Hanging with Heather

It's been awhile since I updated my poor little blog.  And that's 'cause I've been pretty busy.  Let's catch up.... In Feb, I mostly worked on guitars and rode dirt bikes a bit.  The weather was decent and we got a fair amount of riding done. Then in early March, our friend Heather stopped by for a visit. Being that she has quite a bit of ranch and livestock experience, I put her to work and her visit turned into a 6-week stay.

First course of action was building fence. I have 2 miles of fence between two pastures that was in pretty bad shape and has been since I got to the ranch nearly 20 years ago (I need to let that sink in for a minute... nearly TWENTY years ago...). I wanted it fixed up.  To that end, I bought a Danuser T3 post driver for my Case skid steer. We worked about 2-3 days/week on the fence and got it all spiffied up with steel posts, re-stretched wire, and some new braces. After some initial hiccups, the Danuser worked beautifully. At one spot, I pounded posts by hand into a dry lake bed.  Later, I drove by with the skid steer and decided to see how much further I could get the very tall posts.  I drove them an additional 2' without even actuating the "pound" part of the driver!  That's when I got impressed.

Miles of fence ahead

Stripping wire, pulling posts, driving new ones

Since Heather has experience with livestock auctions and Derek had some money in the bank to invest, we went to town a couple of times to buy cattle for him. I met with a local rancher the first time and got both his and Heather's opinions on the cattle.  When a likely bunch came up, we bid and won and suddenly Derek was a cattleman!  Back home, we branded, vaccinated, and sprayed with insecticide, all firsts for us.  We ended up buying 6 yearling steers in all. We'll let these gain weight on grass all summer and sell them in the fall, making a (hopeful) profit on the gain. This is a test run to see if we want to buy 20-50-100 yearlings in upcoming years.

I'm holding the gate shut...

.....Heather applies the iron.  Derek and Georgia are go-fers.

In addition to the yearlings, Derek has a herd of 8 momma cows and they started calving this past month. With these, we'll likely keep the heifer calves to build the herd and sell the steers this fall to generate money with which we'll buy more cattle next spring. If all goes well, by the time Derek's ready for college, he'll have a good fund built up.

The first home-grown calf of the year

Another thing we did was go hawking.  Since I met Heather thru falconry and since she brought 3 Harris' hawks with her, flying them seemed the logical thing to do. We flew them mostly in my Cedar Creek canyon which is a pinyon/juniper lined canyon. Bunnies aren't plentiful, but we got 2-4 decent flights every time and caught 1 bunny and a jackrabbit. We also saw a Barbary sheep ewe with a very small lamb in the canyon, a first for everyone. And we got a lot of much needed exercise! I think we fired up to fly Harris's again and I've put an order in for 2 birds for myself for this fall.  So, hopefully, we'll have some news on that later this summer.

Jackrabbit down!

And then we went fishing.  Being originally from Minnesota, H has some fishing tricks up her sleeve including The Art of Filleting, something which we'd never done. We fished pretty much once a week and caught lots of trout.  Derek caught his first walleye, smallmouth, and largemouth bass all in one day at Ute Lake.

Derek with walleye and bass

The above fish, about to be 'et.

I left out a bunch of other fun things- "walking" up to the top of the local mountain (pretty sure I said "climb" but everyone thought they heard "walk"...), looking for prairie falcons, playing Scrabble, visiting Las Vegas NM, feeding cattle, sitting in front of the fire talking, listening to music, and more, but I think you get the idea. We all learned a lot of things from each other, had fun, and it was, in short, A Most Excellent Visit.

Sitting on top of the world....

Alas, all good things must come to end and, in no time at all, it was time for Heather to head home to Montana. After lunch one day we said our "see you in awhile"'s (no "goodbyes", nope!), sent her down the road, and started getting back into our normal routine. That, of course, was quickly punctuated by incoming cattle (going into the pasture which fence we'd just fixed) and just like that, another ranching season begins.

Until next time

First one off the truck

Feed us!

And that brings us up to speed. Every year is an adventure.  What will this one bring?

There is one more thing. We observed what would have been David's 15th birthday with a visit to his grave. Tears were shed, funny stories were told, and- as always- we try to look forward in hope.

The Life of a Guitar Repair Wizard

I know some people think I'm like this Guitar Repairman Wizard or something, but this week, I had a bad day in the shop and, my blog needing an update, I’m going to tell you all about it.

A while ago, I got in a '67 Martin D-28 that just needed a neck reset and some frets. Easy job.  I did the frets and did the reset.  When I strung it up to check the action to set the saddle height, the front of the stock bridge snapped clean off. In 15 years, 150 guitars/year, I've NEVER had that happen. So I informed the owner and offered to make him a new bridge for free. I don't like making bridges- it's one of my least favorite things, especially when I have to make an _exact_ replica of something in order for it to work. I just hate blowing it and wasting a bridge blank. Irks me to death. Anyway....

After spending most of the previous day meticulously measuring and fitting the new bridge(*) to fit precisely in the stock footprint, and drilling the pin holes in a nice precise clean line so that they’d line exactly with the stock pin holes, today I was routing the saddle slot, which I always do last so that I put it exactly where I want it for good intonation.  Something felt funny. The router was making strange noises and I could feel it struggling. “Well, it’s a hard piece of ebony”, I thought. Then I took another look and noticed the router bit wobbling, so I quickly stopped the router and got it out of the way. Turns out the bit had worked its way loose from the router collet and dug deeply, widely, and sloppily into the bridge, ruining it. I've NEVER had that happen.

I decided to try to fill and re-cut the slot just to see how good I could make it look. Hours later, it looked great, so I strung the guitar up, but guess what? The bridge was .020" too low. The  stock bridge was really tall and I never got to test my reset 'cause the stock bridge broke as I was putting a test saddle in it. For guitars to work correctly, the neck angle has to agree with the combined height of the bridge and saddle. My new, repaired, bridge was too short, making the new saddle too tall and.... it just wasn't gonna work. So, 2 days worth of work went down the drain.  If you’re paying attention, you’ll note that, being too short, this bridge was really doomed from the start. The wayward router bit just finished the job.

I just hate going to bed with unfinished work, so after throwing tools and crying and tearing my shirt, I pulled the meticulously made repaired bridge and started on another one.  After spending all evening on it, I got a new bridge made and fit before quitting for the day so hopefully I've managed to take 1 step forward after 2 steps back. The next day I successfully cut a nice saddle slot in Bridge #2 and the guitar is currently strung up, awaiting final adjustment. I’m not claiming “success” just yet, though.  Not until a week has passed. 

This little mark is all that remains of the jagged slot

The original bridge, cracked

L-R: The new new bridge, the wobbly slot bridge, the original.

Bridge and saddle together determine string height-
they have to match the neck angle.

I watched a couple of these and felt better about my "bad day".

(*)In case you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, this is another bridge (that I made). The wood part is the "bridge", the bone part in the middle is the "saddle", and the black things are "pins".

A Good Day

Another Good Day

To make this right, you gotta get the curves in the wings just right- clean and sharp with a C shape. The overall height of the bridge and saddle have to match the neck angle of the guitar perfectly. The holes for the pins have to be the perfect distance from the saddle and perfectly spaced and in line. In the case of today's guitar, the new bridge needs to fit precisely into the old footprint on the top- that means that all curves and widths have to be exactly right. If they're not, I re-do it.

These bridges look good. I got lucky those days.  I’ll take lucky. It's what Wizards are made  up of. Luck. Luck and ebony dust.

Oh yeah.... the book is done! I took a couple of boxes to the North American Falconer's Association meet in Kansas and sold a bunch of 'em.

Unloading off the truck

Loading into the Ranger

1st box opened!

In case you go looking for it:

Falconry Equipment book

The Big Fast Train

The big fast train is here.  "What", you ask, "is 'the big fast train'?" It's a concept that I use to describe events that are a long time in the future and seem like they'll never get here.  Then, suddenly, they are here. I don't know if you've ever been out West (where the horizons are a long ways off) and watched a train coming, but you'll often see them way out there, sometimes as nothing more than a dot, a million miles away. You can sit beside the track and spit your tobacco (if you chew, and you really should quit if you do) and wait. Nothing happens. The dot doesn't seem to get closer but if you keep waiting, after awhile you'll start feeling the tracks vibrate a little. The train still seems a long ways off. When it gets closer, you can start making out details. Closer still and maybe the conductor will blow the whistle to warn you to get your foot off the track where you've been feeling for vibrations. And then, with a lot of noise and rumbling and flying cinders and whooshing air, the train is HERE! The ground shakes, the rails flex, your eardrums scream at the noise and commotion and then...WHOOSH!!!!.... it's gone. And off into the distance it goes until it becomes a small dot on the other horizon and before long maybe you don't trust that your memory was all that good and it really wasn't all that. So, wait for another train.

That's what long-anticipated events are like. You plan and prepare and it seems like the date will never get here and then, suddenly, it's here and like a fully loaded train, it sometimes threatens to just flat-out run you over.

My big train right now is "Winfield" or, as it's more formally called, the Walnut Valley Festival. This is home of the National Flatpicking Guitar (and other instruments) contest and this year, I'm entered in both mandolin and guitar. I did the guitar contest 4x- 1994, '97, '98, '99- and the mandolin once ('99, I think) but then quit contesting and just focused on playing. There is a maximum of 40 contestants, each of whom play 2 tunes. From these, 5 "make the cut" to the finals where they play 2 more tunes and from here, 3 are winners. It's a very prestigious contest and hard, too. On any given year, there will be 3-9 former winners and your first job, if you wanna make the cut, is to beat them. Also on any given year, only 1-2 of those former winners will make the cut themselves. It used to bother me that I competed for 4 years and didn't make the cut and then I thought harder about the fact that a lot of great players don't make it either.

This year, I needed some motivation to practice guitar and I was starting to feel semi-creative again after a long non-creative period, so in March, I signed up for the contest.  This kicked me into a frenzy of tune preparation and practicing. I could see the big train down the line and knew it was coming and I wanted to be ready. The train isn't quite here yet, but the tracks are shaking. Our truck is loaded up and tomorrow, Derek and I head off to Dallas TX and then up to Winfield. Once I get to Winfield, I'll be able to see the conductor and hear the whistle. At the end of the week- on Friday, at approx 1 pm- after being intimidated by 15 year old hot-shots backstage, I will step on the mandolin stage, sit down in front of the mic, adjust my chair, look at my rhythm guitar player, and then...I'll play the first note of my first tune. At that point, the train will be upon me. I'll be a little nervous, but with any luck, I won't forget, mid-stream, what tune I'm playing like I did in the guitar contest one year when I had to just rip around in the scale for a few seconds until I remembered and got back on track. On Saturday morning, I'll do it again in the guitar contest, but having- hopefully- survived the mandolin contest, I should be more relaxed. My goal is to simply make the cut. If I make the cut in either contest, I will pass out backstage and be the first person in the history of the contest to fail to make the finals because he's passed out backstage from excitement.

If you want to hear quick recordings of my contest tunes, go here. These were done with a simple digital recorder sitting on my desk, just so I could hear how the tunes actually sounded.

In May, I noticed that I'd started to put finish wear on the top of my mandolin neck. I bought this mandolin new in 2002 and I've never worn a mandolin neck before- 2 guitar necks, yes, but never a mandolin. I took pictures.

Finish wear in June

Finish wear in Sept

Underside of neck. 

So, why I am going to Winfield via Dallas?  Well, several months ago, I got it into my head that we needed a Casita travel trailer. Derek and I have been doing a lot more fishing, archery shoots, and just getting out and I would really, really like to have a little trailer that I don't have to pop-up and which has a bathroom and shower. The Casita fits the bill. The family was a little hesitant but one day we headed off to Clayton Lake to go fishing and I brought up the topic. As we came down the hill to the lake, lo and behold, can you believe it? There was a Casita travel trailer! The owner kindly gave the family a quick tour and our fate was sealed.

This is not our trailer. This is what they look like.

We're getting a 16' for the lower weight

I started earnestly searching for a used one but they are hard to find and the only ones I found were 7-9 hour drives away and, yeah the pictures look good, but who knows what condition they were really in? I decided to check prices on new ones and what do you know? Casita is having a sale. The price quoted for a brand-new trailer was barely higher than what I was looking at for 10 year old trailers. I figured that in 10 years, I'd have a 10-year old trailer instead of a 20-year old trailer, and so, thanks to generous financial donation from my mother, I ordered a new one. Lead time was 2.5 months and there, folks, is another big fast train. After all this anticipation and preparation, Monday, Lord willing!, we will hook the new trailer to our truck.

In other news, Derek and I have been fly fishing. After testing the waters ourselves, I decided to hire a guide and jump start the process. We ended up selling 2 of our doe pronghorn permits and using that money to finance a full day's fishing on our local waters. We learned a LOT and had a lot of fun. I hope this is something that we'll be doing more of in upcoming years. Thanks to Eagle Nest Fly Shack in, appropriately, Eagle Nest, NM

Derek's first Brown trout (yes, the fish was back in the water quickly)

Stalking fish pre-guide

Derek and guide

Last bit of news... "Falconry Equipment" is being edited by my co-author Jim Hodge as we speak. When I get back from Winfield- Lord willing- I will make suggested corrections and send it off to the printer. I should have copies in hand by mid-October, if all goes well.

It's been a great summer. I'm looking forward to fall.

The Orange Equipment Book

Many, many years ago, I co-wrote a book on Falconry Equipment with Jim Hodge. It has gone through 3 reprintings and 1 minor revision and we are now SOLD OUT of that last reprinting. It is time to seriously update the thing and that is my goal this summer. I should've had this in the can and ready to go a year ago, but there's nothing like being out of copies to encourage one to get busy.

Actually, here's why I haven't worked on it.... After going full-tilt in falconry for over 15 years, I dropped out for nearly 10 years. In 2000, we went to the national meet which was in Amarillo TX that year. The next year, David was born and life just got busy.  I had a great redtailed hawk- one of the best birds I've ever had- but hawking in NE New Mexico is dismal and I just started getting burned out, especially after hawking in some truly spectacular areas. I let the redtail go and lucked into a female prairie falcon which I kept for 3 years and- I'm embarrassed to say- never flew. I also let her go and then did nothing with falconry for several years. In 2010, my youngest son, Derek, was showing an interest in birds and the national meet was just down the road in Dodge City, KS, so we loaded up and went for a day.

Derek had seen a video featuring white gyrfalcons and was all interested in seeing one up close and wanted to know if there'd be one there. I said "Oh, you bet!" We pulled up to the meet after parking our Coleman camper down at the "Gypsy Hawking" place, and walked up to the weathering yard where, none to my surprise, but all to Derek's delight, there was a white gyrfalcon sunning. We hadn't been there 5 minutes when the owner of the gyr picked the bird up and came back to the gate. He recognized me immediately- remember, I haven't been to a meet in 10 years- and we shook hands. I mentioned how Derek was all excited about seeing his first gyr and the bird's owner said "Here! Hold her!" and slipped Derek's hand into the glove. Another falconer behind us snapped a picture and here we go:

Derek at his first falconry meet
(Photo- Ellen McIntyre)

We ended up going hawking with the group and not only did Derek get to hold the gyr, but we got to see it fly, helped a redtail catch its first jackrabbit, and made several new friends.  Derek was hooked. That night at the NAFEX (a falconry forum) dinner, I sat next to our Mountain Director, Paul Domski and talked to him.  "You should put in for a peregrine this year", he said.  The little wheels started churning and well... I documented it all, starting here.  And that was the start of our return to falconry.

At the NAFEX dinner, Paul Domski on the left. I'm thinking about peregrines.
(Photo- Brandi Nickerson)

We missed the 2011 meet.  I was going to take David that year, but the meet was in Utah and his blood was just super-low, and Mom and Derek were gone to southern NM.  Here's my post from that week.  In May 2012, of course, David died,  Derek was very interested in falconry then, and I took a kestrel from a nest box on the ranch and let him train it. I think this really, really helped him get through the loss of his big brother as it gave him something that's his and something new to hold on to. And he's turned out to be a talented trainer, too. That fall, we went to the meet in Kearney, NE and I was asked to play music after the country band couldn't make it. I hadn't really played guitar since David's passing and, as I talked about last week, I was pretty much brain-dead creatively.  But, I got up there and did it, had a good time, and met some new friends in the process. It made me think that, like, people actually like to hear me play and that was encouraging. I started thinking about actually practicing again.

Playing at NAFA 2012
(Photo- Scott McNeff)

I'm telling you all this to tell you this- in the course of going back to the meets and talking to falconers again, I realized that my little book has made an impact on people. I can't tell you how many people would come up to me and tell me how useful the "orange equipment book" was in their falconry progress. When our friend Heather visited a few weeks ago, she told me how a group of young falconers would gather every week and study books, including the "orange equipment book".  I met some great hood makers who told me "we learned from the orange equipment book!" Someone actually kneeled down in front of me in the weathering yard!  All this was encouraging if somewhat humorous to me. I mean, do these people know the truth about me?

At one point, I sat down and crunched the numbers and figured that I LOSE money on the book- if I spent the same time working on guitars as I did writing, I'd make more money.  Up to 2010, I'd pretty much decided to drop the book and not reprint it, but going to the meets and meeting people made me realize that it's not about the money. It's really about helping people, being a good influence on them, and contributing back to the sport. That kestrel has been great therapy for Derek and I want to say "Thanks" back to the falconry world. So, I'm forgetting about the money part and working on a revision and I'm putting some Effort into it. 

At this point, I have all the chapters in place with all my existing photos and illustrations placed. I can now see where the holes are and what needs to be filled. It's been a lot of work. I've been working until midnight most nights, but it's fun and I feel good doing it. It feels good to be pushing and driving again. It's also interesting contrasting today vs when I first wrote the book.  Here's what I posted on Facebook:

As much work as this _revision_ has been, it's hard to believe I actually wrote this thing from scratch at one point. Actually, after spending 4 years gathering information, I spent 4 months doing almost nothing but writing it and my Master's thesis. I'd work on each one for a week at a time and then switch to the other one. I took a semester off school to do this and I'd get up and be writing at 8 am, work until lunch, eat lunch, work until 3, go hawking, and then work until 10-11 pm. All of this was in DOS 3.3 and what a Godsend it was when I got DR-DOS and could switch programs w/out closing them on my big, mean 286/16 machine with a 10 mb hard drive and 1024k ram. When I was all done, I had my thesis and the book in hand. I was 30 years old and I told Georgia "I can die now."

But, I didn't. I'm still here as you may have noticed.

I'm revising the falconry book, but I not going to revise my thesis. Funny story about THAT. After graduating, I set out to get a "paper" published from my thesis ("Differential migration of Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks in NE Nevada"). So, I pulled data out, slapped it around, and sent it off to The Condor or The Auk, I don't remember which. It came back with "Where's N?" N being "total sample size". Well, that's a dumb thing to miss in a peer-reviewed paper! I went to my thesis to get the missing magic number and....not there. After going thru my 3 committee members, the dean's office, and independent reviewers NO ONE noticed that "N" was missing!!! Incredible. I was in full-tilt working mode by then, so I just tossed everything in a file drawer and forgot about it. I don't even know if I still have a copy of my thesis- I think I threw away the last copy a few years ago. I suppose I should go down to the barn, dig around in boxes, and see.

Yeah, Science!!!

Book progress!

And so, that's the story of the orange equipment book.  I should post this blurb from the new edition:

About the Authors
Bryan Kimsey became a falconer and NAFA member in 1983 and has flown hybrid falcons, prairie falcons, peregrine falcons, Harris's hawks, redtails, a ferruginous hawk, and Cooper's hawks. 

Jim Hodge has been a falconer and NAFA member since 1970 and has flown redtails, Harris' hawks, kestrels, peregrine falcons, and hybrid falcons.   

Kimsey and Hodge met in a trapping blind in south Texas in 1986 in which Hodge proposed the idea for this book. Kimsey thought it was a good idea and had nothing better to do so over the next 5 years he did the bulk of the writing while Hodge collected information and handled logistics and together they got the book done. The 2nd edition has been a long time coming but here it is- we hope you find it useful.

Special thanks to Bob, Ellen, Don, Heather, Natasha, Paul, Jeff, Manny, Michael, Mario, Brandi, Rich, Chris, Tom, Greg and all the rest of my "falconry family". You are great friends who have given me much encouragement.

Springing Forward...

...after "Fall-ing" back.

As is the routine, it's been a long time between posts.  My last post was elk hunting in the fall. Winter has now come and gone and spring's on the near horizon. It's time to spring back and catch up. Here's what happened over the winter:

First, here's how we ended the fall- LOTS of old grass.  This might be the best end-of-season I've seen in a decade.  All of this grass is still here come spring and it held the winter snow in place.

Sitting in a sea of grass

We got a wood stove installed last fall and it was GREAT!  It's a Lopi Endeavor re-burning wood stove.  This is not your grandad's wood stove where most of the heat goes up the chimney.  This one recirculates gasses and reburns them, for a near 90% efficiency rate.  It cut our propane bill by 2/3 and, while it didn't keep the entire house toasty, it did give us a "hot spot" in the living room where we could sit and be warm.

Pre-stove

Post-stove

Falconry-wise, I started the season with a fresh-taken female prairie falcon.  We didn't get along well- to be fair to her, I was trying a different training technique- and ended up parting ways.  After some effort, I trapped a passage redtailed hawk- only my 4th RT in 30+ years of falconry- in December and flew her for the rest of the season.  She's an interesting bird in that she follows and flies beautifully, but doesn't seem to know what bunnies are.  Because she tries to swallow all of her food whole, I think she'd mostly been a mouse hawk until I trapped her. I'm going to molt her and fly her another season and then probably let her go. I have a Cooper's hawk in mind and possibly another prairie falcon.

2 weeks out of the trap.  She loves me (not).

5 weeks out of the trap

Falconry was mostly a disappointment this year, but that's also mostly my fault since I was fooling around with the prairie falcon and didn't get the RT until December and trained until mid-January. By then, the surviving bunnies are smart and hard to catch and we don't have that many anyway. We had some good flights but ended the season score-less.  We did make it to the North American Falconer's Association Meet in Lubbock TX and I was hoping for a good week of hawking there, but Derek took ill the first day and spent the whole week sick in bed.  Because of this, we bailed mid-week and came on home where he continued to run a 100 deg fever for a full week.  So that was a bummer. At the meet, though, I did win the pole perch I'm using in the above picture, talk to a lot of people about the upcoming revision to "Falconry Equipment", visit with friends, eat some good food, and more or less relax a bit.

January and February rolled by with the main excitement being the birth of our first grandchild via Quenten and Brianna in February. In January, the ranch got a new 2014 Polaris Ranger XP 900. I've been looking at these for years, and the time seemed right to get one, so we did.  It arrived Jan 2 and between then today (March 12), I have started the ranch Ford F250 a grand total of 3 times.  If the Ranger stays reliable, it should prove to be a very useful vehicle.

Cutting firewood from the new Ranger

In March, our friend Heather, falconer/horse/dog trainer stopped for a visit on her gypsy way from Texas back to Montana.  It ended up snowing nearly the entire week, trapping her here, and we played games, talked training and music, watched movies, and had just a generally good time.  Derek made a new friend and learned a lot about training animals. We really enjoyed having her visit and were sad to see her go.

Derek and Heather compare falcons

Also in March (the 7th and 9th, to be exact), Georgia and I observed our 29th wedding anniversary and I passed 53 years old.  Here's what I said about that on Facebook:

As of today, Georgia and I have been married for 29 years. That's, like, almost 3 decades. There are countries that haven't lasted as long (I don't know which ones, but it sounds good on paper). We've been thru celebrated births (3 kids), tragic deaths (buried one of them), cross-country moves, dramatic career changes, a lawsuit, poverty, (relative) prosperity, cancer, conversions, college, drought, near-disasters, a few easy years, and more (that I can't remember), and are still kicking along. 

Also on the radar, on Monday, I will be 53 years old. I long ago ran out of the good years for Martin D's ('34-38) and am now fixing to run out of good years for Telecasters ('50-54). After this, I'll be living in Stratocaster Years ('54-64). If I make past those, I suppose I'll have a few years of Fender Blackface amps ('64-67), the volume of which I'll undoubtedly need at that point, providing I can even hear at all by then. I don't know what I'll latch on to if I make it past the Blackface stage. Guess I'll cross that bridge then, if. None of this will make the least bit of sense to non-guitar-weenies, of course, but it's how I put history in perspective.

This past week, Derek's cows started giving birth, bringing more excitement.  We lost the first one- whether due to a still birth or the snow storm, I don't know.  The 2nd was one born the next day and is doing well, as of this writing.

Derek is now a cattleman

The cow that lost her calf tries to claim this one.  We separated her out.

And now, having caught up, let's take a look at Ranch Life in the next post!

Birds, Bows, and Bouteloua

I'm just terrible at keeping up with this blog and you can blame Facebook for that.  It's so much easier to just spit out little comments over there whereas over here I feel like I have to actually write something and I don't know if you've noticed, but writing is hard work.  It's work digging for the right words to describe situations and events and to think of interesting things to say in the first place.  But, well, here we are again.

Birds
I took another wild prairie falcon.  My other prairie- the one that was going into her 3rd year, the year when she'd really turn on and become A Real Hunting Falcon- got injured at the beginning of the 2013/14 season and lost use of her wing.   I placed her with an educational group in the Dallas area and decided to get a tiercel (male) prairie falcon, something I've never had.  For the first time since 2004, falcons nested on some cliffs in the NE corner of our ranch so Derek and I started watching them. We went out to check them one day and were surprised to find 2 large white chicks on the nest- I was expecting much smaller chicks at that date.  There was a big storm with "damaging hail" on the way and the nest was pretty exposed on the cliff face.  I would've hated to come back after the storm and find dead chicks.  Fortunately, this didn't happen, but I can't see into the future and I made the snap decision to go ahead and take a chick.

Having snapped a decision, we went back to the house, gathered up the gear, and headed back to the cliff.  I anchored to a Grizzly 660 ATV and went down the rope.  I was a little disappointed to find 2 females when I really wanted a male, but, hey, there I was and "a bird in the hand...", and all that.  Into the bag went the female with the largest feet and done.

Here's footage of me taking the falcon chick:

And for fun, here's the view from my helmet cam:

And here's the falcon chick eating about 2 weeks later:

For better or worse, ready or not, it looks like I'm back in the falconry game.

Bows
The other big activity I've been up to is archery.   Derek is the defending State Champ and I'm trying to add my own plaque to the wall.  So far, I've shot 5 State shoots and won 4 with a 2nd place in the other.  That sounds good, but in my class there's not a lot of competition and I'm not shooting as well as I'd like.  So,  I've spent some serious time and effort (and a little $$$) working on my form.  I started videoing myself again and as a result of that, I sold some bows, bought some bows, and made some changes to my draw length.  All this paid off.  Here's some MORE video!

After doing this work, I shot an indoor round and shot my best score ever by a significant margin.  Here's my target from the 2013 State Indoor round for reference:

296/300 w 37 x's

And here's the target I shot after working on my draw length:

300/300 w/ 54 x's

The State Grand Field is coming up in mid-July and I'm looking forward to shooting it.

Bouteloua
Bouteloua gracilis is my friend.  That's the blue grama grass that grows here and provides the bulk of our cattle forage.  In order for it to grow, there must be rain and... you guessed it!!!... it's been raining.  The difference between this year and last year is astounding.  Last year I recorded huge dust devils.  This year, it's green and lush.

Bouteloua gracilis in its prime (from late 2013)

Rain clouds

Rain!

We're keeping stocking rates down to help the grass recover from the past 3 years drought, and right now, it's looking good.  I don't think we're out of the drought for good, but we're sure happy to have some relief.

And now for the cancer report.  Georgia's finishing her radiation therapy this week.  It's been a much better process that we feared and she's done very well.  The "burn" and associated pain has only just now shown up and it's expected that she'll continue to- just like a microwaved burrito- cook a little longer after the radiation stops.  We'll be glad to have her home and we're very, very, very thankful to have friends in Amarillo where she's stayed during these six weeks.

Upcoming- the 52nd Sierra Grande Rancher's Camp Meeting.  I've been Chairman/President/Organizational Czar of this for 6 years, I think.  We're on Facebook.