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The author in informal cubhunting attire / Nancy Kleck photoTraditional foxhunting attire is important to me, but I’m not a fanatic.

Why is it important? Respect...for three hundred years of sport, art, literature, and the men and women who had the passion, energy, and intellect to formulate and leave us one of the most exhilarating activities known to man. For these reasons it pains me to see the concepts of appropriate attire ignored in many hunting fields today.

There is good reason to dress modestly and uniformly. Foxhunting is about the hounds and the quarry; it’s not a stage for man or horse. Its dress code can be described as stratified uniformity—stratified between staff, Master, and field so we can quickly identify who’s who in the heat of battle, and uniformity so that we all maintain our modest place in the overall scheme of the sport.

Why, on the other hand, am I not fanatical about correct hunting attire? Because there is no single truth.

Throughout the history of foxhunting, many Masters, huntsmen, and even field members have kept hunting journals. These accounts generally include the date, meeting place, names of hunting staff, weather and scenting conditions, and other factual details. Then, depending on the writer’s bent and talent, there may be textual descriptions of runs, actions of specific hounds, and even artistic renditions of special moments. Such journals have provided us with valuable historic information as well as stirring tales of the great hunts of yesteryear.

It came home to me only recently that most of us today carry in our pocket a resource that revolutionizes the traditional hunting journal: the smart phone.

Nancy Kleck photoOur local emergency rescue squad is manned by all volunteers. They are reliable, responsive, and competent, and our hunt has kept them busy this cubhunting season with a couple of serious accidents.

In the midst of such crises many of us wonder what to do. Too many times we are somewhere in a field, far from a road, without an address recognizable by 911. How can we best help the patient and the responders before they arrive?

The era of male economic supremacy is over, says Hanna Rosin, an editor at The Atlantic, in her new book, The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. Although executives running Fortune 500 Companies are still overwhelmingly male, women in their twenties now outearn men in their twenties. Are men becoming irrelevant? Consider this incident I witnessed in our hunting field just last Saturday.

One of our hunt members (call her Christy) loaded her horse onto the trailer at the conclusion of our Saturday meet and proceeded to drive out of the field. Unfortunately, she chose a low, wet spot to traverse, and just before reaching the firm driveway her progress ended. The right rear wheel of her truck buried itself to the axle in mud. The right front wasn’t a whole lot better.

Huntsman John Tabachka, Sewickley Hunt (PA)With the start of the new season, we want to remind readers once again of our popular free hunting horn ring tone offer for your cell phone.

Through the courtesy of two-time National Horn Blowing Champion John Tabachka, you may download mp3 files of the horn calls from John’s popular Foxhunting Life video, Calls on the Horn.

Just click on the horn icon below. We have had a huge response to this offer from the start, and we enjoy hearing from people who are having fun with it. Here’s what some of you had to say:

West Nile Virus remains a threat across North America. The last two months have seen an increase in cases reported in both horses and humans.

So far this year, thirty-one states have reported 157 cases of West Nile in horses, with Louisiana and Texas having the most cases.

The New York Times reports that 118 people have died and 3,000 more have been sickened by the virus this year. Fifteen people have died in Dallas County alone since July.

Karen Myers photoFor foxhunters, our sport plays a major role in establishing the rhythm of our year. Yes, other interests and family matters intrude on this major annual cycle, but September looms large as the start of the foxhunting season for most of us. The summer months are for keeping the horses moving and smiling when hearing a fox squall in the night through the open windows. But September brings the dry air, the cool mornings, and blindly searching the pasture for your hunter before dawn. For some, it’s picking up where we left off last March; for others it’s the fascination of watching new staff find their way with our pack and our country. For all of us, it’s the promise of young, bewildered hounds whose genes are about to fire and point them toward their reason for being. So, send us your hunting reports. Tell us what’s going on in your country with hounds, quarry, and staff. Write it in your own format and email it to us, or click here for our Hunt Report Form to which you can attach photos and submit your report with a single click. And when your formal season begins, please send us your Opening Meet photos so we can bring our Banner Slide Show at the top of the screen up-to-date with 2012 photos of hunts all across North America. Forrard on! Posted September 12, 2012

Karen L. Meyers photoReaders will notice, we hope, that FHL’s Home Page is continually being updated with new articles. As new articles are posted, the older material is pushed lower on the Home Page until it disappears. Or does it? No, it doesn’t! Not completely, anyway.

There are four ways to find an old article: the Search function, the Full Article List, the Hunt Club Pages, or by Category.

Lt. Eric Pedersen and RecklessMany of us recall the rave reviews that followed the London opening of the blockbuster play—now a movie—War Horse. As everyone drawing breath knows, the fictional story is about a boy who loses his horse—with which he has an uncommon bond—to the battlefields of World War I.

A friend, Herb Jonkers, just pointed me to the story of a real life war horse named Reckless, who was separated from her youthful owner during the Korean War and became one of the Marine Corps’ greatest heroes. In 1997, when Life Magazine published a special Collectors Edition titled “Celebrating Our Heroes,” the story of Reckless was included alongside the stories of other heroes such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and Mother Teresa.

I’ve been grousing about four long rows of round hay bales left in my field. The guys that make the hay usually take the bales right off. But it’s been two weeks, and they’re still sitting there. Now, I’m going to have four long stretches of dead grass. Fuss, fuss.

This morning I took my dog Mara out for a walk as usual, and, glancing over to where the round bales were still sitting, it seemed there was something lying on top of one. Too big for one of the cats and not the right color. I recalled that foxes love to perch on top of round bales. Every warrior seeks the high ground. I stopped, hoping it was what I thought, and sure enough an alert head and two enormous ears fixed me in their sights.