Our thirteen- year- old English lurcher from David Hancock, once one of the best single- hand hare hounds in the southwest, father and grandfather of other great dogs, mostly content to dream on the couch. Unless he sees a hare…
Author: Steve Bodio
Commonplace Book: I don’t want to kill a tiger but…
From a letter Peter Fleming, Ian’s older brother and the better writer (News From Tartary— all the other editions are insanely expensive and this gives you two good books in one volume), wrote to his four- year- old son in England while he was working in intelligence in Burma in WW II: “If you are …
Training
I like my dogs & hawks to– literally– be able to share a lure or kill. For just one thing it makes the birds eagle- proof in the western field; for another it just makes everything easier. Ataika is a good teacher.
I’m OK!
I am getting some vague hints that people are everything from worried to flat- out saying I am in bad shape– not from any who have actually been here like Paul or Rebecca, but by those who hear rumors from those that speculate or ??? I am here to say: such rumors are EMPHATICALLY not …
From the Commonplace Book
“…one must never be deterred from doing what one wants for lack of money don’t you agree?” (Nancy Mitford to Robert Byron) On the late President Turkmenbashi of Turkmenistan:“Stories trickling out of the country described a tyrant with the flair of Liberace and the savagery of Stalin”. (Eric Enno Tamm, The Horse that Leaps Though …
Pakistan
Ali Hasnain hunts in a slightly grander and very traditional way– on a friend’s estate, with beaters! (His rookie of the year, Sonya, is listening alertly for them in the pic). This hunt took place in a watery oasis in desert country. We hope to get more reports from him including on falconry if he …
Scotland
Mark McBride may take the largest and most varied bag of any of us as he does pest control and other hunting on neighbors’ Scottish estates. This day saw the initiation of Taik’s niece Nura to ferreting for rabbits. She caught on quickly– no surprise. Nura (the name of the eagle & tazi town in …
Friends in action
New Mexico, Scotland, Pakistan– everywhere friends with dog relatives and near- relatives seem to be having wonderful seasons. Starting close to home, Daniela attended an informal meet where, as she put it: “…every hound in the field that day was descendant from Libby & Steve’s hounds, including these two 5 month puppies, Lily & Lola, …
Visitor
John Davila, one of my oldest and closest friends in New Mexico, is a former rodeo cowboy and a rancher with land- grant roots who lives where he was born, many long dirt- road miles south of the pavement in Catron County. These days he raises half- Japanese grass- fed cattle, another story, and manages …
A Merlin
Up in Colorado Anne Price (of the REF) and her female merlin Larkyn have also been busy. “… a week after almost losing her, my gal did the craziest thing I’ve ever seen her do in 3.25 seasons of flying her: she went and robbed/stole a starling from a wild female prairie falcon! It was …