We went from freezing days to the near 90's in a matter of a week! I think we just skipped over spring and headed right into summer. The good news is that we seem to have planted our vegetables in time this year. We have a few tomato plants that are starting to put out flowers and the Columbine that I planted from seed last year and abused over the winter has decided that it wanted to bloom! I have these spectacular dark purple and white tube flowers, I'm just thrilled!
Hazen and I spent a long weekend with visitors from California down in Orlando. Since I've been in Florida, I have been to the Disney Parks 3 times, and always with the Californios. I guess I'm just not as loyal to the mouse as they are! My parents came over with my Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Taylor and their two youngest. We had a wonderful time casually strolling around the parks, taking in a few rides and shows, but mostly enjoying eachother's company. It was a fun weekend and it's always nice to see my family when I don't have a long plane ride just before and after. I'll take I-75 any day over LAX!
Still no sign of Musket. I made Hazen pull off the road the other day so I could examine a bird carcass that I thought could be a raptor, but turned out to be a very squished turkey. He says that he'll give me until Independence Day to be a spaz about the bird. Though I still keep my eye on the sky, It think it is starting to wear off now. I'm beginning to look forward to the next bird with eager anticipation.
We have a full summer ahead of us with two trips to California and one to Alaska, so there will be plenty of fun stuff to talk about in the absence of my normal obsession.
I love you all, thanks for reading! I promise more pictures soon!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Nowhere
It's been four days now and still no sign of Musket. Hazen and I have gone back and checked three times, but still nothing. As I drive, I have been scanning tree-tops and power poles to see if she'll show up. I haven't seen a red-tail since I let her go.
It's been unseasonably cold the past two days and the wind has blowing steadily. She probably got herself up onto a nice breeze and pushed out of the area. I'm a little sad that I haven't had a chance to see her again, with the cold, I'd really like to be sure she has a nice solid meal. I'll keep looking for her, but I feel my chances of seeing her slipping away with every day.
On another note, I took my first horseback riding lesson in 3 months. Meredith (the lady who owns the barn) has a new warmblood horse that she let me ride for the lesson. He's just huge and his trot is unbelievable! The gal I was taking the lesson with rode him once at a trot without her stirrups and she bounced right out of the saddle and on the ground. She refuses to ride him any more! I had a lot of fun with him, but I'm seriously saddle sore this morning... eesh!
It's been unseasonably cold the past two days and the wind has blowing steadily. She probably got herself up onto a nice breeze and pushed out of the area. I'm a little sad that I haven't had a chance to see her again, with the cold, I'd really like to be sure she has a nice solid meal. I'll keep looking for her, but I feel my chances of seeing her slipping away with every day.
On another note, I took my first horseback riding lesson in 3 months. Meredith (the lady who owns the barn) has a new warmblood horse that she let me ride for the lesson. He's just huge and his trot is unbelievable! The gal I was taking the lesson with rode him once at a trot without her stirrups and she bounced right out of the saddle and on the ground. She refuses to ride him any more! I had a lot of fun with him, but I'm seriously saddle sore this morning... eesh!
Monday, April 6, 2009
Musket's Release
Well, I did it. I let my bird go. I decided that she was not destined to be a squirrel hawk and that is was just not fair to keep her unless I can get her on some rabbits. So for the past two weeks I have been feeding her as much as she would eat through her food chute. Even still, when I would come in to her mew with my glove, she would jump up to it without hesitation and let me change out her jesses. They say that the whole bond is about food, but I also think that it’s about the time you put in with your bird. After two weeks of very minimal handling to try to break the bond, she was still easy to work with and when I went into her mew Saturday evening to put on her jesses and leash for the last time, she hopped up all the same just like it was any day. I had not intended for this to be my last evening with her, but Hazen suggested that it was better to pull off the band-aid quickly then to spend a sleepless night dreaming about getting up early to release her. Ultimately he was right.
I put Musket in her box and loaded up a pile of chicken necks so she would leave me with a full crop. We drove to this creepy barn where Hazen wants to go one day and take black and white pictures. She was easy as I opened her Giant Hood and guided her on to my fist. Hazen readied the camera, and with my heart in my throat, I cut the anklets loose. On cue, he tossed out her meal and she hesitated before leaving my fist and I had to urge her to go for the fresh meat lying in the grass. I’m sure the hesitation was due to her lack of hunger, but eventually her animal instincts took over; she just cannot pass up a free meal. She glided from my fist to the ground and spent the good part of 10 minutes searching for all the chicken. Eventually she realized that she had found all of the food and finally jumped to a post.
I watched her for a few minutes and then we backed up and drove off. I watched the rear-view mirror as her image disappeared. I am sure that picture will be burned in my brain for the rest of my life. Hazen and I took a little drive and came back just to see if she would still be sitting in the same place, but she was nowhere to be found. I hope she has put herself up in a nice tree to spend the night in. Hopefully she will catch a nice thermal and get the urge to migrate north. Maybe one day soon she’ll make new little red-tail babies of her own. In the meantime, I’ll head back and check on her for at least the next week or so.
We went back the next day and drove up and down the road where we released Musket. On the way we passed two live squirrels and one dead in the road. Maybe she’ll be more successful on her own than she was with me. We searched the tree-line and the power poles, but no sign of Musket. As we headed back, I saw a large soaring raptor, but it was too quick to get a positive ID. Hazen thinks it might have been a red-shouldered hawk, but I’m not so sure… Hopefully I’ll get lucky enough to really see her, at least one more time.
Looking forward, I am excited about the next bird. In September I will try to trap a small male red-tail with big feet. I know so much about training a hawk and I think I can avoid the mistakes that I made with Musket. There’s nothing like living with a red-tail, and I can’t wait to have one of these amazing birds back in my life. Until then, I feel like a small piece of me is out there somewhere and I am starting to wonder if I’ll ever be the same again.
I've posted my release video on YouTube. I should show up on the top of the sidebar to the right of this post.
I put Musket in her box and loaded up a pile of chicken necks so she would leave me with a full crop. We drove to this creepy barn where Hazen wants to go one day and take black and white pictures. She was easy as I opened her Giant Hood and guided her on to my fist. Hazen readied the camera, and with my heart in my throat, I cut the anklets loose. On cue, he tossed out her meal and she hesitated before leaving my fist and I had to urge her to go for the fresh meat lying in the grass. I’m sure the hesitation was due to her lack of hunger, but eventually her animal instincts took over; she just cannot pass up a free meal. She glided from my fist to the ground and spent the good part of 10 minutes searching for all the chicken. Eventually she realized that she had found all of the food and finally jumped to a post.
I watched her for a few minutes and then we backed up and drove off. I watched the rear-view mirror as her image disappeared. I am sure that picture will be burned in my brain for the rest of my life. Hazen and I took a little drive and came back just to see if she would still be sitting in the same place, but she was nowhere to be found. I hope she has put herself up in a nice tree to spend the night in. Hopefully she will catch a nice thermal and get the urge to migrate north. Maybe one day soon she’ll make new little red-tail babies of her own. In the meantime, I’ll head back and check on her for at least the next week or so.
We went back the next day and drove up and down the road where we released Musket. On the way we passed two live squirrels and one dead in the road. Maybe she’ll be more successful on her own than she was with me. We searched the tree-line and the power poles, but no sign of Musket. As we headed back, I saw a large soaring raptor, but it was too quick to get a positive ID. Hazen thinks it might have been a red-shouldered hawk, but I’m not so sure… Hopefully I’ll get lucky enough to really see her, at least one more time.
Looking forward, I am excited about the next bird. In September I will try to trap a small male red-tail with big feet. I know so much about training a hawk and I think I can avoid the mistakes that I made with Musket. There’s nothing like living with a red-tail, and I can’t wait to have one of these amazing birds back in my life. Until then, I feel like a small piece of me is out there somewhere and I am starting to wonder if I’ll ever be the same again.
I've posted my release video on YouTube. I should show up on the top of the sidebar to the right of this post.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Wildfire
In my last post I put up some pictures of a nice tame prescribed fire. Several weeks later, Hazen was called to particpate in a wildfire near his work. His co-worker Clell took a moment to take this video before he got scolded by his boss for not checking for spot fires. After this video was taken, they found that the main fire had thrown spot fires over 300 feet on the other side of the road. This was a tremendous fire. These trees ended up as black sticks. Oh, and that's Hazen standing in the fore-ground.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Fire
I promised some videos of fire, so here they are.
Hazen spent the entire day away from me on the other side of a 2200 acre burn, but I did manage to sneak a video. Hopefully I can get on another burn at Blanding where I can get some decent footage and spend some real time with my Husband. I always liked buring with him.
In one of the clips, you can hear what sounds like firecrakers going off in the distance. Those were 50 caliber blanks from miliatry training that they had in late December. It sounded like world war 3.
Enjoy!
Hazen spent the entire day away from me on the other side of a 2200 acre burn, but I did manage to sneak a video. Hopefully I can get on another burn at Blanding where I can get some decent footage and spend some real time with my Husband. I always liked buring with him.
In one of the clips, you can hear what sounds like firecrakers going off in the distance. Those were 50 caliber blanks from miliatry training that they had in late December. It sounded like world war 3.
Enjoy!
Monday, March 2, 2009
So... It's March.
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It’s been fairly quiet this week around the old house as I stayed at home and Hazen spent the week teaching at Engine Academy. The cold weather keeps making it’s way down from the north to give us a few days of freezing. All the outdoor plants that are not cold hardy have finally given up the ghost. I told Hazen that I want to replant our dead citrus with plums to see if we get a better result. Our sad little lemon and orange trees have completely frozen over and dropped all their leaves. I don’t think they’ll be coming back.
Musket was too high of weight to fly on Saturday and Sunday was full of high wind gusts and rain. Oh well. Only four more weekends to hunt and then she goes up for the season. I’m getting a little worried though, for some other falconers have seen small groups already starting to migrate, and Musket could easily get swept up in one of those sudden urges to move this time of year. I’m going to keep her in treed areas so she does not get a chance to go up into a good soar. Hopefully that will keep her with me for the next year.
I have reduced the size of my rabbitry by two does. My original breeder girls have found new homes, one as hawk food and the other as a beloved pet to a friend who is crazy about animals. She’ll have a good home, and I’m happy for her, she is an awfully sweet girl. The other who was not so fortunate, was not quite pet quality, and though I tried to find her a home, it fell through. With a heavy heart, I asked Hazen to do the deed, and he humanely killed her for me. Ultimately, it’s a good thing. That one rabbit was eating enough for the rest of my herd; she had a roll of fat under her chin and would push the other babies aside to shovel food into her mouth! It’s still not easy, but I’m getting better at separating myself from the cute factor of baby rabbits and the necessity of fresh, hormone-free food for my predator.
This week will see the return of the Mitchell Clan to our home to again block the trash-pile that has taken over my neighbor’s yard. I have all the parts to enhance our electric fence and I have been told that my hedge plants should arrive sometime in March. She won’t like it, but it is time to do what we need to do so I can start enjoying my yard again.
All and all things have been pretty quiet. I have had the chance to get out and do some prescribed burning the past few weeks. I’ll have another chance to do that again this week, and I’ll try to get some nice movies of fire. Ahh.. fieldwork… delightful!
TTFN
Musket was too high of weight to fly on Saturday and Sunday was full of high wind gusts and rain. Oh well. Only four more weekends to hunt and then she goes up for the season. I’m getting a little worried though, for some other falconers have seen small groups already starting to migrate, and Musket could easily get swept up in one of those sudden urges to move this time of year. I’m going to keep her in treed areas so she does not get a chance to go up into a good soar. Hopefully that will keep her with me for the next year.
I have reduced the size of my rabbitry by two does. My original breeder girls have found new homes, one as hawk food and the other as a beloved pet to a friend who is crazy about animals. She’ll have a good home, and I’m happy for her, she is an awfully sweet girl. The other who was not so fortunate, was not quite pet quality, and though I tried to find her a home, it fell through. With a heavy heart, I asked Hazen to do the deed, and he humanely killed her for me. Ultimately, it’s a good thing. That one rabbit was eating enough for the rest of my herd; she had a roll of fat under her chin and would push the other babies aside to shovel food into her mouth! It’s still not easy, but I’m getting better at separating myself from the cute factor of baby rabbits and the necessity of fresh, hormone-free food for my predator.
This week will see the return of the Mitchell Clan to our home to again block the trash-pile that has taken over my neighbor’s yard. I have all the parts to enhance our electric fence and I have been told that my hedge plants should arrive sometime in March. She won’t like it, but it is time to do what we need to do so I can start enjoying my yard again.
All and all things have been pretty quiet. I have had the chance to get out and do some prescribed burning the past few weeks. I’ll have another chance to do that again this week, and I’ll try to get some nice movies of fire. Ahh.. fieldwork… delightful!
TTFN
Monday, February 16, 2009
Fun February
It’s been an interesting few weeks. I’ve moved my office from Olustee to Lake City, about 10 miles down the road. That was a huge chore! I have a much smaller office with a different drive and a bland view, but at least I have a window and the AC/Heater work wonderfully. The last building I had to keep a small space heater in the room with me, even on hot days because the building would cool to freezing and I wasn’t allowed to adjust my heat or the whole system would crash! There were times where I had the roaring of the AC blowing in my office and the fan on the heater blowing and it was difficult to hear my phone ring. So, things are better in some ways, but it’s difficult moving and adjusting to a new pace working at the regional office.
Hazen and I went to the Hogtowne Mideval Faire for the 5th year. Time has been flying living in North Florida. It’s become a tradition to dress up and head down to the faire for an afternoon back in time. This year the lady who does the falconry display lost one of her Harris Hawks as it climbed to the top of a power transformer and fried itself. It was very sad. Thankfully, I did not go on that day, I would have hated to have seen that. She had another Harris Hawk that she was obviously training at the presentation I saw that probably was a replacement of the bird she lost. That’s one of the hazards of flying in urban areas.
For the past week I have been suffering from the results of a tooth extraction and a bone graft to fill the socket. I spent four days just eating, sleeping, and taking my pain medications, that was kind of nice actually. But after the “honeymoon” period, I had to go to work and deal with the realities of daily mouth pain… eesh! I had a dull ache for so long with the bad tooth that I thought I could handle this other kind of pain, but I’m pretty tired of it. It’s hard to eat and I bet I’ve lost at least 5 lbs in the last week. Things are definitely improving this morning though, so I’m happy to say that I’m finally on the mend. In 4-6 months, I go back to the dentist and have them put my dental implant in. Then 4-6 months after that has had time to heal, they put the crown on my tooth. It’s a difficult and expensive process, but I think it will be worth all the pain and money in the end.
Hazen watched Musket for me while I was out for the count. She took to him pretty well.
Hazen and I went to the Hogtowne Mideval Faire for the 5th year. Time has been flying living in North Florida. It’s become a tradition to dress up and head down to the faire for an afternoon back in time. This year the lady who does the falconry display lost one of her Harris Hawks as it climbed to the top of a power transformer and fried itself. It was very sad. Thankfully, I did not go on that day, I would have hated to have seen that. She had another Harris Hawk that she was obviously training at the presentation I saw that probably was a replacement of the bird she lost. That’s one of the hazards of flying in urban areas.
For the past week I have been suffering from the results of a tooth extraction and a bone graft to fill the socket. I spent four days just eating, sleeping, and taking my pain medications, that was kind of nice actually. But after the “honeymoon” period, I had to go to work and deal with the realities of daily mouth pain… eesh! I had a dull ache for so long with the bad tooth that I thought I could handle this other kind of pain, but I’m pretty tired of it. It’s hard to eat and I bet I’ve lost at least 5 lbs in the last week. Things are definitely improving this morning though, so I’m happy to say that I’m finally on the mend. In 4-6 months, I go back to the dentist and have them put my dental implant in. Then 4-6 months after that has had time to heal, they put the crown on my tooth. It’s a difficult and expensive process, but I think it will be worth all the pain and money in the end.
Hazen watched Musket for me while I was out for the count. She took to him pretty well.
In other news, my horse sold this weekend. She went to a nice home where she will be a lesson horse and serve as a low level dressage mount for her new owner. I’m happy for Zaby Baby, she’ll have a nice life with this lady and hopefully a good retirement. I had a surprising message to one of my ads from the woman who owned Zabra for a big part of her life. She sent me an e-mail out of the blue asking if my horse was the Iberian warmblood registered as Zabra Star Groove. Well after talking to the woman I bought Zabra from, it turns out that yes, this was the same horse. This woman had purchased Zabra in California back in the early 90s and had moved her over to Jacksonville in 1997. She told me that Zabra had at least one foal that she knows of and that she was born in the spring of 1992. That made her 16 years old this year turning 17 in the spring. Fully 3 years older than I thought she was. Well, it was a fun conversation with this lady and I made a new friend out of it. I am hoping to go watch her and her Friesian stallion show in Clay County next weekend. Small world. Oh, and the woman who bought Zabra brought my old horse Cisco to the barn for someone else to try out. She took Zabra home with her and Cisco stayed at the barn with his new owners. Weird how things work out sometimes.
We spent a wonderful weekend with Warren, Jenny, and little baby Lincoln. They did a low pressure “practice” trip down to visit us over their long weekend. Unfortunately, the weather changed for the worse and rained for the first time in two weeks. This Monday though, is just stunning, now that they have headed back… oh well. We spent Saturday at the Waldo flea market and had some boiled peanuts and popcorn and ate a fabulous lunch in Gainesville. Warren brought some snow goose from his January kill that we ate grilled and wrapped in bacon. It was wonderful!
Sunday we went out to the barn and hunted Musket. We had her chasing a squirrel for about 45 minutes, but she was pretty lack-luster about it. At one point though, she finally saw him and went for it, but missed. I was sure she had it this time. The squirrel bailed and ran for another tree. Musket followed in hot pursuit, but in the end, the squirrel managed to get himself in a good spot and got away. We ended the hunt by throwing out a bagged rabbit, that Musket had no trouble catching. I did the final killing of the rabbit, it was my first time breaking the rabbits neck. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, but I did! Musket traded nicely to a chicken leg and I let her eat the whole thing. Now, I bring her weight down and try again next week.
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