Norm Fine’s Blog

One interesting statistic from the FHL website that got our attention told us that our Hunt Breakfast Recipe pages receive a lot of hits. Since we want to feature subjects that are important to you, our readers, we had an idea. With Opening Meets occurring with increasing frequency over the next couple of weeks and cubhunting tailgates morphing into more formal hunt breakfasts, we thought we ought to expand our stable of recipes. So we’re having a contest! If you point to the Social drop-down menu above and click on Hunt Breakfast Recipes, you will see that our recipes are organized into seven categories: Appetizers, Breads, Desserts & Sweets, Flask Concoctions, Main Dishes, Side Dishes & Accompaniments, and Soups & Salads. Here are the contest rules: You are invited to submit a favorite recipe in any category. You may submit as many recipes as you like. Recipes will be judged by prominent chefs on aptness, gustatorial satisfaction, and ease of preparation. All recipes received through December 31, 2010 will qualify for the contest. The winner—one for each category—will be announced, interviewed for additional useful tips on putting on hunt breakfasts, and will receive a gift of FHL‘s DVD, Calls on the Horn, featuring John Tabachka. Winners will be announced after the new year. Simply click on the red type—Submit One Now—here or on the Hunt Breakfast recipe page and upload, type, or paste your favorite hunt breakfast recipe into the appropriate spaces. Images may be uploaded as well. The idea is to provide the best resource possible for the satisfaction of tired, happy, and hungry foxhunters. Let’s see what you got!October 26, 2010

In cooperation with the Masters of Foxhounds Association, the 2010 Roster of Hunts in North America is now available on Foxhunting Life. Published this year as a supplement to Covertside magazine, the Hunt Roster may be viewed here electronically by going to the Resources drop-down menu and clicking on Hunt Roster under the Travel category. As traveling foxhunters know, an up-to-date hunt roster is a must-have resource. The names and contact information for all Masters and Hunt Secretaries are available for requesting permission to hunt, and the days of the week that hounds go out facilitate trip planning. Each hunt’s button, hunt colors, and the names of the huntsmen, whippers-in, and other hunt staff are shown. Location of kennels, the types and number of foxhounds in kennel, a description of the hunting country, and the dates of the season are also published. The electronic version is easy to read and navigate, and we invite you to make good use of it.

I’m anxious to develop FHL’s coverage of sporting art still further, and to that end FHL invites artists to send us a selection of their images along with a brief description of their artistic background, their achievements, goals, and what they try to communicate in their work. Artists, please educate us so that we may better appreciate your work and that of your fellow artists. We will publish your message, and we will post a slide show of your paintings or sculptures along with a link to your website. You need not be an advertiser on this site. If we like your work, we will showcase it for the benefit and appreciation of our subscribers. We will seek out artists we know and repeat this invitation. However, please don’t wait to be contacted. We’ve all heard the familiar quote, “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.” Well, turn that one over. We invite you to call us before we call you!September 26, 2010

I was an outrider at the Blue Ridge Fall Races on Saturday. Besides the fact that I love sitting on a horse and that outriding is a great way to see the races, it’s also a habit. I’ve been doing it on the Woodley racecourse in Berryville, Virginia for twenty-five years. The sun was shining in a brilliant blue sky, my horse looked handsome, the hospitality tent was filled with delicious food, and all was right with the world. Until it wasn’t.

Cubhunting is now underway in most hunting countries, and the early morning slanting light is a photographer’s wish come true. Some stunning photos are coming our way, and we will be sharing them with you. For a sample of Karen Myers’ photographic art on opening day of the Blue Ridge cubhunting season, click on Photo Gallery, under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu. Watch here for Old Dominion, Mill Creek, and other photo slide shows to follow. Photographers, we invite you to submit 12–18 of your best shots in your hunting countries, include captions, and we will post them in our Gallery as slide shows with credit to you and links back to your email or website so others may find you.September 8, 2010

In case you haven’t noticed, I have a new book out: Foxhunting Adventures: Chasing the Story. It’s a collection of thirty-two of my foxhunting stories, the earliest ones written over forty years ago. I’ll be signing books at various locations over the next few months, and if you’re in the neighborhood or are planning on attending any of the following events, please stop and say hello. Here’s my schedule as it stands now:

September 5: Hunt Night at the Warrenton Horse Show. I’ll be with Jan Neuharth and Vicki Moon who will be signing their books as well.
September 15 (10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.): Tri-County Feeds, Etc., Marshall, VA
September 17: Blue Ridge Fall Races Calcutta Night at Woodley, Berryville, VA
October 8: Locke’s Store wine tasting, Millwood, VA
October 18: Hunt Night at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show, Harrisburg, PA
October 27: Chevy Chase Club, Chevy Chase, MD
November 5: Belle Meade Opening Meet, Thomson, GA

What a response we had from our recent free hunting horn ring-tone offer! We thought it would be a fun way of celebrating the start of the new foxhunting season, and we were right. Here’s what some of you had to say: Send me ‘doubling.’ I am enjoying your website immensely! Ilove the ring-tones! I want them all. I am going to forward your email to all 600 of my ** fox hunting folks. What a clever idea! Thank you. I really have to say, hearing John Tabachka blow ‘Going Home’ is very moving. Really amazing, indeed. I really enjoy your newsletter and website! I’m a huge fan of John and his calls. I am looking forward to driving my teenage children (and everyone else around me) crazy. We’re happy everyone is having fun with it. Remember, however, if any of you forget to turn off your ringer while in the hunting field, and the huntsman’s wrath descends upon you, we don’t know you!August 24, 2010

Karen L. Myers photo Now that FHL has been riding the web for a couple of months, we’ve accumulated a list of articles that first appeared on the Home Page, but were gradually dropped off to make space for new material. “Where do these articles go?” a couple of subscribers asked me recently. “Are they still available to be viewed and read?” These articles are definitely still available, I replied. They can be found in their respective sections by subject, mostly under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu. For example, past reports from the hunts and articles about hunting will be found under the Horse and Hound drop-down menu by clicking on Hunt Reports. Articles about foxhounds, hound shows, and puppy shows are accumulated under Horse and Hound in the Hounds section. Articles about new books, excerpts from old books, and poetry are collected in the Literature section. Articles describing Featured Properties are, you guessed it, under that very section. Even all my old blogs are retained under the same Horse and Hound drop-down in Norm Fine’s Blog. I hope all subscribers will choose their own rainy or dreary day to login and take the time to browse the various drop-down menus and become familiar with navigating FHL. We want you to get the most value, enjoyment, and information you can from your subscription. Finally, don’t forget the Search Site function. Find it in the left-hand column of the Home Page under the Using FHL button. Type in a name, phrase, or key words and it will find all matching articles for you.August 16, 2010

Continuing my theme on the intersection of people and places, FHL subscribers might remember the story that Noel Mullins sent us last month about the Galway Blazers’ Puppy Show. The story was accompanied by a Mullins photograph of the Blazers’ long-serving MFH and huntsman Michael Dempsey. I was thrilled to see the photo, for I have my own memories of Michael Dempsey.

Before Dempsey became Master of the Blazers, he whipped-in to the late Lady Molly Cusack-Smith and the Bermingham and North Galway hounds. In that capacity both he and she are principal characters in one of the stories—a true ghost story that happened forty years ago—in my book, Foxhunting Adventures. So Mullins and I exchanged memories of our mutual connections.

The intersection of people and places is sometimes wondrously coincidental. Irish photojournalist Noel Mullins and I have recently discovered foxhunting friends we have in common from County Galway some forty years since. More than friends, these were larger-than-life individuals enormously influential in the process that turned each of us into the foxhunting men we became.

Fast forward, and here is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of my book, Foxhunting Adventures: Chasing the Story, describing a large painting hanging in the dining room in Bermingham House, County Galway, home of the late Lady Molly Cusack-Smith, MFH:

"Dominating the end wall above the sideboard and presiding in spirit equal to Molly’s presence, gray-whiskered John Denis surveys all from the saddle. This dramatic nineteenth-century portrait of man, horse, and hound in a graceful swirl of motion and muscle was presented to him by grateful members of the Galway field."