Lucy and Penny jumped this morning in the thick water soaked bottom below the ponds dam here at Rabbit Run only a few minutes after I let them out of the pen.
Katie came running back to me with Sammie and Sissy trailing a long. Sallie Mae went with Lucy and Penny chasing the big buck deer that hangs out in the thickets. This time it was a little different, I had Brag's collars on the Aunties and I used them. Rather harshly, I might add.

They broke off and returned to me. We made a circuit along the fence line with the dogs not showing any enthusiasm until we returned to the bottom. This time Lucy, then Penny got rather insistent that they smelled Rabbit. Katie sat next to me for a couple of minutes, head cocked, listening to Penny and Lucy's cold trail bark before she decided they indeed had a rabbits trail and raced into the brush with them.

Lucy was the first to hit it hot, followed by Katie, then Penny. I heard Sammie and Sissy a few times to. It was hard running. The bottom is soaked with seep water and pools left from the hard rains last week. Two of the three overflows are still running in the the pond. I could hear the girls (and Sammie) splashing along, running hot and cold as they acquired the trail and then lost it in the sheets of water.

They played with the rabbit (or maybe the rabbit played with them) for a good forty five minutes before losing the trail for good.

Not a bad morning, but nothing to brag about either.
28 days till the Alabama rabbit season starts

on the "girls" the other day.
No, not the electric one. As a matter of fact, it wasn't even a pine limb, it was a china berry limb. The dogtra pine limbs are having some problems.

But before I get into that, I have to apologize for not posting for the last few weeks.
Health matters, fencing and other chores here at the Rabbit Run estate along with a general malaise have kept me from regular (heck, any) posting. I hope to get back in the swing of things soon.
Remember that the offer for others to Post on The Rabbit Journal is still open.

I was stringing barbed wire up the hillside from the bottom where the pasture rabbit usually hangs out. The girls (and Sammie) were circling the pond when they opened up hot.
Two things caused some worry. I didn't hear Katie and the race was a long straight one that only a big buck rabbit (or a deer) would make before circling back

The deer hopped the fence at the far end of the pasture and paused to look back. I started off at a trot. I wanted to be there when the "girls" got there. I made it with enough time to break off a chinaberry limb and clean all the leaves off it while listening to Penny, Lucy and Sally. Sally has a very high pitched, almost bird like call.
When they crossed the line, I lit into them. Anybody watching would have thought I was a madman, swatting first one, then chasing the others to swing madly at the cowering dogs. Dr. Bubba, my cardiologist would have been proud of that workout.
I heard something and looked to see Katie cross the fence. I never heard her running. Was she following along or running silent?
Sammie came from the opposite direction. Did he get left or just wouldn't run the trash?
Sissy didn't come out. My cell phone, which GF makes me carry with me always since the heart doctor had told me that the damage might have been caused by a mild heart attack. I suppose the definition of mild is "is it your heart or is it mine?" started ringing. I answered it and heard Ms. Jones asking me if I was missing a beagle? She had one that was down at her barn playing with her granddaughter.
Sigh!

Until I get collars, the girls (and Sammie) are pen bound

Everybody says so.

Sigh!

I put the "Girls" (and Sammie) out in the "back yard" yesterday for a little exercise with the pasture rabbit. They trailed a long way, alternating their calls to each other as they respectively reacquired the track.
Just before, they put the bunny to flight, I heard "Aren't you just a cutiepie" from the direction of the neighbor's parents house.
I leaned against a pine and watched as the buck rabbit scooted under the barbed wire fence and down the draw leading to the pond. He was closely followed in order by Penny, Katie, Sally, with Lucy and Sissy running side by side.
Sally and Sissy weren't making a sound and both were running with their heads up.
There was no sign of Samuel P. Thumbsucker.

Huh? Huh? Are we there yet?
I gotta pee.
I smell a rabbit. You smell a rabbit? Lets run that one.
Are we there yet?
Sissy threw up on me….again
Let me ouuuuutttttttt

Suffice to say that Sammie doesn’t travel well at least in the same box as Sissy.

This continued on most of the way to Opelika. Haven, Brag, Dustin and I were meeting to go up to Plunker's place in Chambers County for a pre-season exercise.
Brag and I took all of the "Girls". And Sammie.
Haven brought only Elmer. Coco was in heat and Dixie was on the sold list.
Dustin, the former teat, brought Dustin's dog. And Tyler's stray.
Beagler 282 had been invited but had commitments for field trails.

To dry

Lucy picked up the rabbit near where we put out. It was a good though short run. The dogs had to much trouble staying on the dry scent on the dry brush. Today, Monday, would have been better after a good long soaking from the Sunday rainstorms.

Katie hit the next track. The dogs took off, but shortly Dustin's dogs, Elmer, and the pups came back. Lucy, Katie and Penny were gone a long while. Doubtful it was a deer. Katie won't run a deer. Lets put it this way, she hasn't ran a deer in years. Even Lucy and Penny have decided they are to much trouble.
Now a fox or a bobcat.........

We put the dogs up shortly after to wait for more favorable conditions.

GF asked after I put the girls (and Sammie) back in their pen. She had been on the screened in back porch listening to the race
Yep, but I had to fire both fingers.

I stood, this morning in the deep shade offered by tall privet, sweet gum and tall devils walking sticks . Only the occasional vine ran up the tree trunks in search of the light that was stopped by the thick canopy some twenty feet above the mostly barren ground. There was a line of big rubs made by a buck whitetail that often hid in the bottom during deer season.
My duty was to turn the rabbit as he made for the property line and the thick undergrowth that covered that section of a neighbor’s former pasture. I didn’t want the girls (and Sammie) tangling with his burro, if I could avoid it.

The Girls (and Sammie) were in hot pursuit of the pasture rabbit that they had jumped midway down the ponds drainage creek in the back yard of Rabbit Run. The shape of the area surrounded by pasture was roughly
//= = >O with the o being the pond.

There was a new voice joining in with Lucy‘s yard dog bark, Katie’s one note hammering and Penny‘s modified bay. Kind of a high pitched squeal. It wasn’t Sammie who sounds a lot like Penny, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Sissy, so that leaves Sally, the oldest of the puppies.

of gas has sharply curtailed my pre-season exercises this year.....at least the ones that require me to do any driving.
Fortunately, the pasture rabbit has been cooperating.
Since I had some family duties last Saturday, and Brag hadn't got with me, I figured if the girls (and Sammie) were going to get any exercise, I would have to just turn them out of the pen. Besides, I was tired of aerating the pasture anyway.

After all the bragging I've been doing about the pups, especially Sammie, it figures that they would act like pups and take the day off.
Samuel P Thumbsucker


was a thumbsucker from the word "getgo" with Sally


and Sissy quitting about 15 minutes later.


I was sitting on 2's new pontoon boat, named the "Why" watching the girls as they tried to find the rabbit they could smell along the edge of the thick undergrowth below the pond. I looked over and saw a set of ears in the grass rotating like radar dishes next to the fence line above the girls and parallel to me, only fifty yards from the pen. I started calling for the dogs and the rabbit took off. Kate spotted it as it hit the bushes and the chase was on.

Sammie got blocked by an exceptionally thick patch of briars and said the heck with it and came back to set at my feet. Sally and Sissy stayed with the "Girls" for a short period of time before coming back,
Lucy, Kate and Penny burned up that rabbit in a thicket just over my property line for a good hour and a half before losing the scent. Since it was lunch time and the heat of the day, they came back to the pen somewhat reluctantly, but come back they did

There was a explosion and fire in the data center where my hosts have The Rabbit Journal's server.
No, it was nothing that me or my alter ego's on my other sites posted. At least, that I know of.

Hopefully, I'll have a post up about Saturday's exercise while Plunker and I built a catch pen. Once again Sammy's willingness to go with the big dogs impressed while I just expect great things from Sally. Sissy, well to be polite, Sissy is lagging a little

was my first thought when I climbed into the pathfinder for our first pre-season exercise of 08.
The "Girls" look real thrilled about the day's trip, don't they?



I could tell you about all the rabbits Saturday.
I could tell you about how Sally at only 13 weeks ran with her Aunties the first time out.
I could tell you about how surprised I was to have the first day that the “girls” have had out of the pen in two months go so well.
Well, I could tell you