St. Hubert in France, first day 2011-12...

(Remember, you can click n any picture to embiggen it!)

So after spending the night in the car in front of the hotel, up for a lovely breakfast (Merci, Sandrine) and to the staghounds at Paimpont.

Of course in the local abbey:




Church was actually jammed full, this was as people were leaving.



Of course the focus of it all had a representative:



And there were all sorts and conditions of people. Hunting is really open to anyone interested, and here's an example.



I like it that the French have a proper full service. My faith is no great exemplar, but it seems fair and true to show respect to God, creation, providence, nature, Diana, or whatever you believe made all the things we are and do. And a bit to seek forgiveness, or at least try to obtain and offer an understanding of what the Priest called "practical naturalism".

At least that's what I thought he said. Bit like being some medieval peasant, listening to the service in Latin.

Outside, of course,






Four sides to this, and this town has about forty houses.



Germany is a very lucky place.

Enough philosophy, time to go huntin'!

Lots of one-horses here.


Hunt truck, you can tell by the glint in their eyes that hounds and horses are ready to get rolling!



Good old fashioned hammerhead staff horse!



Shiny, well kept, and came boiling off the trailer ready to go.

Hunters are the same everywhere, smoking food locusts!



Also having a few cigarettes.

A boat of course.



Speaking of hammers, a last minute tune up:



And for the riders too:



Very much a family event, just a few of the youngest.


And very friendly too, the lady with the baby in her arms and I practiced our language skills on one another. She won!

Even coming off the truck, hounds were very well disciplined.



Suiting up. I like this four horse van, very practical.

These looked like serious hunters.



(And during the day I noticed the lady in green always seemed to be on the spot!)

Bicyclists of course!



And their trusty steeds.



Priest came out to bless the pack:


More of the next generation at the Rapport.



Regardez those serious expressions! If I were an Anti I might avoid making them cross.

Recycling!

That's a Chassepot rifle bayonet, 1870 or so.

Friendly au revoirs,


and off!



En voiture!



Any kind of voiture!


This will be a pretty short write up. Everyone set off along a road. As all my reader knows, I often like to be clueless on these visits.

I can hear it now, "As opposed to clueless at home as usual."

But this time I was unpiloted. Followed the mass up the road and pulled over- to hear the pack in full cry headed back toward me from this wood!



Then along my left...



I'm turning around! In my- yes, they named my car after a communist wife beater:




So back, past the rendezvous, only this lady (you may see her again too) in front of me.

Managed to get past her, and kept on until I was all alone. And to the perfect spot. Without
another car, velocipede, rider, or anyone in sight I heard those hounds scream! In this part of the wood...

Swinging to my right...


Then farther...



and back again. For the best part of an hour, they never stopped, not for a minute, and I heard it all clear as could be. Lovely horn calls and waves of hound music. Just perfect, like my own private hunt.

But they never dropped over the ridge toward me, so after they headed back past the rendezvous until I was stopped by a lake.





Pretty good fishing shack!



Bore to the right, and what did I tell you?



On point...


Whippers in...




And all that water was behind us. So I hung with this bit of the crew... And what happened? He reculed, and back everyone barreled. Dishevelment occurred...



but hounds were running! They rolled around behind us...



across the allee back toward the lake. Across the road- into the water?

But Cerfboy swirled right again, another valiant try.

Teams like this are not as often seen in France as in England and the United States. I particularly liked daughter's chic coat, mother's flashily subtle kick rag, and their mutual cheerfully determined bearing.



The Priest made it a point to go along.

I wonder if the Pope lets his men of the cloth hunt? He did seem to be interested and paying attention, and I thought it was good on his part to see it through. His footwear gave me suspicions...

So the stag crossed back, away from the water.

Then silence as they ran out of my hearing.

Although I did not have much of a feel for this hunt, I was at the 50-50 balance point. Hounds had run hard and worked well as far as I could observe, and the stag had put them to their proof.

Would hounds meet their challenge? Would a gallant stag make good his escape?

Maybe not exactly 50-50...

Then I committed a hunting misdemeanor.

Although maybe not, hounds were not actually running...

I LEFT to meet my sister.

Curse you, stupid commitment keeping gene!

At least it wasn't a Felony...

A really good day in which these western hounds showed a visitor good sport.

Merci!!

The Bizarre Public Statuary of Jersey…

The Bizarre Public Statuary of Jersey…

It is the law in this place that whenever a new building is put up, the builders must also erect a piece of art outside the building. Or, as one lovely resident has it, “Something that is art to them”.

All my reader knows that I enjoy some statuary- although I have yet to post my survey of the naked equestriennes of Denmark. One day, really.

But for the time being, here is the




naked flying girl of Jersey.

Life size. A day will come when that cable breaks, and the lawyers will have a field day.

Nearby, we have



Toad on a pole.

Pretty good giant bronze toad, as they go. For some obscure reason his/her column is inscribed with the punishments for crime as they were a hundred and fifty years ago.


Which brings a question to my mind. When criminals and their allies/minions/parasites go on and on about the savage punishments of the past. Why are they stuck on England in the time of Walpole?

I mean, I know why. Because they are ethnocentric and have a propaganda goal. They hate to recognize that before then punishments were worse, and that pre colonial punishments outside Europe were far more horrid.

The ones on the post don’t seem bad. Petty theft first time stocks, second time stocks and a beating, third time an ear.

Rape and incest, the rope.

Imprisonment is for weak, rich cultures.

And the requirement that the punishments be carri
ed out in public, and all schools required to take their pupils to watch, an excellent one.

We act like we feel guilty when we lock criminals up.

Visiting Jersey...

Not the cheap scruffy new one, the original. Home of the dramatic checkout,of which more anon.

Slept like the dead on the flight, off and back on the flight to Jersey, and into St Helier. Ditched the suitcase at Condor Ferries, then strolled into town. Stopped at the Tourist Information center, where the staff were very helpful and directed me perfectly! Started to get ouchy feet, but thanks to the crew from Esprit UK



all fixed!



And if you need any snake knowledge...

By the way it is black in England and they call it "gaffer" tape.

Luncheon on the square



at the Cock and Bottle, cared for by the charming and attentive Carrie. `

Which is the locale of the above mentioned dramatic checkout. The bullet damage has been repaired, in typical English fashion-



with perfectly round, contrasting colour, plugs that stand proud of the surrounding surface. This time I think it was on purpose.

Tomorrow, the odd public statuary of this place!

Last Day's Cub Hunting...

For the OHH and me this season anyway. Not so much to tell, started out with a slightly foggy, slightly frosty meet:



But by the time they crossed the road to the first draw...




An easy day to whip in, as they go:



In the shaded places still an odd dry fog, but no coyotes!!



That was fun! Lets go home!



Sheesh, have to be an electrical engineer to carry a whip these days...



Yep, it works!



Come back Trae!

"Esmé" Brought to Life...

by recent events in Ohio-




"All hunting stories are the same," said Clovis; "just as all Turf stories are the same, and all--"

"My hunting story isn't a bit like any you've ever heard," said the Baroness. "It happened quite a while ago, when I was about twenty-three. I wasn't living apart from my husband then; you see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separate allowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted with different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story."

"We haven't arrived at the meet yet. I suppose there was a meet," said Clovis.

"Of course there was a meet," said the Baroness; "all the usual crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle. Constance is one of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn scenery or Christmas decorations in church. 'I feel a presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen,' she said to me; 'am I looking pale?'

"She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly heard bad news.

" 'You're looking nicer than usual,' I said, 'but that's so easy for you.' Before she had got the right bearings of this remark we had settled down to business; hounds had found a fox lying out in some gorse-bushes."

"I knew it," said Clovis; "in every fox-hunting story that I've ever heard there's been a fox and some gorse-bushes."

"Constance and I were well mounted," continued the Baroness serenely, "and we had no difficulty in keeping ourselves in the first flight, though it was a fairly stiff run. Towards the finish, however, we must have held rather too independent a line, for we lost the hounds, and found ourselves plodding aimlessly along miles away from anywhere. It was fairly exasperating, and my temper was beginning to let itself go by inches, when on pushing our way through an accommodating hedge we were gladdened by the sight of hounds in full cry in a hollow just beneath us.


" 'There they go,' cried Constance, and then added in a gasp, 'In Heaven's name, what are they hunting?'

"It was certainly no mortal fox. It stood more than twice as high, had a short, ugly head, and an enormous thick neck.

" 'It's a hyena,' I cried; 'it must have escaped from Lord Pabham's Park.'

"At that moment the hunted beast turned and faced its pursuers, and the hounds (there were only about six couple of them) stood round in a half-circle and looked foolish. Evidently they had broken away from the rest of the pack on the trail of this alien scent, and were not quite sure how to treat their quarry now they had got him.

"The hyena hailed our approach with unmistakable relief and demonstrations of friendliness. It had probably been accustomed to uniform kindness from humans, while its first experience of a pack of hounds had left a bad impression. The hounds looked more than ever embarrassed as their quarry paraded its sudden intimacy with us, and the faint toot of a horn in the distance was seized on as a welcome signal for unobtrusive departure. Constance and I and the hyena were left alone in the gathering twilight.

" 'What are we to do?' asked Constance.

" 'What a person you are for questions,' I said.

" 'Well, we can't stay here all night with a hyena,' she retorted.

" 'I don't know what your ideas of comfort are,' I said; 'but I shouldn't think of staying here all night even without a hyena. My home may be an unhappy one, but at least it has hot and cold water laid on, and domestic service, and other conveniences which we shouldn't find here. We had better make for that ridge of trees to the right; I imagine the Crowley road is just beyond.'


"We trotted off slowly along a faintly marked cart-track, with the beast following cheerfully at our heels.

" 'What on earth are we to do with the hyena?' came the inevitable question.

" 'What does one generally do with hyenas?' I asked crossly.

" 'I've never had anything to do with one before,' said Constance.

" 'Well, neither have I. If we even knew its sex we might give it a name. Perhaps we might call it Esme. That would do in either case.

"There was still sufficient daylight for us to distinguish wayside objects, and our listless spirits gave an upward perk as we came upon a small half-naked gipsy brat picking blackberries from a low-growing bush. The sudden apparition of two horsewomen and a hyena set it off crying, and in any case we should scarcely have gleaned any useful geographical information from that source; but there was a probability that we might strike a gipsy encampment somewhere along our route. We rode on hopefully but uneventfully for another mile or so.

" 'I wonder what the child was doing there,' said Constance presently.

" 'Picking blackberries. Obviously.'

" 'I don't like the way it cried,' pursued Constance; 'somehow its wail keeps ringing in my ears.'

"I did not chide Constance for her morbid fancies; as a matter of fact the same sensation, of being pursued by a persistent fretful wail, had been forcing itself on my rather over-tired nerves. For company's sake I hulloed to Esme, who had lagged somewhat behind. With a few springy bounds he drew up level, and then shot past us.

"The wailing accompaniment was explained. The gipsy child was firmly, and I expect painfully, held in his jaws.

" 'Merciful Heaven!' screamed Constance, 'what on earth shall we do? What are we to do?'

"I am perfectly certain that at the Last Judgment Constance will ask more questions than any of the examining Seraphs.

" 'Can't we do something?' she persisted tearfully, as Esme cantered easily along in front of our tired horses.

"Personally I was doing everything that occurred to me at the moment. I stormed and scolded and coaxed in English and French and gamekeeper language; I made absurd, ineffectual cuts in the air with my thongless hunting-crop; I hurled my sandwich case at the brute; in fact, I really don't know what more I could have done. And still we lumbered on through the deepening dusk, with that dark uncouth shape lumbering ahead of us, and a drone of lugubrious music floating in our ears. Suddenly Esme bounded aside into some thick bushes, where we could not follow; the wail rose to a shriek and then stopped altogether. This part of the story I always hurry over, because it is really rather horrible. When the beast joined us again, after an absence of a few minutes, there was an air of patient understanding about him, as though he knew that he had done something of which we disapproved, but which he felt to be thoroughly justifiable.

" 'How can you let that ravening beast trot by your side?' asked Constance. She was looking more than ever like an albino beetroot.

" 'In the first place, I can't prevent it,' I said; 'and in the second place, whatever else he may be, I doubt if he's ravening at the present moment.'

"Constance shuddered. 'Do you think the poor little thing suffered much?' came another of her futile questions.

" 'The indications were all that way,' I said; 'on the other hand, of course, it may have been crying from sheer temper. Children sometimes do.'


"It was nearly pitch-dark when we emerged suddenly into the high road. A flash of lights and the whir of a motor went past us at the same moment at uncomfortably close quarters. A thud and a sharp screeching yell followed a second later. The car drew up, and when I had ridden back to the spot I found a young man bending over a dark motionless mass lying by the roadside.

" 'You have killed my Esme,' I exclaimed bitterly.

" 'I'm so awfully sorry,' said the young man; 'I keep dogs myself, so I know what you must feel about it. I'll do anything I can in reparation.'

" 'Please bury him at once,' I said; 'that much I think I may ask of you.

" 'Bring the spade, William,' he called to the chauffeur. Evidently hasty roadside interments were contingencies that had been provided against.

"The digging of a sufficiently large grave took some little time. 'I say, what a magnificent fellow,' said the motorist as the corpse was rolled over into the trench. 'I'm afraid he must have been rather a valuable animal.'

" 'He took second in the puppy class at Birmingham last year,' I said resolutely.

Constance snorted loudly.

" 'Don't cry, dear,' I said brokenly; 'it was all over in a moment. He couldn't have suffered much.'

" 'Look here,' said the young fellow desperately, 'you simply must let me do something by way of reparation.'

"I refused sweetly, but as he persisted I let him have my address.

"Of course, we kept our own counsel as to the earlier episodes of the evening. Lord Pabham never advertised the loss of his hyena; when a strictly fruit-eating animal strayed from his park a year or two previously he was called upon to give compensation in eleven cases of sheep-worrying and practically to re-stock his neighbours' poultry-yards, and an escaped hyena would have mounted up to something on the scale of a Government grant. The gipsies were equally unobtrusive over their missing offspring; I don't suppose in large encampments they really know to a child or two how many they've got."


The Baroness paused reflectively, and then continued:

"There was a sequel to the adventure, though. I got through the post a charming little diamond broach, with the name Esme set in a sprig of rosemary. Incidentally, too, I lost the friendship of Constance Broddle.

You see, when I sold the brooch I quite properly refused to give her any share of the proceeds. I pointed out that the Esme part of the affair was my own invention, and the hyena part of it belonged to Lord Pabham, if it really was his hyena. Of which, of course, I've no proof."

A lovely tune...

I like to hear Nina Gordon, "Horses in the City" speaks to me and "Now I Can Die" reminds. But THIS is hilarious! WARNING, parental advisory strong language!!

More Proof that Central Planning is Evil!

Pure beauty, pure art, pure imagination, pure effort.



This- this RIGHT HERE-



is why I HATE collectivism, central planning, tyranny, all outlooks that DARE to PRESUME to decide ANYTHING for ANYONE. What master, what leader, what bureaucrat, what smartest person in the world who knows what's best for others, could have imagined this???

Presidents Bush or Obama? Hilary Clinton or Paul Krugman? They can't even run their own $%^&* pantries!

Go, liberty!

First Day Cubhunting 2011-12 Season...

All RIGHT! It's about time, I have been developing vices.

Morning temperature in the fifties, cloudy, humid. Looked like a good scenting day for the OHH.

Let's go, girls and boys, ladies and gentlemen! (Remember if you click on a picture it gets much larger!)




This is about half the field!



Up the road a way, lurking with a temporarily horseless whipper in and a cereal heiress.




I might add, a charming, also HARSH and COLD whipper in. More on that another time...

So anyway, due to a fortunate technical foulup- wait, I meant fortuitous- he had no radio! It was like 2001! Or 1801 for that matter, all we had were our eyes and ears!

And surely enough, from behind us- the opposite direction from the planned draw- we heard- well, something. Coming from this ridge:



Yard dogs? Well it sounds like hounds, but, not really. Not right sounding, but dwelling, back and forth in the same area. Sounded like only a few voices but the same ones, and it is cubhunting after all. Too weak for a deer breakout, and these hounds are pretty well not a problem that way. Not enthusiastic enough for a bobcat. Possum? Random feral cat? Biscuit?

I forgot- Turkeys. Woods are full of them!

Well that was about all the excitement I heard for a long while. The other people with me went in search, and I disciplined myself to stay. Yes, I am resolved this season to try to break myself of haring off and of thinking. May as well try to control one vice...

So I tried to dope it out, and eventually did. There was cellular telephone usage, but I was already going there anyway.


Pretty day to be out...




and to whip in.




Hounds did try, but no game to run.




The end.

Yet More Wildlife Doom Pottery...

What is this I don't even



Actually it looks more like hound doom...

A Specialty Publication...

So the other day I was wandering past the magazine display at the Wal Marts, and this caught my eye:



I couldn't wait to call the only actual professional magazine writer I know to describe it.

"Seems like a fairly narrow market", I said. Her immediate response:



"No, if it was narrow there wouldn't BE a market..."

Quick Thinking Norwegian Teens Take Down Killer...

"We knew we were on our own" is often repeated by young heroes talking about their successful resistance to a killer on Norway's Utoya Island, near Oslo, site of the Scandinavian kingdom's worst mass murder ever with 34 people dead.

The island was at the time the venue of a Labour Party youth conference. But the holiday atmosphere turned to horror when a man in Police uniform appeared and began shooting the campers.
"At first he asked some of us to come over to him, when we did he started shooting at us. I saw several of my friends hit, then a bullet hit me and knocked me down." said one injured witness.

According to another teenager on the scene, "As soon as he started shooting, everyone ran for shelter. We had all been through the active shooter resistance class at school, and since we could get away, we did."

Then, witnesses say, the killer began to stalk his victims. According to another of the teens, "He just walked along the shore, and when he would find someone hiding he would kill them. We were all behind some rocks a few yards inland from the beach, and he was coming our way. "Hilda" (name changed) was beside me, and she said, "He's killing our friends! It's an island, we can't just wait until he kills everybody!".

According to this witness, "Hilda" suggested that the small group of teens fight back when the killer approached. "We learned in school that these murderers are in a high state of stress and are usually as incompetent at violence as they are at life, so resistance generally stops them. So Hilda suggested that we distract him and then attack from another direction".

"She said that we should gather up stones, and we did. Then she said she would run out from one side of the boulders we were behind, and the rest of us should attack him from the other when he saw her. "Gustav", who is 18, said he should do the running, since he was the 400 meter hurdle champion at his school, and he and "Hilda" argued over it. But she is not very fast and only 14, so we all told her to let him."

"When the man came close, watching along the shoreline, we counted down and "Gustav" took off. The man was startled to see him and pointed his rifle at "Gustav". "Hilda" said "NOW!" and she charged."

"The man shot at "Gustav" who was running in a serpentine pattern. It was about 40 meters from us to the killer, so he got a couple of shots off before "Hilda's" yelling distracted him again. She threw her rocks as she ran, the rest of us did too, and before he could get his gun pointed at us we were on him. Six of us piled on him and it was like Gulliver, we just buried him."

"Gustav" came back and joined in. We held the man down even though he struggled. We took his guns away, and a couple of us who have similar guns at home carried them some distance away and put them on the ground so no one would think they were the murderer. Other people helped the wounded. We waited for the Police and they took the man away."

Police arrived at the island crime scene about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn’t have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn’t find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred yards offshore.

The killer was taken into custody and according to sources treated for multiple fractures and dislocations.


Isn't that better than "Survivors of the shooting spree have described hiding and fleeing into the water to escape the gunman, but a police briefing Saturday detailed for the first time how long the terror lasted — and how long victims waited for help"?

How do you say "United 93, motherf*cker!" in Norwegian?

I am a tremendous advocate for teaching children, because it's true, that

"Five or six seventh-grade kids and a 95-pound art teacher can basically challenge, bring down and immobilize a 200-pound man with a gun."

Just like a bunch of farmers can drive off a King.

"I Want To Use This Hammer For Good...

...but somehow I always end up hitting myself in the head with it."

-M. E.

How Corrupt Can A Project BE...

that you can just "find" SEVEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS-- ONE #$%^& SEVENTH of the total, when you are pressed?

"...the savings are thanks to the extra efforts made by industry to curb costs and from an improvement in the management of project resources as a whole." Riiiiight....

The real headline ought to be "500 Billion Euros of Galileo Project Is Corruption". But it won't be, because the BBC wants us to be grateful to our masters for their care in watching out for our welfare.

It's not inefficiency or waste, it is ALWAYS corruption. Because someone gets it.

Andre Maurois Must Have Been To A Hunt Do With Me...

"Since the British nation deems worthy of the name of sport any exercise which is at once useless, tiring and dangerous, I am quite ready to admit that dancing answers this definition in every way."