Lori Brunnen
Working My Way Home
Teagan, celebrating her fourth birthday on her first hunt. Mom has the lead line, but our author took over on foot and learned a lot of hunting wisdom from her youthful charge. / Lori Brunnen photo.
This is a foxhunting forum and I do realize that is what readers come to read about. Still I would like to share one personal thing. My husband of forty-two years died on June 10th, 2018 just four months after being diagnosed with an inoperable malignant brain tumor. His name was Rick. Four months of disbelief, struggle, suffering, and finally grief. Moving to a new place last September with the horses following in December left me missing the first half of the 2019 season as well as the last half of 2018.
In Strange New Territory
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.
Schooling Moses, the Mulish Field Hunter
Moses discovered it was futile to resist.
Fresh Start Farm, both a name and sometimes a working philosophy, is a farm I rent where I maintain my horses as well as boarders. My boarding is limited to retired or laid up horses since I do not want the liability associated with riders on the property. Or the owners, to be perfectly honest. Riding around the farm myself is enough of a liability.
The problem with boarding retired horses is that eventually you lose them to the infirmities of old age. This is what happened to my friend Jan’s big imported Rhinelander gelding Christmas Eve of 2015. JW had been with us for seven years or so before he passed away. The following spring, Jan mentioned that with JW gone she would like to get a rescue. A mule.
Moore County Hound Trials: Report From the Field
“He’s hunted twice; let’s take him to the Field Trial.” Author Lori Brunnen in the foreground, riding Sunny. Saved from the abattoir, he took to the hunting field like a veteran. Karen Miller accompanies Lori. / Amy Gesell photo
Since last year I have been trying to hunt with George Harne’s private Maryland pack, the Last Chance Hounds. This season I finally managed one day out with them and had a great morning, despite having Frankie’s bridle slip off, falling flat rectifying it, and finally being dragged a ways on my stomach. At least I did not let go. It was kindly described at breakfast as being “seventy-five percent elegant.” This is a small, close-knit group, and I felt lucky to have been able to join them.
Shortly after this outing I learned that friend Karen Miller was accompanying them to the Moore County Hound Performance Trial, an MFHA Hark Forward event in North Carolina the second weekend in October. We agreed to drive down together. The six hounds entered were traveling with huntsman Lisa Reid and whipper-in Marie LaBaw. Master George Harne was driving down with his friend, Roy Good, leaving at 1:30 Friday morning because George said he would be “too excited to sleep” anyway. Lisa and Marie were leaving at 4:30 Friday morning. Despite the fact that the first trial event was not until 4:00 pm Friday, Karen and I simultaneously agreed we were leaving at “10 o’clock Thursday morning.” No getting up in the dark unless absolutely necessary. This is an annual trip for the group but the first Performance Trial for Karen and me. We were stoked.
Road Adventures: Bull Run March Madness 2017
A mixed pack of Epp Wilson's Belle Meade hounds from Georgia and Bull Run's home pack showed sport over five days of hunting to all who gathered for their season-ending March Madness week. / Lori Brunnen photo
My timing was perfect. With Bull Run March Madness now history, I managed to hunt Saturday, go to work on Sunday, and get sick on Monday. During the days before we left for Virginia, with my nerves activated by a recent snow, my anxiety focused on the fear that I would get sick before, or even worse, during our trip. So I am very content to be sneezing and stuffy now. Worse thing is hubby Rick is also now sick. Sicker than me. He is always sicker than me, even if he has the same thing. But this time he really is sick.
Before the trip, my field hunter Ozzy had recently recovered from a bacterial infection, but not before having lost some weight. Not being a good traveler, I did not want him to lose any more weight. So my pale, borderline pony Frankie was pressed into service for this trip. After picking up Mary’s mare Spyder, Mary followed me in her car to our staging area in the Walmart parking lot. Alas, no one thought to grab ourselves a quick Starbucks for the road ahead of time. Traveling solo, Trish’s horse was rocking her trailer, so we moved out pronto. Our four trailers would caravan to Virginia from there following Mary in her car. Mary needed to head home a few days early to put on a bridal shower so she had to drive separately. It is a pretty straightforward trip to the Funny Farm in Reva, Virginia. Plus we have done it before. As the convoy rolled along I was struck again with how beautiful this part of Virginia is. During our trip every time the mountains came into view we would point and exclaim, “Look, a mountain!” Reminding us why we come here.
Hunt Week at Lowcountry
Author and Oz midst the Spanish moss, away down south
This trip was to be the first vacation I have been on for a long time, thanks mostly to our “special” naked cat Alf. With a tendency to occasionally attempt to have sex with a sleeper’s head, hallucinate, or attack without provocation, there are no house sitters lining up for the job of caring for him in our absence. Likewise, no family members or friends. Prozac or no Prozac. That, along with my employer’s— Kaiser Permanente’s—death sentence for time taken off, has us often traveling separately, if at all.
Staying home has not been a hardship since I am happiest at home, but with our horrific winter this year, this nervous traveler headed south on a trip I had watched people enjoy without me for several years. The bastards.
The Making of Frankie
Lori and Frankie
Day 1
September 10, 2014
A moderate two hours of hunting and I have been fighting to stay awake the past four hours. My brain is pooped. I feel like I carried Frankie around the fixture rather than vice versa. Emotionally I guess I did. A shower helped but I did have a bit of a shock when I thought I was bleeding under my arm. It was a just piece of red fuzz from my polo shirt.
Having finally cracked my ten-year-old Wintec leathers through to the nylon core (probably still strong enough but not confidence inspiring), I purchased the only pair I could find yesterday—in black. No way am I going to buy leather ones for a hundred dollars only to swim in them all summer long. The fact that they were not more traditional brown didn’t bother me. Riding a glow-in-the-dark pale horse with bubble gum-pink skin and transparent eyes, no one is going to notice the color of what my stirrups are hanging from. Sporting his new hunt bridle, I figured at least he would look the part. My philosophy: even if you fail miserably it is somehow better if you are dressed appropriately.
The Best Day…On the Planet…Ever
Jackets excused, we started out on this warm early autumn day by hacking left out of the drive and down Lees Mill Road. Passing behind one of the houses a man was bent over a small back door garden while an elderly man watched from the adjacent deck. Although he looked our way the elderly man did not respond to our waves, standing with his arms slack at his sides. The younger man pointed at us and, barely audible, I heard him say we were “looking for the fox.” Closing in on the one year anniversary of the death of my father-in-law, it was a bittersweet scene. Much more sweet than bitter to witness this quiet exchange between what I imagined to be an adult son and his father.
Approaching the creek crossing we heard a whipper-in’s view halloa ahead of us. Shortly after that we heard third field’s view; they had crossed the creek the usual way by the machine shed. The run lasted roughly an hour-and-a-half. At one point there were simultaneous views on opposite sides of the strip of corn running alongside Doss Garland Drive. There were views being called all over the place. Hearing them ahead of me I rushed up only to miss them. Second Field was viewing behind me, and I missed those, too.
