Today was the first hunt in almost a month. You couldn't ask for a nicer day in February than we had today. The footing was a whole other story. We had everything: deep mud, mud, greasy mud, fozen ground, ice and snow. Thank god for good studs.
If Lou P. would have been out I'm sure he would have had a lot to write about with the creek crossings and working around the downed trees. Most of the crossing were pretty muddy. Not too bad as normal hunting goes. Then we had a couple that could cause atheists to become religious. The first was a very steep bank that kept narrowing down until there was a sharp drop off into the creek. So a lot of slipping and sliding. The second was a steep back that was frozen solid and still had some ice on it.
Both required the same technique. Slip the reins,lean back, grab the pommel of the saddle, raise your eyes to the heavens and pray that your horse handles it well. No one ended up in the creek at either crossing. Probably says less about prayer and more about the amazing abilities of hunt horses.
On to the hunting. By mu count there were seven times that the hounds started up. Over one one hour period they seem to start up about every ten minutes. In the map above those locations are marked by the orange stickpins and are numbered in order. If you link one through six together it would have been a heck of run. As it was, they were just short bursts. My theory, not discussed or approved by Matthew, was that the changing ground conditions through the scenting off as hounds were covering ground that might have been muddy in the sun but became frozen solid in the shade.
Either way, the hounds sounded great. It was so great to get out and see everyone and just have a fun day following the hounds. We covered 9.6 miles today.
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