An interview with Guy de la Valdene, on The Fragrance of Grass, in which among many other things he says good things about writing by me, Joe Hutto, and Joel Vance, as well as his better- known hunting friends McGuane and Harrison. A cheerful reminder of why his book is so good…
Tag: Bird Hunting
Gallos de Floyd and Other Memories
Getting the “Gallo de Cielo” painting below from Tom Russell jogged my memory and made me dig up some photos from the early 80’s of my late mentor Floyd Mansell, his proud roosters, and one of him hunting with me and his then teen- aged son Phil (whose daughter is older today than he was …
The Fragrance of Grass
Guy de la Valdene’s new memoir The Fragrance of Grass (title from a line in a Jim Harrison poem) is out, and it is wonderful, even better than his earlier good books I think. It is an unusual combination of almost Proustian (but rural) memoir and sporting reminiscence, perhaps with echoes of Turgenev’s “notebooks” as …
The Kazakh Bird Dog
When I got Ataika from Kazakhstan years ago her people insisted that a good tazi would also work as a bird dog to the gun, and wouldn’t need much training. Atai has always worked as a hare courser and a falcon’s partner (see last weekend’s post) and during the one month she was taken out …
One More Autumn Nostalgia Photo
From Tim Gallagher in Ithaca: Native leaves, semi- exotic pheasant, exotic (French Manufrance Robust) gun…
Why I miss New England in the fall…
Ruffed grouse and woodcock, in the oven as well as in the field, or rather woods. We have no substitute for the second west of the Mississippi… Photo by Tim Gallagher, on opening day– really near Ithaca NY but I bet it smells and feels the same…
Vance Bourjaily RIP
Just got the news from Chad at Mallard of Discontent that novelist Vance Bourjaily is dead at 87. Bourjaily was considered one of the best of the postwar novelists and then just faded from popularity– I don’t know why, as I considered his best as good as any and better than most. He was unapologetically …