The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

First the good.  We spent several days visiting with Lisa and Cliff Weiss of October Setters in Idaho. These folks are dedicated ryman-type hunters and breeders and over the years I have known very few breeders as knowledgeable as they.  We were fortunate to breed our Sally to their beautiful Heath and hopefully we will be welcoming puppies in late November.

               Sally                                                                                     Heath

                                                                                 
                            


Lisa graciously invited us to join her in hunting sage grouse while we were there and even took us to one of her "honey holes.",  It was a long, bumpy drive from her house to an area flanked by snow-capped mountains: a real treat.
   
                                                                       Lisa and "Doc"

Indeed it was a honey hole - we saw more sage hens in those two days than we will probably ever see again.  Mike had bought a tag and I charged up my camera.  We got to see some of Lisa's wonderful dogs work as well as let our pack stretch their legs after the 20 hours drive from KS to ID.  Mike was able to gun a sage hen over his Fr Brit boys.

 
Oh, I almost forgot.  The area pictured above was also responsible for The Bad.  Within the first half-hour of hunting for our whole season, Mike tripped over sage brush and fell.  Which is not uncommon when walking in such terrain.  But this time he fell on his gun and cracked the stock.  It can be repaired and we do have a back-up gun along with us but it was definitely sad.

With the breedings done it was time to head to Montana.  But first Mike decided to figure out why the gas furnace on the RV wasn't working.  There was frost each night and know that it will be even colder before we return to home.  He took it apart and found a mud wasp colony the size of Manhattan was the problem.  Doing some McGyver-like problem solving he had it cleaned out and working well in not much time at all.  We had a somewhat leisurely drive of about 8 hours ahead of us to eastern Montana where we hunt. But about 4 hours into the drive we heard a loud "bang" and said ohoh.  Although the truck and RV were handling steady as could be, a pretty-new tire on the RV had blown up.  Without a safe area to work on it along the busy highway we instead limped the 4 miles to the next exit.

                                                                      The Ugly

Mike changed the tire and discovered that the tire had also damaged the gas lines in that area of the RV.   It can all be repaired but without a working refrigerator or stove and very warm temps outside, we caved in and pulled into a full service RV campground, something we rarely do.  Tomorrow we will get the necessary repairs and be on our way.

But tonight, we will hold hands and say our prayers of thanks for getting through today safely.

Exciting development for Ryman Setter folks

I am very pleased to have been part of a group who has taken a long-awaited concept and turned it into a reality.  This past week we launched a new website, RymanSetters.com which is a centralized online site where breeders of Ryman-type English Setters can showcase their dogs, research available stud dogs and discuss bird dogs with other breeders.  But importantly, it is also a central resource for puppy buyers who are looking for breeders with quality, healthy bird dogs and good breeding ethics. 

Since the passing of George Ryman over 50 years ago, there has not been a central connection between breeders of this type of setter and we feel that awareness and education between us is crucial to its future.  This site has been created and developed by a group of fellow ryman breeders with many years of experience and areas of expertise. We recognize and welcome differences among breeders in personal preference for traits such as size, speed, range and style.  This site will help both breeders and buyers to see what breeders across the country are producing and choose the best match for their own needs and preferences.  The common thread between all participating breeders is their focus on producing dogs for wild bird hunting, with all breeding stock being health screened  (OFA hip certification at minimum) and honest, ethical breeding practices. 

I hope you might take a minute to visit the site, I welcome any feedback.  
     
www.RymanSetters.com

Travels Behind and In Front of Us

My trip to Vermont went well: 4000 miles in 2 weeks is not restful by any means but I packed in as much visiting and fun as I could.  I was able to take 5 puppies to their families, visit with my own family and friends, visit and meet some other ryman setter and Fr Brit folks, and hit a couple of favorite food and drink spots.
This was home while I was there:

Even Tweed got to visit some of her grown pups.  I swear dogs can recognize 'family' - even though she had not seen Parker for 5 years since he was a pup they sure seemed content with one another.  Fitting, we met with Parker's owners at Parker Pie for lunch.

Folks often ask how I travel with puppies (without going crazy.)  My travel pen makes it wicked easy: the pups have plenty of space and messes fall to the papered trays below that are easy to clean.  The pups mostly sleep while I am driving although occasionally in the rear-view mirror I could see them quietly playing.  This pen also ensures that the pups never have to be walked on public grounds, making it quite safe from the many viruses and such that are out there.   I delivered 2 to families in MI and these 3 hostages went on to New England:

There was just enough room left in our little Escape for a Fr Brit sized crate and Jazz took the trip with Tweed and I.  She is a fun, game little girl and even tried dock jumping at the lake.

Storm's puppies are happily settling into their families.  It is great fun to almost daily receive photos and emails telling how the pups are doing.  Last night I received this one that I thought was cute, showing little Tucker learning good manners from his big brother.  Tucker lives in MN and will be hunting grouse and woodcock with his owner.

Mike was wicked busy while I was away, taking care of all of the produce and gardens, house and yard, 6 dogs, 1 puppy and trying to get some canning done.  All of the fresh produce really kicked him into cooking overdrive and he is filling our freezer and shelves with wonderful food.

These are just a couple of his gardens and they show the hard work he puts into them.  These are some of the rows of strawberry plants that will keep us busy next spring.

Tomatoes are late this year but they and the pepper plants are heavy with fruit.  This is one section.

All of this is fun and busy but what really has us energized is the fact that in just 3 weeks it will be time for us to leave for Montana!  We plan to hunt Montana huns, sharpies and pheasant for 6 weeks, then travel over to Minnesota to hunt ruffed grouse.  November will find us coming back home for bobwhites and pheasant.  Let the fun begin!!

Summer = Puppies and Produce

Hi all.  I apologize for not keeping more current with blog posts.  We have been busy around here!   Most relevant to this blog....we have puppies!  Our Storm delivered 8 pups on June 7th.  They just turned 3 weeks old so they have reached the really adorable stage.  The sire is a handsome fellow owned by another ryman breeder.  It was a stroke of good luck that they happen to be only 4 hours away - that's close by Kansas standards.  In August the pups will be headed to their families, scattered from Colorado and Montana to the Great Lakes and on to the coast of Maine.  I will again combine my road trip back to Vermont with delivering the pups to their families.  I look forward to visiting with friends and family there......and eating lobster and seafood!

We have been hoping that Mike will be able to join me on the trip east but this has been a challenging year for our produce operation so that is still to be determined.  The month of May brought us rain - usually a welcome thing here in Kansas but enough is enough!  We had 17" within a few weeks and the timing resulted in the delay and in some instances, the elimination, of some vegetables.   However, our strawberry crop was the early star of our gardens this year and we were kept very busy with Mike picking and me handling the advertising, sales and deliveries.  The hard work is rewarding when you see the smile on people faces as they anticipate their annual jam cooking or kids are grabbing and gobbling berries from the baskets even as their parents are carrying them to their car.  At the Farmer's Market one little girl around 3 or 4 couldn't help herself and as I was talking with her mother she was reaching up and snacking on berries from my table.  Healthy food for local folks  - that's our goal.  

The heavy and excessive spring rains do have us concerned about the local quail and pheasant hatches.  If the timing of the chilly rains was poor, then the newly hatched chicks would not have been able to survive.  But if the birds held off or perhaps have re-nested, then the chicks will benefit from the bumper crop of insects and seeds produced by the rains.  Time will tell!

This is a sketch on sandstone that we have

Cheers!

'Tis the Season

Hunting season that is.  Oh sure, being December 22nd there are decorations around the house, a wreath on the door and Christmas cookies in the kitchen.  But we are still hunting....and have another month+ of hunting ahead of us!  This gift of time is something I am still getting used to.

You see, back in Vermont the season officially closes on Dec 31st but many, ok - most, years, significant snowfall has already shut down the bird hunting by now.  There might be some short late season hunts just to get outside and enjoy the crisp air but on woody mountainsides the going gets tough once the snow gets more than a few inches deep.  Winter settles in deeply in Vermont with a rhythm of quiet snowfall, crackling fires, and dogs settling in by the woodstove.

A pic from 2000 in my old house in Vermont.  Tweed and Storm.

I am sitting in Kansas as I write this though, and although there are dogs sleeping in front of the woodstove, the temperature outside is 45 degrees.  The light snow we received a few days ago is gone and for a couple of days is replaced by mud.  But by tomorrow it will have dried up enough to be very pleasant hunting with a forecast of 38 degrees and we will be back out there.  I took this photo just a few days ago of our 2 youngest dogs, Jazz and Belle..  The warmth of a fire attracts all dogs regardless of breed or age.  But don't worry, the setters from the photo above are sound asleep in nearby chairs.  

At the beginning of December we took the OR and spent a few days in western Kansas where Mike likes to deer hunt.  He took a couple of deer but we were disappointed to see that the pheasant numbers were still depressed.  We returned home and he took a third deer locally.  We don't buy beef all year long but instead eat 'grass fed venison.'  Mike also processes all of the scraps from the deer for supplementing for the dogs.

Western Kansas, where deer hunting is in wide open country and is all about spot and stalk.  After shooting the deer Mike had dragged them over to this small tree, the only distinguishing landmark to assure we could find them when we returned with the cart.

There were not a lot of pheasants but enough for some good dining on pheasant fajitas in the OR. 

But after a week of deer hunting it was back to bird hunting out of the house.  Often we pack a lunch since our search for new areas may take us a distance from the house.  We snack on cheeses, meats, crackers and apples in the car while on break between the morning and afternoon hunts.  This car lunch is the same that we often have when we hunt in Montana as well and it has become a pleasurable part of our hunting routine.

We enjoy exploring new covers and are delighted when we find quail coveys on new grounds.We continue to be conservation minded when hunting the quail: the size of the covey determines whether we pursue singles and how many it is okay to take.  On a typical, healthy covey we typically will take only one or two birds, knowing that if it is a large covey we can always revisit them before the season ends.

I will close with some random dog pictures that I have taken the past few weeks.  As always, I have more and will try to share in future posts.

Good cover means birds which means dogs on point but that cover also means more photos get tossed than kept, this pic is an example of why. That's Belle hidden behind the grass.

(click on any photo to enlarge)

Mid-season update

In October we made a quick trip (can you call 3500 miles quick??) to Vermont for some ruffed grouse hunting.  I was happy to be back on familiar grounds and it was fun to visit with friends while we were there.  The scenery was as beautiful as ever and it did my heart good to hunt areas with vistas such as this:

Unfortunately, it seems that we must have forgotten to pay the weatherman's bill ahead of time and it rained all but 2 of the days that we hunted.  Despite the weather, we shot some grouse and woodcock, hunted with some friends, ate Parker Pie pizza and drank good local beer.   With the forecast of a soaking nor'easter coming in for the next 5 days, we cut our losses and headed home several days early.  We were sorry it meant missing out on connecting with a couple of special friends but both of us and the dogs needed to get out and dry out.  I managed only a few photos between rain showers:

Seems odd to see Mike wearing orange, doesn't it?

We find several deer racks a year, this one was fairly large for Vermont.

So interesting how moose are so large and sign is so fresh yet we don't see them all that often when bird hunting.  

Dining in the OR.  Ruffed grouse are my favorite game birds to eat.  

The Kansas bird season has been open for 3 weeks now and we are having a lot of fun.  We have been hunting out of the house: loading dogs, guns and lunch in the morning and heading out across the state.  This past summer we bought a little Ford Escape SUV and most days that is what we take - we have been impressed with the gas savings it gives us compared to driving one of the trucks every day.  We can carry 5 dogs plus gear in the back, the dogs might be a big snug but no one is going to complain when they are heading out to hunt.  We hunt most days although a couple of days I have hung back home and sent Mike and his EB boys out by themselves - those guys never seem to wear down.

We have been getting into birds every day with enjoyable dog work that is usually the discussion for the ride home and when reviewing photos that evening.  The open covers in KS and MT are great for providing opportunities for good photos.   This pic is my favorite so far this year, I love the colors and textures and it was taken at one of my favorite covers.  In the center is Storm on point on a covey that she held a long time while we worked our way over to her.  (click on any photo to see it larger)

Our typical sequence usually starts with one of us calling out, "dog down over here."  I will take a moment here to interpret for my grouse hunting friends: it is a midwest quail hunting tradition that 'dog down' means that a dog is on point.  It takes a little getting used to and I try to remember to explain it ahead of time to any friends who join us so they don't get concerned that we have an injured dog.  But I digress.....   Since we run 3 - 5 dogs at a time, the other dogs also know what that means and any that are around often head in to back the pointing dog.  This is makes for safer shooting since we know where all of the dogs are plus there have been many times that a dog coming in for a back actually serves to block a bird/covey that was running.  Once all are stopped I take out my pocket camera or Mike his cellphone, and we take a couple of photos.  We then check if the other gunner is ready and someone moves in to flush the birds.  It is quite civilized, if I say so myself.

On this point was the first time that I saw a covey on the ground when I went in to flush the birds.  They were running around in the brush in front of the dogs and as soon as one bird made eye contact with me they were out of there. Mike was in position on the other side of the hedge row for any birds that might fly through it.

A few other pics

  

A hedge row, classic quail cover

'The Oaks' , a new favorite cover filled with great timber....and birds

I will let you go for now but promise to post more photos and updates soon!

Cheers

Lynn Dee