Green Creek/Aiken Joint Meet in Tryon, NC
Here are the first twenty minutes of a fast moving fifty-minute coyote chase in the Green Creek Hounds (SC) hunting country. It was recorded on October 6, 2019 by Donald “DJ” Jefferis, MFH, Green Creek, during a joint meet with the Aiken Hounds (SC). The coyote makes a brief appearance. With the audio on, it […]
Whipper-in Turns Traffic Cop
Hugh Robertson, honorary whipper-in at Eglinton and Caledon Hounds, is also a former amateur steeplechase rider.
“Land’s sakes,” says Hugh in his burred Scottish accent, “there I was quietly enjoying a quick puff on my favourite cigarillo, when it all started.”
Hugh Robertson is an honorary whipper-in with the Eglinton and Caledon Hounds (ON). Hugh knows the country and had already taken up his post on the ridge. It was early in the season and hounds were drawing the swamp in the valley at the south end of Galten Farms country in Caledon. So far the day had been quiet, providing the opportunity for Hugh to enjoy the overly-warm but beautiful September day.
On Opening (and Keeping) Foxhunting Country
Hunting country is a hunt’s most precious asset. The late Mrs. Nancy Hannum, MFH, Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds, set the bar for how to protect hunting country, hers just thirty miles from Philadelphia.
The season has started and so far so good. Young hounds are entering well and have been given the space and time to work things out. But every season brings headaches the Masters can well do without.
Most field members are blissfully unaware of the amount of year-round planning that goes into every day’s hunting. During the spring and summer Masters need to go and visit their landowners and make sure they are welcome for the following season. Secondly, they need to look further afield to increase their hunting country. Why? Because there are too many ways good country can be lost. Here’s one that I experienced.
Resting Up For the Chase
The Green Spring Valley (MD) foxhounds were gathered at the meet, waiting to move off, when one member of the pack decided to catch a quick rest beforehand and needed to find a comfortable chair. Karen Kandra, whose photos often grace these pages, was there to shoot this unusual tactic, a humorous example of civilized […]
Essex Fox Hounds Master’s Chase: A Good Community Event
Pony stick racing over hurdles / Priscilla K. Miller photo
The Master’s Chase is a fun-filled annual event that hunts can put on as a fund raiser for a worthy cause and reach out to their community of non-riders as well. Billed as “family fun for horse and non-horse people alike,” Essex Fox Hounds Master’s Chase will feature amateur racing for field hunters and ponies, adults and children, tailgating, and a group of local vendors at Natirar Park, 2 Main Street, in Peapack, New Jersey on Saturday, October 5, starting at noon. The day is sandwiched between a weekend of events with a Friday night party and a Sunday hunt.
It all traces back to the Farmer’s Day Races of the early twentieth century in which hunt clubs invited farmers in their hunting countries to a picnic and day at the races. For those hunts that do not hold annual point-to-points or sanctioned steeplechase races, it’s a fine way to keep racing alive and give everyone a taste of the excitement. The Essex Fox Hounds donate all proceeds to the non-profit Countryside Alliance of Somerset Hills for the preservation of farmlands.
I Was the Vixen’s Designated Kit-Sitter
Dave Ellis photo
I had found the den of a family of red foxes and was going early each morning to take pictures of the mother and her young kits. The kits were five or six weeks old, and were at that curious, exploring stage. Their life at that point pretty much consisted of eat, sleep, and play.
The father did not seem to be around, so the vixen had a lot of work to keep her four kits fed and safe. She was not stupid. She soon figured out that she could make use of me. She had to spend several hours each day off in the woods hunting in order to keep the little ones fed, which meant that without a father around, she would have to leave them alone and subject to being found by other predators.
I Was the Vixen’s Designated Kit-Sitter
Dave Ellis photo
I had found the den of a family of red foxes and was going early each morning to take pictures of the mother and her young kits. The kits were five or six weeks old, and were at that curious, exploring stage. Their life at that point pretty much consisted of eat, sleep, and play.
The father did not seem to be around, so the vixen had a lot of work to keep her four kits fed and safe. She was not stupid. She soon figured out that she could make use of me. She had to spend several hours each day off in the woods hunting in order to keep the little ones fed, which meant that without a father around, she would have to leave them alone and subject to being found by other predators.
The Old Coop on My Half Farm
My Half Farm, in Wentzville, Missouri, was a part of the main fixture of the Bridlespur Hunt Club (IL) from 1957 to 2006, before urbanization forced the club to relocate further west. My Half Farm is still home to hunt horses, the My Half Farm Beagles, and is a regular fixture for the Three Creek Bassets.
The Old Coop on My Half Farm
The Old Coop she stands bended, a dip across her bow
Where time has weathered wood, barely even two-six now.
Many years have passed and she beckons as if to say,
Do you remember when the hunters came my way?
The Old Coop sits heavy, where imposing she once stood.
Many a hunter snapped his knees, back when times were good.
Up and over they did go, landing downhill, facing north.
Over I’ve flown many times on beasts now left this Earth.
Coyote In the Mist: A Fleeting Engagement
Illustration by Sheila Armstrong Hodgson
The primal fears of our ancestors remain not that far beneath the surface of our psyche. We think of ourselves as sophisticated human beings. Superior to the animals around us. We communicate well between ourselves. But can we cross that border to reach understanding with other wild species? I had an incident that challenged my rational mind and brought to the surface some deep, dark fears from the primeval past.
It was early November, the time of year when I like to get my small country property tidied up and put to bed for its long winter sleep. I had been tied up with city matters for most of the day and returned home with just enough daylight hours left to finish some cleanup work on the three-acre field at the back of the property. This remote little idyl borders on the cedar swamp which marks the property line to the west.
A Woman’s Place
The author, a hunt coat, a stirrup cup, and a horse named Cort.I reached into the left, front pocket of my foxhunting jacket, a vintage black and grey-flecked wool frock made by Brittany Riding Apparel of New York. My fingers found something thin and soft—a faded blue pack of ten-cent stamps with an enthusiastic message from the postal service about using your zip code.
“Help us give your letters top speed.”
Five-digit zip codes were introduced in 1963; ten cent stamps were issued in the early 1970s; I was issued in 1955.
I inspected the stamp book further. What is the story of the stamps? And the story of a riding jacket I had been given by my mother on Christmas Day, 1972, but had never worn?
It’s the story of a woman’s place.