Well, lets just say we’ve had better days…a lot better. It started out with a bang and went downhill from there.

We stopped on this foggy morning on the top of a hill just outside of the bird hunters property on a piece of Cuz’s Boy’s lease. The fence that surrounds the bird hunters property looks like hog wire topped with a couple of rows of barbed wire.
The bird hunters property is, of course, managed for birds. Rabbits don’t have a low spot on the priority list. They don’t even rank.

Ok, not really.

The dogs ran well. Top dog? Once again it was Lucy. Dixie, Julie and Kate turning in solid performances as supporting casts though they really shine once the race starts. Abbie? Well, Abbie is still a puppy.

Lucy’s forte is starting the race by finding a weak scent and following it until she jumps or it becomes so strong that the other little ladies follow it.

I wonder what we’re chas…..Boss? Where you at boss? Bosssss!!!

I put Abbie on two rabbits, but she showed little interest in the smell though she did put her head down and followed the trail. Just no enthusiasm.

Or
"Who are those guys?"

Puppy power, was what the lovely GF, my bride, had to say while watching Abbie bounce around the pen after the “girls” and I had spent the morning on a pre-season exercise chasing rabbits on a pine plantation near Seale, Alabama.

“Puppy power, our butt” was Abbie’s aunties reply. Dixie, Julie, Lucy and Kate were sprawled out in their favorite spots trying to rest up from the morning run. Julie, from her perch atop one of the dog houses said “I’d have some energy to if I’d spent the morning sleeping underneath Boss’s feet”
Lucy agreed though she was only a year away from her own naps during our Saturday morning exercises having forgotten that rabbit hunting is such hard work.
Dixie and Kate just kept snoring, their delicate lady like snores rising from the hole leading into the chamber they had dug underneath the houses.

of Tiny’s nightlight through the window of his cabin greeted me as I passed in the early morning darkness. The sky was a mishmash of alternating weather conditions from overcast to a clear starlit to a light fog on my way to the pine plantation in Seale, Alabama to exercise the “Girls” this morning

Tiny was long gone, of course, to spend his usual Saturday morning fishing the lakes in Pittsview. Between his big truck, the modified bass boat he pulled back and forth and the recent rains, I had to put the pathfinder in four wheel drive a little earlier than normal, but there was no real difficulty. The pathfinder is one of the best vehicles I’ve drove in the mud with street tires. Even better than the old cj5.

and a tip on breaking your dog from running deer.

Relatively cool weather greeted me this morning and it was a pleasant ride with the windows down to exercise the “girls” on the pine plantation that Cuz holds the hunting lease on. I was running a little late since I had stopped for gas after spraying the “Girls” pen this morning, when I met Tiny and Cuz’s Boy on the pavement just before turning into the gate. They were heading to fish the lakes in Pittsview this morning which is what Tiny does most Saturdays when hunting season is out.

I had decided to start at the Sand Pit because I hadn’t really run it since the Saturday that Miss Ruby visited us. I was taking my own sweet time putting on the snake chaps after liberally spraying the bug repellent on while the “girls“ danced at my feet. The recent rains guaranteed a bumper crop of bugs including the chiggars, or chiggers, as some spell it.

When I finished pouring up a cup of coffee to take with me, the little ladies were still under my feet in the pre-dawn darkness. I was wondering why they were still there instead of trying to find a rabbit. As I walked down the power line on the opposite side from the sand pit they still stayed under my feet despite my urgings to go find me a rabbit. From the way Dixie and Julie were acting, I began to suspect that there were deer around.

Those two little short legged beagles had been broke off of deer using a fresh deer leg in the back yard.

“Because Lucy, I want to check out an area I want a bow stand in during deer season”.
“Why do you get to chase deer, Boss, but you get mad if I do?”

Lucy was right on both points. There were a lot of rabbits where we started this morning. And I do get mad if she chases deer.

Top dog today was Dixie

I don’t listen to the radio much on the way to our hunting lease on a pine plantation in Seale, Alabama. Instead, I prefer to be alone with my thoughts on the ride down the back roads to Seale. It’s a time of reflection and remembrance for me. I’ve been riding these roads, off and on, for over thirty years, so there’s a lot of remembrance going on. Since I haven’t had much company this summer, it’s a good thing I don’t mind being alone.

“Come on, Lucy. It’s almost 10:30 and it’s getting hot.”

“Wait Boss. There’s a rabbit here. I know there is. I can smell him.”

Julie and Dixie ran over to Lucy’s barking and stopped. They looked longingly back at the Pathfinder before half heartedly putting their nose to the ground. I could tell they smelled the rabbit, but the scent wasn’t strong enough and they ran back to me.
“Nope, no rabbit, Boss. Lets go."

Lucy, if I can keep her off of deer, is going to be phenomenal.
Ever since she trailed her first bunny at the age of 12 weeks, Lucy’s nose has done nothing but impress me. I keep the collar on her, hoping she won’t run a deer but hoping she does.
What the heck does that mean?
If she’s going to run one I want to catch her red-handed and break her once and for all. So far, she’s had the benefit of the doubt.

Four o’clock in the morning comes early….about four o’clock.

I heard Tiny shouting something as djmed and I watched in the opposite direction, down the old logging road. I spun around camera in hand, in time to see, but not shoot the rabbit as he bounded toward djmed. I suspect he was going for the throat. It wasn't the first attack by the cabin rabbit.

I had met djmed for the morning’s pre-season race

djmed is to meet me this morning in Seale and Tiny called me last night telling me to wake him up when we got there. So much for my plan to run the thick thick planted pines in the very front. I was trying to avoid the mud holes before the cabin where Tiny pulls his fishing boat. Between his big truck and the boat trailer, some of the holes get deep

is the title of this post instead of the one I worked up in my head while speed walking through the piney woods of Seale which was “Liars, dang liars and rabbit dogs“.

The “Girls” lined up at the rear of the pathfinder in the warm pre- five o’clock air that had greeted me Saturday morning. Impatiently, Kate jumped up into Dixie’s compartment instead of waiting to be loaded in her own private compartment. I pulled her out, loading her into her plastic box behind the drivers seat. The box was one of Uncle NoPass’s that Brag and I had inherited and use since Kate doesn’t travel well.

As I was making a turn onto a side road, I felt something poke me in the neck. I tensed up until a whining voice said “Turn left here, Boss”
“It’s a right Lucy and what are you doing out of your box?”

I’m glad to have got your note. Air conditioning has just about ruined this Alabama boy. Yeah, I’m going to run the girls Saturday morning. Come on down. I put them out about 6.

Unfortunately, djmed didn’t respond, so I had to drop him this note.

for our guest and her entourage in the cool early morning at the 431 end of Poor House Road. When they pulled up, Brag asked “How far in do you think they’ll make it ” referring to the logging roads leading into the property

“Oh, about as far as your Toy truck ”
I suppose I shouldn’t have been to snide since I had talked Brag into using his truck instead of the pathfinder today on the basis of gas costs.

Ruby, our tricolored guest, appeared to have the run of the pretty, shinny, polished, and very White vehicle and came with her own entourage, chauffeur and quality of life givers, Mark and Susie. Still, the vehicle looked like it would have trouble going over speed bumps in the grocery store parking lot, much less some of the holes on our firebreaks.

my cardiologist, (Did you think he would be named anything else? This is Alabama.) on Monday. Dr. Bubba is a dedicated turkey hunter which puts him on the slightly insane side of hunting. I mean can you imagine going out in the dark of pre-morning and sitting hidden in thickets and brush like a rabbit while you try to call in a gobbler? Not with these things out looking for a rabbit dinner. Everything likes rabbits.
One thing is for certain, I won’t be needing a stress test when I see him.


The dogs were off running the second rabbit of the morning when I spotted him along a path “we” had already trod.