And now for something photo-related

When I am not in out in the field with my dogs, I spend much of my time in the darkroom working with old-school photographic papers and chemicals. And when I say old school, I mean really old school.... as in mid-1880's-0ld-school.

One of my favorite techniques is known as platinum/palladium printing. In a nutshell, it means coating cotton paper, by hand, with solutions of platinum and palladium salts and then exposing the paper, under a negative, to ultraviolet light. The result is a warm-toned photographic image of delicate, subtle tone. The photo of Felix and Souris above is a platinum print. On screen it looks OK, but the print is really something to behold if I do say so myself.

A few years ago, I worked out a method to coat kind of paper that everyone thought would never work. I then wrote a small "how to" booklet to share the technique with other platinum/palladium printing enthusiasts. I sold a fair number of the booklet and got some great feedback from the folks that tried my technique.

Recently, I revised the booklet and had it completely redesigned. Today, I am happy to announce that it is now available for purchase on line!

It is called Vouloir C'est Pouvoir which means "Where there is a will there is a way" and is available through the fine folks at Blurb. You can get a sneak preview below and if you want to order one as a stocking stuffer for the old school photo dweeb in the family, just click that shiny "buy" button....you know you want to!

Vouloir C'est Pouvoir by Craig Koshyk | Make Your Own Book

Photos, finally!!

Just got a note from our Dutch friends Marjolein and Roel. They are now back in Holland with a head full of hunting memories and two dogs that have certainly earned a huge bag of biscuits for all their hard work in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota.

I've been very busy putting the finishing touches on the massive never ending book project, but took some time off to upload some photos from the season.

Click the photo of Henri pointing or on the title of this post to view the gallery.

Enjoy!

Dutch Mojo

Just popped into town for a booze run.... not much time to write, but I can say that our Dutch guests certainly have some mighty powerful MOJO working for them!

Weather? Perfect
Birds? Gajillions
Dog work? Outstanding.
Every single dog has been on a freakin hot streak!!

Uma, my wife's 7 year old Ponto has pointed about 8 snipe in her life, 6 of them yesterday!!

Maizey my LH female somehow figured out stop to flush on her own and yesterday I kept her steady to wing and shot...and I have NEVER trained her for that! She had 11 points in just over an hour while running like a field trial dog. (note to self, check the pedigree one more time...there HAS to be some yankee FT blood in there somewhere even if she is from Germany!)

Zeiss, my buddy's LH male has been putting on a clinic on how to hunt grouse. His run, point, fetch..everything is off the charts right now. Mar had a hard time believing he is German!

Henri is still battling Giardia, but he put on a picture perfect run and pointed like a seasoned pro the day before yesterday. Today he will be back out there to demonstrate the concept of "rockin and rollin" in the big wide open fields we have out here.

The two dogs that Marjolein and Roel brought with them have been doing great! Barak is a 7 year old Drent Partridge dog and he is really living up to his name...he is handling our "partridges" very well! The day before yesterday (his first day here) I hunted with him and Uma, the Ponto. Barak had a beautiful point on a ruffie and Uma backed him. That alone was a sight to see! But then Mar gave the command for Barak to flush (that is how they do it in Holland) and I became the only person on the planet to ever shoot a ruffed grouse over the point of a Drent Partridge Dog, backed by a Pont Audemer Spaniel....with a French Darne shotgun!!!

Mar's young LH weim Dirkje has been very impressive. She is only just over a year old but has managed to point grouse, snipe and woodcock...and she has never been hunting before! We've run her with some of the more experienced dogs to help her figure things out but it looks like she can figure them out for herself! And on top of being a great hunter, she is really pretty (I could say the same thing about Marjolein, but I don't want to make her husband jealous)....

All in all, the Dutch Adventure has started off with a bang...actually lots of bangs!

Other tidbits:
Barak's new nickname is Mouffette (skunk in French... he got a little too close to one on his first day in the field!).
Mar is a really good shot...better than all the guys combined I think.
Snipe fried in butter is like heaven on a cracker.
Grouse cooked any way you like is even better.
There is water everywhere....bring extra socks and boots if you venture north this year

Ok, time to get back at it...more updates later

Dutch Invasion Update

Just popped into town for a booze run.... not much time to write, but I can say that the Dutch have some mighty powerful MOJO working for them!

Weather? Perfect
Birds? Gajillions
Dog work? Outstanding.
Every single dog has been on a freakin' hot streak!!

Uma, Lisa's 7 year old Ponto has pointed about 8 snipe in her life, 6 of them yesterday!!

Maizey our LH Wein somehow figured out stop-to-flush on her own and yesterday I kept her steady to wing and shot...and I have NEVER trained her for that! She had 11 points in just over an hour while running like a field trial dog. (note to self, check the pedigree one more time...there HAS to be some yankee FT blood in there somewhere even if she is from Germany!)

Zeiss, my buddy's LH male has been putting on a clinic on how to hunt grouse. His run, point, fetch..everything is off the charts right now. Mar had a hard time believing he is German!

Henri is still battling Giardia, but he put on a picture perfect run and pointed like a seasoned pro the day before yesterday. Today he will be back out there to demonstrate the concept of "rockin and rollin" in the big wide open fields we have out here.

The two dogs that Marjolein and Roel brought with them have been doing great! Barak is a 7 year old Drent Partridge dog and he is really living up to his name...he is handling our "partridges" very well! The day before yesterday (his first day here) I hunted with him and Uma, the Ponto. Barak had a beautiful point on a ruffie and Uma backed him. That alone was a sight to see! But then Mar gave the command for Barak to flush (that is how they do it in Holland) and I became the only person on the planet to ever shoot a ruffed grouse over the point of a Drent Partridge Dog, backed by a Pont Audemer Spaniel....with a French Darne shotgun!!!

Mar's young LH weim Dirkje has been very impressive. She is only just over a year old but has managed to point grouse, snipe and woodcock...and she has never been hunting before! We've run her with some of the more experienced dogs to help her figure things out but it looks like she can figure them out for herself! And on top of being a great hunter, she is really pretty (I could say the same thing about Marjolein, but I don't want to make her husband jealous)....

All in all, the Dutch Adventure has started off with a bang...actually lots of bangs!

Other tidbits:
Barak's new nickname is Moufette (skunk in French... he met Pepee le Pew on his first day out).
Mar is a really good shot...better than all the guys combined I think.
Snipe fried in butter is like heaven on a cracker.
Grouse cooked any way you like is even better.
There is water everywhere....bring extra socks and boots if you venture north this year

Ok, time to get back at it...more updates later

A Dutch Invasion!

The season is in full swing up here and I've only encountered one problem... I've been so busy hunting behind up to 5 dogs per day that I have not taken very many photos!!

But I will be putting down the shotgun and picking up the canon (camera) starting today so that I can get some photos of our dogs and the Dutch dogs that are here to hunt our Canadian birds!

Yes, that's right, my Dutch friends Marjolein and her partner Roel are here and will be spending two weeks in the great white north chasing birds with their dogs (one LH Weim, one Drent) and ours (two SH weims, two LH weims, two Pontos).

We have an action packed agenda set out for them and should have some photos and videos to post very soon.

Stay tuned!!

Henri vs. a Snake

There are no venomous snakes native to Manitoba. But there are stinky ones! In fact, Manitoba is home to one of the largest populations of Red-Sided Garter Snakes in the world. This year their numbers seem to be way up. We come across dozens of them every day as we chase sharptails.

Yesterday Henri, who up till now has ignored them, had an interesting encounter with a particularly pissed off garter snake. After pointing a couple of them sunning themselves in an open field, and being scolded for doing so, Henri decided to actually grab one and shake it. He was about a hundred yards away from me, so I could not really see exactly what happened, but I saw him grab something long and noodle-like and then yelp.

Now, garter snakes are not venomous but they do have teeth and they can bite. That is probably what caused the yelp. They can also release an extremely foul smelling musk as a defense. And that is probably what caused Henri to run back to me and toss his cookies. Or at least he tried to. His stomach was empty (I don't feed my dogs before a run) so he basically stood beside me dry-heaving and then spitting up a bit of white foam. He must have got a full blast of snake musk right down the gullet!

Of course, when you see a dog heaving but not really puking anything up, you naturally start to worry about gastric torsion. Even though I knew Henri had nothing in his stomach to bring up, I was still concerned enough to call it a day and drive straight home.

Last night he seemed more or less fine, but his gut really gurgled loudly this morning. A bit of Pepto Bismol took care of that.

Now he is lying at my feet snoring.

And I am praying he doesn't fart.

That would probably give ME the dry heaves!!