Hunting Saturday March 21st, 2009 – 10:00AM
Valley Green Farm (Bridlespur Kennels)

Huntsman: Eleanor Hartwell (Jack)

Whips: John Korenak (Titan), Tess Fleishli (Rocky), Jill Wagenknect (AJ), Deb Daugherty

First Field: Leslie Granger (Maurice) field master, Stephanie Mihlbaugh (Maximus)

Junior Field: Deb Hogan (Styx) fieldmaster, Beverly Stevens (Courtney), Cissy Calvrid (Mescal), Charles Burch, Bob Wilmott

15 couple hounds

GPS readings 11.2 miles – 2 hr 14 minutes moving, 1 hr 10 minutes stopped. Moving average 5.0 mph. Max speed 19.1 mph. Total time 3 hrs 24 minutes.

Lunch/Brunch – Irish Stew, potatoes, Irish Soda bread and salad by Michael Murphy, in honor of St. Pat.

The temperature went from 50 degrees when we started and warmed up to 59 degrees. The wind was from the South. Winds were at about 8-11 mph. Barometric pressure was rising until noon and then started falling.

We headed to the west down the driveway to start. Then Eleanor drew the woods to the south of the driveway. There was some speaking as some puppies had found bad game. We headed down to the creek where the whips had stopped the errant hounds. We drew the woods again and we followed along on the bluff top trail. No luck there so we headed down the hill to the creek and worked the creek in a northeasterly direction. Twilight was speaking and working an especially rough area along the creek that we couldn’t get to. We heard her for quite some time and crossed the creek and headed back to see if we could get a better look at what she was tracking. We couldn’t see anything so Eleanor picked up the hounds and headed into the woods east of the pipeline while we followed along on the edge of the woods. While we were going along, Deb Hogan’s horse bolted and she came off for the second time of the day and so decided to head in. We came out by the Welsh road entrance and waited until we heard Eleanor cross and headed down the trail adjacent to the properly line until we met up with her again on the pipeline. We worked along that creek and in the rough area at Welsh’s corner. Again hounds were on questionable game and Jill was positioned perfectly to send them back to Eleanor. Eleanor gathered them up and then we headed into Tim Brown’s.

In the first field of Tim Brown’s property, Cissy viewed a small coyote heading west. We did not alert Eleanor as it was headed close to a house with house dogs. Also Eleanor’s radio was not working. Shortly thereafter, we heard hounds speaking, so we figured that Cissy’s Coyote must have a friend. We headed from Brown’s into Deutschland and Stephanie and I jumped a coop leaving the junior to fend for themselves with the gate. We jumped several more coops heading in the general direction of Welsh Rd. We got close to Welsh Road and I decided there were a lot of gates and cows to deal with so headed back toward the east with the intent of meeting Eleanor at the Welsch Rd. entrance to the property. We crossed the creek in a place I had not been before and it was absolutely beautiful with a high sheer cliff. Stephanie and I paused here and took some photos of this lovely, peaceful spot.

While we were having out photo session, Jill came along leading the Junior field. They had lost us at the first coop and Jill fortunately found them and was leading them back to where I was. So we stayed and took some more photos. From there we headed back to the pipeline and back to the clubhouse. It was getting late and some of us needed to get to the Gold Cup hound numbering and Bunny Ball.

Michael Murphy had lunch waiting for us and it was another fabulous Michael Murphy creation. He had brought Julie Simmons along to help. I love Michael’s homemade breads. This one was very delicious.

Eleanor came back and took her jeep to look for hounds. She managed to get 7 ½ couple of hounds in her little jeep. I’m sure it was quite a sight!