Hibernation's end

This has been the view from my studio window for the last 4 months. Snow and minus 40.

But today, the scene began to change. You see, there has been some sort of golden orb hovering in the sky lately. It seems to be radiating heat. Its the strangest thing I've ever seen. The old timers claim to know what it is. They call it "the sun". Apparently it will make all the snow melt soon. If it does, I am going to write that Al Gore fellow to thank him for all the hot air he's been sending our way.

As for our dogs, they've been hibernating since the last day of the hunting season just before Xmas. We lost Felix last fall to blastomycosis. I cried like a school girl for weeks and still whel up when I think about the old guy. Our remaining two are now starting to stir as the temperatures rise above minus hell-freezes-over.

Spring training should start in about a month. We will be back from Europe then. My wife and I leave for Prague in two weeks where we've made a date with some Cesky Fousek folks for a photo session and beer drinking seminar. We then head to Slovakia to meet some Rough Haired Slovakian Pointer people and photograph their rough haired dogs. Next, Budapest for a Vizsla photo session. Then we hop a plane for Paris.

We will be in France just in time for the spring field trials in Picardy which is still dotted with the scars of WWI battlefield trenches . They are now filled in of course and planted over with winter wheat. It is actually quite a beautiful area. Undulating fields of green, home to countless pairs of Grey Partridge make up the majority of the landscape. But the landscape is dotted with cemetaries and monuments, testament to the carnage that occured 90 years ago.

I'll photograph all the usual suspects: braques, epagneuls, setters, pointers. This time though I will also seek out the Dodo bird of bird dogs: The Boulet Griffon. Similar to the Korthals Griffon (WPG), the Boulet was in fact used as a founding breed of the Korthals but seems to have gone extinct. Although reports still surface once in a while of a Boulet Griffon been seen or found in some remote corner of the country, the only certified real-deal is a dog named Marco. He can be found at the Museum of natural history in a town called Elbeuf in north western France. It should be a pretty easy photo to take since I am sure he will not move much. He's been standing there, on point, stuffed for about a hundred years.

Winter is reading time for us, although I must admit to devouring books all year round. Lately I've been reading a lot about the history of dogs. One of the very best books on the subject I have read in a good long time is The Truth About Dogs by Stephen Budiansky. I am only half way through but have already decided to purchase a copy and to re-read it on our trip to Europe. The book is one of those rare works that really helps connect the dots when it comes to the history and evolution of the dog. It is very well written, an easy read and full of the kind of insights that are a refreshing change for the typical crap we so often read about dogs. Speaking of evolution, I finally purchased a copy of Darwin's Origin of Species instead of taking it out of the library again and again. I think it will make a nice addition to our own library.
Darwin was a fascinating fellow whose adventures are quite well described in another excellent book I read recently Bill Bryson's A Short History of Almost Everything. Bryson is an excellent writer with the rare gift of being able to make science not only understandable but endlessly fascinating to even the most ardent right-brainer. If I were to draw up a top ten list of books I've read this year, I think Bryson's book would be in spots 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. It's that good.

Doing it very, very old school.

What to do when the bird season ends? Well, how about helping a local hog farmer keep the pesky jack rabbit population down? In the last couple of weeks, we've been out with rifle and shotgun and have managed to get some meat for rabbit stew. But on this day, we decided to do it old school. Very old school. As in ancient 3000 year old school.

How do you do that you ask? Well step one is to leave the firearms at home. Step two is to enlist the help of a pretty Saluki named Kiki. The rest of the procedure is shown below: (click on any photo to see a bigger version)











The final photos where taken when the dog was almost a half a mile away. To my eye, it seemed as if we would be dining on teryaki jack later on. But it was not to be. It seems that at the last second, Bugs Bunny managed to get away from Kiki.

Oh well, better luck next time!!

Impressioni di settembre

In case you are wondering why I posted what seems to be some sort of latin text in the last post, it is actually a copy of the lyrics of a song entitled "Impressioni di settembre" by the Itlalian progressive rock group P.F.M. It was originally recorded in 1972.

It is an absolutely beatiful piece of music that I rediscovered after many years while I was surfing YouTube. The lyrics, in a nutshell, tell of a fellow waking up in a dew covered field of wheat, wondering just what the heck he is in this world. 25 years ago, when I first heard the song, I did not know what the lyrics meant. Now that I can understand them, when I heard the line "sembra quasi un mare d'erba" (it seems almost like a sea of grass), it reminded me of all the miles I've tramped through the grasslands of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Dakotas since then and, to be honest, brought tears to my eyes.

If you click on the title of this post, you will go to the You Tube link of a video of the song performed live by the band on tour in Japan in 2000. An absolutely classic piece of prog-rock with probably the best melotron line....ever.

Impressions of September

Quante gocce di rugiada intorno a me
cerco il sole, ma non c'è.
Dorme ancora la campagna, forse no,
è sveglia, mi guarda, non so.
Già l'odor di terra, odor di grano
sale adagio verso me,
e la vita nel mio petto batte piano,
respiro la nebbia, penso a te.
Quanto verde tutto intorno, e ancor più in là
sembra quasi un mare d'erba,
e leggero il mio pensiero vola e va
ho quasi paura che si perda...
Un cavallo tende il collo verso il prato
resta fermo come me.
Faccio un passo, lui mi vede, è già fuggito
respiro la nebbia, penso a te.
No, cosa sono adesso non lo so,
sono un uomo, un uomo in cerca di se stesso.
No, cosa sono adesso non lo so,
sono solo, solo il suono del mio passo.
e intanto il sole tra la nebbia filtra già
il giorno come sempre sarà.

Orpheus

Since his untimely departure on the opening day of the hunting season we have done our best to honour Felix's memory by taking to the field as often as possible. I suppose that everyone has their own way to grieve. Ours was to head west and walk about a hundred miles over the wind blown prairies of Saskatchewan and North Dakota. Nothing like a whole lot of nothing to clear the mind.

About 3 days into our wandering, at the top of a hill near Estevan we found a small rock pile. So we decided to take a break from chasing sharptailed grouse and grey partridges to choose a few stones to bring home with us. As we searched the pile for just the right rocks the lyrics of a beautiful song by David Sylvian came to mind.

Standing firm on this stony ground
The wind blows hard
Pulls these clothes around
I harbour all the same worries as most
The temptations to leave or to give up the ghost
I wrestle with an outlook on life
That shifts between darkness and shadowy light
I struggle with words for fear that they'll hear
But Orpheus sleeps on his back still dead to the world
Sleepers sleep as we row the boat
Just you, the weather, and I gave up hope
But all of the hurdles that fell in our laps
Were fuel for the fire and straw for our backs
Still the voices have stories to tell
Of the power struggles in heaven and hell
But we feel secure against such mighty dreams
As Orpheus sings of the promise tomorrow may bring

How did you live?

There comes a point in every game of tug-o-war where the stalemate is broken. One side finally overwhelms the other. Collapse follows.



We’d seen small signs of hope last week. We’d been buoyed by his will to fight, to live, to steal my shoes once again. But we could hear the rope creaking. The tug-o-war was heating up. Finally, a few days ago, the stalemate broke. He slipped as that f***ing awful disease gained the upper hand.

And then, he died.

In our arms.

Sadly.

Properly.

Reminding us that even the mightiest hunter is also the hunted.

But he lived. O boy, did he live! For 10 years, with complete abandon, Félix freight-trained his way through life, through fields and forests, doors and windows.

I lost count of the miles he covered.

Spring and summer in the water, autumn in the fields, and winter on the frozen river, pulling a sled single-handedly.

There and back.

But more than anything, Félix did what he was put on this earth to do. He pointed.

He pointed game that we should bring to the table, while pointing out our less-than-steady aim.

He made it a point to prove to us that he was faster, stronger, and in many ways, smarter than us.

And he pointed us towards a delicious curiosity in everything canine, leading us to travel half way across the world to learn all we can about these amazing creatures.

And in the end, he showed us just how deeply he had burrowed into our hearts. Hearts that will soon be on the mend, thanks to the kind thoughts of friends and family whose lives he also touched.

Felix was Felix.