the kennels.