Golden’s Bridge at Colleys’ Windswept Farm
Helen Houghton photo. Click photo for larger view. Paul Kraus sent us this photo by Helen Houghton of a recent meeting of the Golden’s Bridge Hounds (NY). Click for larger view. Helen arranged the shot in front of “Windswept,” home of Master Gene Colley and his wife Lois (standing), after a lovely hunt featuring an […]
Wild Lone: The Story of a Pytchley Fox
Everyone to whom I have recommended this book loved it. In Wild Lone: The Story of a Pytchley Fox, the reader experiences the sights and sounds of the woodlands by day, and the silence and stealth of the forest by night—not from our usual vantage point in the saddle, five or six feet above the ground, but down low, nearer the earth, where dry stalks of grass brush past our ears and our noses inhale the musky scent of decaying leaves.
Because the reader becomes acquainted with Rufus when he is whelped and gets to know him and his habits intimately, we feel his pain when he becomes caught in the wire snare and we root for him when pushed by foxhounds. We care about him deeply, because we know and respect him. Yet Rufus is an opportunist and kills whenever he can—birds, mice, hedgehogs, rabbits, chickens. He kills so often and so casually that we hardly notice. We feel nothing for these creatures—his quarry—because they are, unlike Rufus, anonymous.
The book’s message is revealed to us by a consummate woodsman: that life and death happen to every creature in the forest, mostly shortly after birth. Nature is harsh, but that is its way. And the pressure put on each species serves to improve the species, for only the best examples (and the luckiest) survive for a fulfilling time—as does Rufus.
The following excerpt, in which the author exercises his full powers of language and imagery, is quite lyrical. Yet, if an adventure story is what you prefer, I promise you won’t be disappointed by Wild Lone.
The Charm of Watercolor
Morning Fox Hunt at Shady Lane Farm by Emily Thornton. Giclee prints of original watercolor are available.
I try to reveal the beauty of nature in my artwork through realism. From a young age I was drawn in by nature and my surroundings, from hiking in the woods to being an avid lover of animals and flowers. As I grew I became quite eclectic in my pursuit of art, but watercolors have remained my favorite medium with their opaqueness that can be full of surprises. Watercolor courses filled all my electives in college as I finished my degree in Psychology.
For twenty years now I have painted my own Christmas cards each year. Many of them were of animals, flowers, lighthouses or covered bridges. I became interested in foxhunting when a close friend and my daughter began actively foxhunting in the New England area.
Cubbing
Illustration by Cecil Alden
by Duncan Fife
I wouldn’t change places with any man,
Were he powerful, rich, or wise,
As I stand in the early morning chill
While we wait for the mist to rise.
There are silver threads on the bracken fronds,
And a peaty tang in the air
That goes to the head like a draught of wine,
As we stand by the cover there.
If the creak of leather and clink of bit
Makes me yearn—well I’m not ashamed,
For I’ve got no horse of my own to ride,
And I don’t suppose I’ll be blamed
If I look around with an envious heart
At the satiny coats nearby,
At the twitching ears and the nostrils wide,
And the eagerly watching eye
That seeks to pierce through the curtaining mist
Where it clings to the dripping trees,
Concealing the cubs as they wait, alert,
For a chance to run. Then a breeze
So faint, so soft, that the glittering drops
Which hang on the bramble and thorn,
Are scarcely disturbed, but the low-lying haze
Dissolves at the coming of dawn.
Starting Young at Green Creek
Carolina Foster at the 2015 Carolinas Hound Show / Anne Shue photoWith a bit of instruction from Tot Goodwin, MFH and huntsman of the Green Creek Hounds (SC), two-year-old Carolina Foster showed Green Creek Rita 2007 in the Junior Handler class with confidence beyond her years. Carolina’s pal, Sophie Martin, an older woman of five, also showed in the class. Carolina’s mother Anne Shue and Sophie’s mother Shanna Mauldin both whip-in to Tot. The two wee ladies appear to be following in their mothers’ irons. We hope so!
Loose Foxhounds: Leave ’em or Secure ’em?
“Lost Hound” by Jane Gaston: illustration from the book of the same name by Robert AshcomWhat should we do when we see foxhounds in our yard or loose in the country? Our options are (1) try to capture and secure them in a kennel or horse stall and call the huntsman, (2) put them in our vehicle and drive them to the kennel, (3) call the huntsman or the kennelman, tell them what we saw, and leave it in his/her hands, or (4) do nothing.
It’s a conundrum because each of the above answers can be correct, depending on the circumstances. Has the pack been hunting from a meet in the vicinity? How far away are the kennels? Are there busy highways between hounds and kennels? Between hounds and the meet? Are hounds moving with a purpose or just nosing around? Is a hound injured?
When a Fox Barks
Evie Good queried Foxhunting Life about her recent experience with a local fox.
“Can someone explain why a fox would bark repeatedly at me?” she asked. “We heard it barking last night close to the house. We found it barking at the dog this morning. When it saw me it ran to the nearby pasture, but stopped and barked some more. Finally, the fox turned and ran out of sight.
We asked two members of our Panel of Experts—Marty Wood, MFH and huntsman Hugh Robards, ex-MFH—for their opinion on this fox’s behavior.
The Hare that Must Be Fox
A third condensed installment from We Go Foxhunting Abroad: A First Venture with the Irish Banks and English Downs, Charles D. Lanier’s 1924 account of a father-daughter sporting trip to Ireland and England.
Irish hare
We decided that our new sensation would be a trial of Irish harehunting, so to Watergrass Hill we flivvered, to the meet of Mr. Robert Hall’s private pack of harriers. The Master was a slender, wiry, grey-haired man of seventy years, aquiline of countenance, with a singularly winning eye and smile under his velvet cap. He and his whipper-in were, of course, in green, and a dozen or so of the field of thirty or forty also wore the correct harrier colors.
Mr. Hall had the pride of an Irishman and a sportsman in his fifteen couple of huge Kerry “beagles,” and I think it would have been a hard blow to him if luck had been denied us that day. But it turned out to be a red letter day; I think we enjoyed having it so even more for the intense satisfaction it gave our enthusiastic host than for the sport intrinsically, which was of the very best and a revelation to us, who had not before followed a strong South Irish hare.
Sheep May Safely Graze
Sheep May Safely Graze, L.M. Clancy, 2015, 423 pages, paperback, $14.95, available at AmazonIrish sporting artist Liam Clancy has expanded his repertoire. He’s written a novel.
While foxhunting, prodigious drinking, and sex are well-handled ingredients of Clancy’s story—which takes place mostly in Ireland and England—those ingredients are only a framework upon which hangs a larger story of people, relationships, and the times. Our times: the Millennial, hunt sabs, the pathos of the hoof and mouth epidemic, the runup to the hunting ban, the dagger thrust into the heart of the English countryside by a government focused elsewhere.
If the publishing industry were not in turmoil, as it has been for the last decade at least, and if publishers would give first-time novelists half-a-chance, Clancy’s book could well replace titles by authors with household names that now occupy undeserved spots on the Best Seller lists. His dialog crackles, and his characters are wholly-formed individuals that you will care greatly for. Think of Maeve Binchy on steroids.
The Second Whip
Illustration by Gilbert HollidayOver he goes, with a crash and a rattle,
Hound couples clinking, ’gainst saddle and thigh;
Over he goes, and the light of the battle
Gleams like a spark in his eager young eye.
Twigs of the hawthorn fly backward together,
Meeting again with an ominous swish;
Over he goes, landing light as a feather,
One with his horse and quick as you’d wish.
Kinds and condition of fences don’t matter,
Straight as a ramrod he rides at them all;
Over he goes with a bang and a clatter,
Knocking loose stones off the top of the wall.