Thirty...

So off for a day in the Great Plains. Started the day with a brief training draw with a visiting farmer pack. Good looking hounds, and they worked a little line but we had to go. (Emo note, dined last night with, among others, the visitors' whipper-in and his wife. They were so cute, he was like a sixteen year old with his first date. Just charming.) Unboxed on the windy steppe. A small field and fourteen and a half couple.

The huntsman had very generously shown me his pack and pointed out two in particular. "Pickle" here is ten years old and, he told me, is still keen as mustard and does not miss a day. You can see that she is as fit as a flea.

This hound is nearly blind, can still get around but no foggy days!

They aren't running Greenwich Hospital, the rest of the hounds looked fast and healthy. They just love their hounds!

So away we went. This was my first visit to the Great American Desert, and desolate is the word.

It's like Exmoor, but much flatter and without all the green. The poor graziers here have been in drought for two years, and it shows. Even I can see the low water table, trickling streams, and dried ponds. I hope this year is better for them, who'd be a farmer?

The country is still good to hunt over. There were two brothers whipping-in in trucks, they put me with the elder and drew. We saw a coyote sneaking away across a field, but about that time hounds struck to our south and it was on! The pack split, driving one east into a river bottom and another south. The huntsman saw houns run into the eastbound one, so he decided to chase the other and let the other hounds come on. We barreled around south, to come upon...

Younger brother mounted our truck, and away we bounced. The pace was too good to enquire...

No pictures, because we were travelling at speed. Saw a total of three coyotes ourselves, two hunted ones, and the field saw two more. Add the one a whipper-in saw, and six afoot in a three hour period. Not bad. They called it a day and headed back north. A bit of vehicle salvage...

But we were still four couple short. As the returning hounds neared the river bank, we found them...

About fifteen feet below us in the watercourse! They had followed that coyote up under a washed out tree root,

And were marking like crazy! They were snarled up in those roots so tight that they had to be dragged out, hounds were falling from the sky! And who was the last one hauled out, the one closest to the coyote? You guessed it, Pickle. So they gave him best, a sporting ending to an interesting, fun, educational, and surprising day. Plus, truck tipover!

This was my thirtieth pack of hounds to watch this season. Hunt ho, indeed. Thank you for the opportunity, HotGirl!