Liz Callar photoIt is hard to believe now, but at the start of the 2017 hunting season I was actually lamenting the difficulties of leaving a hunt I had been with for fifteen years and joining another. Even at the time, I realized it was a small issue in the scheme of things that can happen in life. Making new friends and riding across some breathtaking new country quickly proved to me that I had made the right decision.
That season started out well. I was hunting regularly, and in October, Karen and I traveled with the Last Chance Hounds to the Moore County Hounds Hark Forward Foxhound Performance Trials in North Carolina. By January, however, hunting was the last thing on my mind. And I never did get out after that.
On February 2, 2018, my husband of forty-two years was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The same disease which took the lives of John McCain and Beau Biden also claimed my husband. He had less time. On June 10, 2018, despite completing radiation, my husband also lost his ferocious and valiant fight against glioblastoma multiforme.
Acknowledging that this is a foxhunting forum, I also recognize that many of us are part of an aging population, and loss is in many of our hopefully distant futures. And sadly, age is not the only criteria predicting loss. At our initial visit for radiation a counselor advised us to realize that people may feel the need to visit my husband for their own sake during his illness, even though he felt well and hopeful, not only to support him but to be with him and express their love. And visit they did. Throughout his illness, our house was filled with friends and family who literally moved in. There was a lot of laughter in the early days.
The visits continued during the months after Rick passed away. Although I enjoyed these visits, come the new hunting season I began to fret over missed meets. After telling myself I needed to just enjoy the visits, both my schedule and the weather cooperated and I was able to go hunting.
I went cubhunting twice on Sunny, a lazy sod perfectly suited to the quiet pace of the early season. Actually, the checks suit him even better. Our third time out we were short a Field Master, and everyone rode in one field. The faster pace was a bit much for Sunny and brought out new vices—locking his jaw to resist simple steering. If I wanted to go left, he pulled right. Honestly I have never had a horse, even a green one, resist the simple direction he was being asked to travel in. He seemed also to resent the bit he was wearing. The Kimberwick on the upper slot did not provide enough brakes, but with the reins on the lower slot it, was a little too much for the comfort he demands, despite very soft hands. His initial go-to trick of shy/duck/buck (and repeat) has thankfully not reared its ugly head again. Apparently extremely spoiled in his prior life, anything more than being hand-fed mints makes him cranky. The minute you put on his halter he cops an attitude. Well, I am not eight years old; the mints stopped and the work began.
L-R: Vicki PLatz, Lori Brunnen, Karen Miller, George Harne / Liz Callar photo
This week I was lucky to hunt two days in a row. The first on Wednesday was a joint meet with the Snickersville Hounds near Middleburg, Virginia. Again I attended with Last Chance Hounds. The club I had left also had a few members attending with their hounds. Any issues I had that prompted me to leave faded to insignificance after the horrors of the past year. So many things have. No longer even producing a blip on my radar.
Good friend Karen and I traveled together. Almost eighteen years old, Ozzy the OTTB, was pulled out for the occasion. He has hunted with me since he was five. Now that I mostly travel to meets alone, I quickly realized he was a very stressed solo traveler. After some issues with tying up, I leave him home unless traveling with someone else. As honest as the day is long, he was my first choice despite having been out only three times since the season before last. As a Thoroughbred, I knew he had the heart and drive to tackle anything, while Sunny, I suspect, would prefer to deposit me in the mud at the top of the first hill and call himself an Uber back to Maryland.
Footing was quite deep and slippery due to our incessant rain. Ditto the creek crossings. There were lots of steep hills in the woods, and I could feel Ozzy’s hind end scrambling for purchase as we ran up them. The high point of the day came quite early on when we checked in a field and watched hounds working in the woods, crossing back and forth in front of us as they tried to decipher the line. When I mentioned it sounded like a Penn-Marydel speaking, I was told that the home pack here was entirely Penn-Marydel. What beautiful booming voices. While people hunt for many reasons, watching hounds working up close like this is my reason. It does not matter if it is my Borzoi chasing a squirrel, my Whippet a lure, or a foxhound scent. It is the hound work that thrills me to the core. And keeps me coming back for more. In the end it is always worth the effort to come out. So far I have never wished I stayed home.
Ozzy still had plenty in the tank as we headed home. My big fear had been my fitness. Only having hunted half of last season without much riding since then, I have ridden less than anytime in the past ten years. What if my legs turned to noodles without the strength to continue? Luckily, endless hiking with a new puppy seems to have kept my riding muscles fit because I had no issues with fatigue.
The following day was a quiet one with New Market-Middletown Valley Hounds (MD)—just what I needed for Sunny, who had become overwhelmed with a faster pace the last time he was out.
On Boxing Day, Karen and I hunted with Goshen Hounds (MD) with perhaps the most hospitable huntsman ever, Robert Taylor. He made us feel instantly welcome with an effusive greeting, bear hug, and smooch on the cheek. He has a way of making you feel he has been waiting for you to show up all season. And you are finally here! Even though he has no reason to even know who I am. (Apparently he did not realize that I was the person who knocked him down two seasons ago at a New Market-Middletown Valley meet when he held a fractious Ozzy for me to mount.) Karen has been out with Goshen more times than I, but I knew Field Master Elizabeth, and her field engulfed us like another warm hug.
It was an unseasonably warm day. The footing was deep, the edges of fields in the shade frozen slick. Creek crossings were tricky due to the incessant rain. Banks were steep on the way in and fetlock sucking deep on the way out. Sunny’s penchant for stopping vertically on a steep bank for a lengthy examination of creek crossings thankfully lessened with each one. Lying back against his rump holding the reins of this proven bucker by the buckle while perched on a steep slippery bank with cold water below was not a position I was going to be comfortable with long term. And now using a gag bit, I was juggling two reins as well as my whip, making it even more awkward. He proved himself adept at picking his own way through trappy areas if given the chance.
Now that I trust him a very tiny bit, I feel comfortable allowing him to make some equally small decisions. He was showing great interest in the whippers-in and hounds he caught sight of in the distance. Staring intently with rigidly pricked ears following the action was, to me, an encouraging sign that the mis-named Sunny, who should have been called something more appropriate but unprintable, may have actually turned a corner. It seemed that he may be finding his hunting mojo. Quite lazy, he will probably never be good for anything but a slow field, but he is certainly fast enough to stand and watch hounds work. He is lucky I have a weakness for Arabs or I would have dumped him the first time he dumped me. Afterwards at the clubhouse we continued to be treated warmly. Hunting is a small world and I recognized many faces from many places. We were asked if we had a nice day and sent off with a full belly, feeling all warm and fuzzy for the first time this Christmas season.
The new year will find me navigating this new place I find myself in. Friends have told me that they feel they have lost me. The person they knew. The person I used to be. Since losing Rick I found I also lost myself.
It seems that this season I will be hunting for myself in a new and strange territory not of my choosing. Luckily I have a big pack of friends to help me find my way on this unwelcome journey. A tenacious bunch who don’t quit. The Penn-Marydels of friends. Friends who will help me find my way back to myself. Whoever that will be.
When I am hunting I can feel my whole being take a deep sigh. A being that can really use the relief these days. Kicking on.
In loving memory of Rick Korchak
(December 6th, 1951- June 10th, 2018)
Posted January 4, 2019