despite it lonely being Cuz, Rye, myself, Rimfire and eight dogs of the combined pack.
I had Lucy, Katie, Mystery, Suzie and the pup, Penny while Cuz brought Lady, Lacie, and Precious.
We decided to hunt Pittsview and let Seale rest a few days.

Lucy started cold trailing soon after the “girls” were let out of the boxes and had taken care of pressing personal needs.

decided to rabbit hunt in Pittsview this morning.
It will be our first hunt there this year. I called to invite Plunker, but he had just returned from Tennessee visiting a sick family member and was behind on some fencing.
Plunker owns Best 4 Less Fencing (warning! crass commercial message follows) out in Smiths Station. Quality work at reasonable prices. ph# 706 575 9734.

Anyway, it looks like it's just us three. Brag has to work. Same for Hover.
I'll leave you with some of the pictures that ThinWater sent of his recent trip to Lake Lanier while I was at the other end of the Big Muddy in Apalachicola. Looks to me like there is plenty of water still in the lake.
Of course, it's not like ThinWater's boat draws much draft

And the “2+3” is safely in it’s stall on Poor House Creek.
The trip down was pretty uneventful though the wind was blowing ninety to nothing.
Fishing was decent though 2 kicked my rear on fish catching. 2 was catching keeper reds and specks



while I

2 and I are leaving for a few days in Apalachicola. We have to take the 2+3 back to it's home port and give it a shakedown cruise. And get a day or two fishing in.

Brag will be tied up for a few more weekends and this real estate venture of mine is taking up more time than I thought. I need a break.

In the mean time, I know most of us are beagle people, but djmed say's he should have some duck dogs pretty soon. I've seen a picture of the parents and I have to say

We didn’t get a rabbit hunt in this weekend. To many things going on for all of us.
Yes, I know

I did some work on the new old 16 ga’s gunstock. Some of you might remember the butt had been replaced sometime in the past.

No telling who or what Cuz had been swinging at when it broke. I know at one point a couple of years ago, I started to take a swing with the Fox at a charging rabbit after firing both barrels at him, only to picture the possible results and change it into a poke with the barrel as he swung past me

After the stripping and sanding of the stock, being careful not to round off the edges that joined onto the metal parts, I pre-treated the softer wood of the stock before staining with a dark walnut stain. I was trying to match the forearm which was of the original dark wood.

Instead, it made some of the grain a more golden color. I repeated the stain until I had a nice dark color, but the golden section of the grain merely darkened to a deep gold color.
It appears to be the best I can hope for.
Now to apply coats of Tru Oil for the finish

for our second hunt of the year last Saturday at Plunker’s in Chambers County

There was Plunker, Hover and his boy Thomas.
And Brag’s puppy

And the thing that sticks out most in my memory of the second hunt of the 07-08 season was “Just how the heck was I going to tell Brag that I had lost his dog. It was hard enough telling Uncle NoPass when Brag and I had lost his whole pack, but Penny was the puppy that Brag’s wife had given him for his birthday.
And I didn’t think it only once. I also thought it during the second race.

As I’ve said before Penny is a dogs dog, not a people dog.

I've got most of the post for Saturday's hunt wrote up. Not much to speak of in the realm of rabbits killed or great quantities killed, but I had a pretty good time considering I was wondering how I was going to tell Brag I lost his dog and Plunker and I gave Hover and his son a workout walking Plunker's hills.
Oh and I got to meet Hover's new dog, Cocoa, as well as his son

I'll try to have the post up in a day or so. Right now I'm jumping through hoops trying to make an offer on some property, not to mention getting the Sermon Notes for next Sunday linked and published.
Please bear with me

I took the 16 ga Stevens double barrel to Bullseye Bluing in Columbus, Georgia to have the barrels blued with a matte finish.
I picked up the wood today to refinish while waiting on the barrels. This will be my first attempt and I’ve been reading up on the subject
As you can see, the stock is far lighter than the forearm indicating that the stock was replaced after manufacturing.

we'll be hunting white on white this year like Vern.
La Nina has arrived and the forecast for the deep south east is warmer and drier than normal.
Just what drought plagued Alabama needs, though I do notice that Thinwater might get wet.

Stevens 16ga double barrel that I got from Cuz to BullsEye Bluing in Columbus Georgia to have the right firing pin looked at and the metal reblued. I’m to pick up the wood in a couple of days. He told me he would strip the oil from it so I can refinish it while he blued the metal. I selected the Matte finish. I’ll let you know the quality of the work.

for the East Alabama Rabbit Hunters and Souse Eaters Social Club, also known as EARH&SESC which isn’t any easier to remember or write.
And like most things this year, it has started with a whimper, instead of a bang.
Dixie is still missing and is pretty much given up for dead. She was the last surviving member of the combined Rabbit Journal Pack.

Cuz and Rye met me

at our hunting lease on the pine plantation less than a mile from scenic downtown Seale, Alabama as the night slowly gave way to a soft dawn. The leaves of the bushes were curled from the drought that we have been in and there was no dew to help hold the scent.
Still, the girls did well. Cuz had his three, Lady, Lacie and Precious (yeah I know) and I brought, Suzie, Lucy, Katie, Mystery and the newest member, Penny. Brag said something about work. I know it's a terrible thing, but somebody has to do it.

Penny is a dog’s dog, not a people dog. She likes to have her ears scratched, but that’s about it. She doesn’t want to be held. All she seems to want is to be with her Aunties who treat her with indifference on the part of Katie, motherly by Suzie, irritably by Mystery and as a chew toy by Lucy.
I wish I had had the camera going this morning. Lucy hit a hot scent and Katie and Mystery came over to confer over the spot where I assume the rabbit had been bedded. Penny wandered over and stuck her nose down to see what was of such great interest just as all three of her aunties let out a call summoning the rest of the pack. I thought Penny was going to turn a flip trying to get out of the way.

We had a good two hour race. The girls did their part, but none of us could get a shot as the rabbit avoided all clearings in favor of the thick brush among the thinned pines. Nope, not a cap was busted
Rabbits 1
Hunters 0
It was hot early, so we loaded the dogs and tentatively planned a couple of hour morning hunt for Thursday. It should be a good one since we had a hard afternoon rain.

After two 21 day bursts of Doxycycline, the doctor waited for a couple of months to retest me.

The tests are in and I tested

The start of this season just gets worse and worse.
Doctor's appointment tomorrow
Cuz is out of town this weekend
Rye doesn't hardly hunt without Cuz
Plunker is working
One Dog is going to the Auburn Vanderbilt game
Lord knows what djmed is up to but I suspect that love has him by the short hairs
GF and I are in a housing transition and she has said that if I want to rabbit hunt when it's cooler, I need to finish this house, sell it, get us moved into our new one, so don't you think that just this Saturday, you could zzzzzzzzzzzz
At that point her voice seemed to trail off into that annoying hum when a skeeter gets in your ear.
And to make it all worse, deer season opens up next Saturday, though Plunker pointed out that that had nothing to do with his 250 acres.

Oh and speaking of Plunker, he tells me that this season's Stew and Q (directions) at the Ridge Grove Volunteer Fire Department in Chambers County will be the day of the Auburn / Georgia game. It was a success last spring.....as usual
And, boy hidey, they make a pile of Brunswick Stew. Not as good as mine, but like he said “get 20 people together and you’ll get 20 recipes for Brunswick stew. And each will be the best you’ve ever eaten. At least according to the recipes holders.”



He suggested we might, depending on the time of the game, might want to hunt his place that morning, stop by for lunch on our way home.
Not a bad plan. We'll see

the first day of Rabbit Season 07-08 in Alabama and I’m tied up with Realtors, chores and such.
Sigh!

Odds and ends

Dixie is still missing. I have a bad feeling about this. The vet warned us, with her enlarged heart, that she might go out one day and not return. Then there are the snakes looking for that last meal before denning up.

One thing about Dixie is she has a really bad sense of direction. We’ve found her in the dangest places when she got “lost”, lost being our way of phrasing “running trash”.
We found her at the “Robert Trent Jones” golf course in Opelika once.

Then almost ten miles from Pittsview where she was turned out, curled up on a bathmat in front of a cozy gas heater. She looked a little stunned that I found her at the leathermans house.

And quite often, we found her on the steps of the Shady Grove Baptist Church. I assume trying to get in to pray that we wouldn’t be to hard on her and she probably couldn’t find a Church of Christ.

And lastly, just whose beagles were those hunting on our property not far from where we turned out. If someone “found” a dog and accidentally removed the collar while catching her…..

Dixie is very identifiable from her distinctive coat pattern (note the jagged mark up her flank). It will be a very interesting discussion if we see her later this season.

Hover asked about warm weather rabbits and woolies. Since I give away all my rabbits, I don’t know much about them. Thinwater?

And Hover also reports that he has gotten a new dog. Hmm, and not enough time to break it in before season. I hope that it’s deer broke. Seale is a long way from Valley and the price of gas is way up.
“I bought a female at the field trial this morning.She is not real pretty,but supposed to be running rabbits.She is red and white,kinda leggy,a little skinny,about a year and a half old.I have her in the pen with Elmer and you know what he's upto.I hope he gets it out of his system soon.The next invite we get I will bring her and leave Elmer at home.Thomas and his buddy even got up at four-thirty to go.They seemed to have a good time.We watched a bench show and one trial.Look forward to seeing ya'll. ”

Jordan, in Opelika, also asked about our first hunt.
That unfortunately is still up in the air, though it looks like Saturday is probably going to be it.
We’re looking forward to meeting Jordan’s new dog friends.

Oh, and least I forget
War Eagle