"Thank goodness I had a set of GF’s.” I yelled out the window when I pulled up next to the truck where Cuz, Brag and Rye, my rabbit hunting partners stood.
Cuz yelled back “ That new bride of yorns is gonna skin your butt when you get home…..that’s if I believed your story to begin with”

“All right, which one of you farted?”, I asked Maizie, Julie and Dixie, the three short legged beagles resting in their box behind the rear seat in GF’s new jeep. From the thumps coming from the Maizie’s side of the dog box, I know who I suspected. Despite the hectic morning that started when I couldn’t find my keys, my day just had to start shaping up. After all we were going to run the Capps place today. GF had loaned me her new jeep and I was making up for lost time as I barreled out Hwy 80 from Phenix City, Alabama towards Cuz’s house out near Crawford. Whether it was an act of true love on the part of my new bride or just a way to keep me from tearing up the house and destroying her beauty rest (not that she needs any) at such a ungodly hour, I really don’t know, but I suspect it was a combination.

Ding! Ding!
Hmmm what’s that? The old pathfinder I usually drove clanked, rattled, scrubbed and groaned. Strange odors occasionally emanated from it and not just from Maizie.
Sometimes it even grunted, but it never “dinged” Glancing at the instrument panel, I saw the low fuel light blinking at me. Great, here I am out past the Dixie school and I was low on gas. That probably explains the loan..she gets some gas out of the deal plus she’ll expect me to detail the Jeep Liberty when I’m finished with it. Still she could have told me before I got into the hinterlands of Alabama, away from the cheaper gas stations near the Alabama - Georgia border

It was still overcast and the green late spring/early summer veggitation dripped with water from yesterday evening’s rain. After we stopped after leaving the pavement at the entrance to the old Crapps place, Rye got out and used Cuz’s key to let us into the property. Cuz couldn’t make this trip. Mother in law not feeling good, Grandson’s ball game and a son that had to be out of town combined to put duties on Cuz that he normally didn’t have. The good thing was that since Cuz was going to miss out on the normally good races this prime rabbit land afforded that meant that he would want to go early next week while everyone but Rye and myself were at work. We hunted this land hard the last week of the 04-05 season.
As the two truck convoy passed the gates headed to the back of the property, we saw four rabbits witting on the side of the grass road watching us pass by.

We parked on the grassy road near the old farmhouse under skies that seemed to threaten rain. We let the six dogs out of their boxes, Brag and my three and Cuz’s three, Judy, Lady and Precious. Yeah, I said Precious.

I told Cuz in the last post that he should have known better than to take a free rabbit dog with a name like Precious. Besides, I feel like a utter fool, standing out in the woods pleading for the dog who has decided she doesn’t want to go back into the box to come.
“Precious, Here Precious, here!”
Precious, Jeeze.

After The dogs took care of some pressing needs, they jumped within ten yards of the vehicles. They were off and running for the next sixty five minutes. The beautiful music of their cries ringing up and out of the shallow bottom they were running in. Round and round , the six dogs chased the rabbit with “Precious” falling farther and farther behind. Now, I’m here to tell you that if fat Maizie can out run her, Precious has a problem. Cuz should rename her to something more presentable like “” and then give her away. She tries, but she acts a lot like fat Maggie who at the last was chasing rabbits that only she knew was there
The second and last race started near the lake and lasted for almost an hour and a half. We finally had to catch the dogs, one at a time, to break them off

“Either shoot it or stay out of the way!”, Dixie’s expressive eyes seemed to say as she yelped her way past me chasing the rabbit that I had lifted my leg to let pass. The rabbit had passed me by and ran under one of the large stands of honeysuckle that drape some briar and debris patches.
I was in such a rush this morning that I didn’t fully charge the battery for the Nikon Coolpix that I tote on all my trips. So, we all know that I didn’t see a rabbit despite the dogs running two races for almost 2 and a half hours. Till the battery had went dead.

After that it was rabbit after rabbit running past, near or, in the above case, almost over me. As the rabbit sprinted by, I yelled “Bang…….bang” “ I got him”
I worked my way back out to the grass road where Rye waited.
“I heard you” he said, “Did you see two rabbits?
“No I missed with my first shot”

Hopefully, we’ll exercise the dogs again before the week is out.