Hunting Sunday February 1st, 2009 – 10:00AM
Valley Green Farm (Bridlespur Kennels)

Huntsman: Eleanor Hartwell (Max)

Whips: Gene Deutsch (Waffles), Lee Deutsch (Belle), Tess Fleishli (Rocky), Ron Ausman (Toby)

First Field: Mary Hensel (fieldmaster)(on Lark), Jean Mutrux (Pee Wee), Abby Mutrux (Hoppy), Leslie Ayers (PT), Leslie Granger (Maurice), Deb Hogan (Styx), Lei Ruckle (Ronnie), Beverly Stevens (Courtney).

17 couple hounds

GPS readings 10.6 miles – 2 hrs 15 minutes moving, 1 hour 13 minutes stopped. Moving average 4.7 mph. Max speed 13.6 mph. Total time 3 hrs 28 minutes.

Lunch/Brunch – Apple Butter Pork, White chicken Chili, Salad, Vodka cake. Provided by Leslie Granger and Lil Lewis.

It had been warm the day before and my day started out when I fell on the driveway going out to the truck with a handful of things. Unbeknownst to me my camera was broken so I wasn’t able to take any photos. Unfortunately I wasn’t the only one that fell that day. The ground was frozen and hard and there was still some snow on the ground in places. The temperature went from 37 degrees when we started up to 44 degrees. The wind was cold and pretty steady from the North at about 12-15 mph. The barometric pressure was rising.

We headed down the hill toward the creek. We crossed the creek and headed east along the edges of the field. Lei Ruckle was lagging at the back of the field and she viewed a coyote going the opposite direction. We passed that info on to Eleanor and she turned the hounds to the south. We continued southward until we were almost to Hwy Z but the hounds never spoke on the coyote. Then we headed east and worked our way across Tim Brown’s toward Deutschland. We jumped a coop and Lei’s horse took a long spot and slipped and went down. All were ok but Lei’s horse took off running once he realized he was free. Tess finally caught up to him and ponied him back. We then headed north and the hounds were working hard but it was very blank. We continued to hunt our way back to the clubhouse with no luck. During this time Lee Deutsch’s horse fell. The footing was getting worse as things warmed up and there was a little mud on top of the ice. We headed in and had our brunch before heading for Jill and Max’s wonderful super bowl party.