That’s what I’m doing right now, as a matter of fact, procrastinating .

I have a project going that I really need to finish this week. Or by Monday, at worst. I started it a year ago and it’s in the state it was last May, ¾ finished.

And to make matters worse, I’ve scheduled in two more rabbit hunts and at least one bow/deer hunt this week

I’ve been a procrastinator pretty much my whole life. From picking up my toys to doing school work to whatever’s, I put it off till the last possible moment.

The rabbit hunt went well today. I met Cuz and Rye at the gate of the Gray’s place. It’s a beautiful piece of property. The front yard is managed for birds, specifically quail, but he lets us chase his rabbits in the back.
Rabbit populations run in cycles that are influenced by the maturing of trees, which dictate what kind of cover, food and predators are found. Predators are plentiful, ranging from the danged coyotes who I heard were brought east by some Tennessee boys looking for a possible prey replacement for their foxhunts to the growing population of hawks and owls to a few retired old farts with some beagles.

I’m old enough to vaguely remember hawks nailed to the side of trees as a warning to other hawks to stay away. Or, at least, so I was told. Gray’s place is on the downhill part of the curve as we come off of three years of plenty.

Anyway, I told you all this about Grays place to tell you as we pulled up to our parking place deer scattered everywhere. We had also seen them on the road through to where we were to start. Cuz started hedging about hunting there.
See Cuz has four dogs. There’s the grand dame of our pack, Judy, who has truly never ran a deer. We used to say she never ran nothing but a rabbit, but she sure ran that bobcat on our first hunt with djmed over in Auburn. There is fat “Precious”. Precious as a name for a hunting dog. Want to feel like a fool? Stand out in the woods yelling for her to come on back to the truck. That leaves Lady and Francis. Now Lady is a deer chaser from way back, but she don’t like to run alone. If you keep the other dogs under control she comes back in a few minutes. Trouble is Precious likes to follow and I have to keep an eye on all of mine. They’re mine when they run rabbits. When they run deer, they belong to Brag.

Anyway, Cuz decided he’d rather run Seale. That suited me, we’d save Pittsview till Brag could go since he was out of town on business.

We couldn’t find a rabbit at our first stop. At the end of the long bottom, the dogs struck out on a long straight run into the wind. Sounded like a disaster in the making as seven of the eight dogs took off. The only dog left was Judy who everybody knows “ain‘t never run no deer. everybody says so“. Lucy had took off with the pack.

The dogs started trailing back in with sheepish looks halfway expecting to hear that “voice” after only a few minutes. Last to appear was Lady.

At the next stop, Cuz patrolled the logging road while I walked the edge of a thick lane of brush that separated us watching the dogs as they trailed a increasingly hot track. As the first dog yodeled, a bunny broke, making a break on the trail I was standing on. I lifted my leg and let him pass as I started yelling the ritual, “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, here, here, here, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit”. The dogs raced over and the chase was on. Cuz shot him as he was on the last of a loong first loop.

We had a couple more half hearted races after a lunch of Souse meat, hot sauce crackers and tangerines. We decided to call it a day and give it another shot on Thursday.

Ok, this killed another day.