Home Range

Remembering

2012-01-01T10:05:00.000-08:00

This past Friday, December 30, my father would have been 91. I had a challenging piece of work planned, but at sunrise, halfway through my second cup of coffee, I knew I'd be going to the woods.

In Northeast Texas, where Blackland Prairie gives way to the Red River breaks, steep-banked creeks cut fine, broad hardwood bottoms.

After a brutal summer, fall rains reassured us that life might go on.

Early afternoon, in shirtsleeve weather, I cast Cate east along a certain creek in Lamar County. I didn't expect much in the way of game then. There were no pleasant surprises the first couple hours, but no shortage of pleasure. Were I a more efficient hunter, I'd have saved our energy for the last two hours of the day, when squirrels and other diurnal wild things stir before denning.

Someone shake a vine. Cate says there's a squirrel up there.

Late afternoon, things picked up a bit.

Why do dogs always prefer the far side of the creek, especially when you aren't wearing hip boots?

An unexpected gift: A woodcock hen.

Gumbo or burgoo? We added a few more squirrels before dark.

Just after sundown, with barely enough light, I cleaned the day's bounty on the tailgate. For a few minutes, I knew only a snoring dog, tired back, bloody hands, the feel of feathers and fur, the smell of life and death, cedar and a cooling creek bottom. We humans are simple creatures, but we have long memories.

Ritual

2011-12-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

Of course I had to comment on the H-A-I-R. Cade just shrugged and said that's the way he and his skater buddies wear it out in Southern California. I said he looked awfully 1974. He mumbled something about cavemen and barbers.

Cade and Cate in camp. Yes, the names cause all kinds of confusion.

I get my grandson a few days every hunting season, and a couple weeks every summer, during which we set out jug lines for catfish, talk about hunting dogs, and make elaborate plans for our next squirrel hunt.

When Cade was eight, I told him I'd get him a .22 rifle when he turned 12. I thought I had plenty of time. This past September, it occurred to me that he'd be 12 when he arrived for Thanksgiving. A few weeks later I visited a certain gun shop. When the avuncular fellow behind the counter asked if he could help me, I said, "My Grandson just turned 12."

He nodded and said, "It's time, then."

"It is."

"May I suggest a bolt-action? We wouldn't want to encourage hasty aiming."

"My thinking exactly."

Half an hour later I walked out with a new rifle and the realization that I was about to lay a firearm - not a BB gun, not a pellet gun - in my grandson's hands. How did my father handle the task with such apparent equanimity?

Of course Cade did fine. He'd been handling air rifles for years while I harped on safety.

We need to work on form, but he's getting there.

For our hunt, I let Cade carry my light 20-gauge. Gray squirrels can be a challenge for even expert riflemen. He'd have a better chance with the shotgun. He carried his shells, but could load only after Cate treed and we were in position.

Ferns growing on a gnarled post oak.

We hunted a certain creek bottom in Anderson County. This phone camera photo doesn't do justice.

Good hunting, good country, great company.

Cade is back in California now, and his .22 is locked away in the safe. The best hunting of the season lies ahead, in late December and January. But the best part of the season ended the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Magazine Updates

2011-12-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

After much procrastination, I've updated my website, adding links to recent magazine work. I hope you'll take a look at "Black Bear Recovery in Texas," "The Texas Horned Lizard," "A Light in the Wilderness," and a bunch of Texas Wildlife working dog columns.

Paradise

2011-12-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

Age and throat cancer have taken their toll, but the great John Prine's voice has only grown more interesting. This is one of my favorites.

Mid-Season Progress Report

2011-12-05T17:46:00.001-08:00

Timber over the entrance to Donny Lynch's East Texas Hunting camp

Here in North Texas, despite recent rain, we're still in the midst of what has been shaping up to be the new Drought of Record, one worse than the disastrous drought of the 1950s. Other parts of the state have been in even worse shape. Ranchers have been selling off cattle. Tens of thousands of acres have burned. Wildlife has suffered horribly.

I probably won't hunt quail this year. The annual census reports the lowest count on record. Although I might hunt woodcock in the Pineywoods this coming January, I consider Maggie, my beloved old bird dog, retired. She may be my last bird dog. There have been too many years of running talented dogs into the ground for one or two coveys. It takes wild birds to make a good bird dog, and my last two have come nowhere near their potential.

Treeing dogs are another matter. A few years ago, I realized that I simply wanted to hunt with dogs, and that I needed to adjust to changing realities.

Enter Cate.

I can't believe she's already four years old. She hit her stride last season in large part because I can get her into game a couple times a week without driving halfway across the state.

Still, this season started off hot, dry, buggy, and slow - an extension of the summer that wouldn't end.

What happened to the lake? The view from Harris Creek, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, a grim, early October scene on the way to my favorite local hunting spot. On the upside, dabbling ducks will have plenty to eat when (and if) the lake covers all those weeds.

But there were plenty of fox squirrels in the oaks along creeks that feed the Red River. And a billion leaves that made finding squirrels nearly impossible. And hollow trees:

A hollow excuse. Hasty snapshot of Cate cussing One that Got Away. One of many, actually.

Nevertheless, Cate and I added game to the freezer, and I applied various ineffective goops to bug bites and poison ivy welts.

Mid-October, I headed to deep East Texas to hunt with my old friend Donny Lynch and his nephew Nathan Lynch. Hunting with the Lynch Boys is serious business.

The Lynch Boys and the dogs after a morning hunt in the big woods near Marshall, Texas. Cate's expression sums it up. The other dogs are Queen, a feist (at Donny's knee), Ranger, a feist (lying on the tailgate), and Red, a rat terrier (with Nathan).

A good season so far. Now we're having our first real cold snap, and I find myself looking at a graying bird dog and thinking about the Pease River breaks in the Panhandle, rough pastures of little bluestem, prickly pear and cholla, and bobwhite quail that used to be there.

Back on the Road

2011-12-05T15:10:00.001-08:00

Driving out of a creek bottom after a morning squirrel hunt in Anderson County, Texas.

Here we go again. Another blog revival. Why bother after a year-long hiatus?

Beats me. It just feels like something I need to do. This past year has been the busiest of my writing career, and I don't see things letting up anytime soon. Still, I have some things to say that don't quite fit in my books and magazine articles, and there's the restorative effect of fall after a brutal summer here in Texas.

Many thanks to my fellow bloggers who've kept me on blog rolls during my long absence. I hope you'll bear with me as I get back into the rhythm. As always, I'll be all over the place, from the hunting and nature writing people expect, to more philosophical postings. As much as possible, I'll avoid politics, but I'm sure something will send me around the bend, and I won't be able to help myself. In those instances, I'll have to ask for your indulgence. I promise not to be nasty and hope you'll return the favor.

Onward!

Ray Wylie Fix

2010-10-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

Near and Dear

2010-10-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, little time, short drive, quick hunt, happy dog, sanity restored.

Little Cate Cur, Big-Time Magazine Diva

2010-10-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, she's not on the cover. That's Chance, Donny Lynch's rat terrier. Wyman shot that photo a few years back.

But Earl Nottingham, TPW's chief photographer, got some great shots of Cate working a few trees. The online version has only one, but it's a good one. The print version, which is on newsstands right now, has more. And some more good shots of Donny's dogs.

Unbelievable...

2010-09-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

I'm speechless.

One of My Favorite McMurtry Tunes

2010-09-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

James McMurtry and his band before a rather ... uh ... mellow Dutch crowd. If you like this at all, you'll love it on Live in Aught-Three. Enjoy!

Herd Guardian Documentary

2010-09-18T11:40:00.000-07:00

For the past few months, I've received a lot of positive feedback on an article I wrote on herd guardian dogs, with the help of the estimable Cat Urbigkit. Fortunately for my interested readers, a crack(ed )film crew recently descended on the Pinedale, Wyoming area to get the real story. So set back and thrill to the ruthlessness of predator and the courage and resourcefulness of the guardian:

Beagling!

2010-09-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a great beagling video. My thanks to Gregg Barrow for sending it along:

One of the things I like about it is that it debunks the common myth that hounds can't or shouldn't be obedient. Although beagles have no peers when it comes to hunting cottontails, most will also do yeoman work on quail and woodcock. I was eleven or twelve years old, watching Feller, my beagle, silently working scent along a grown-up fence row, when my father said, "He's working birds. Let's get up there." Sure enough, about the time we got within shotgun range, Feller flushed the covey. From then on, whenever, he'd get really gamey, but didn't open up, I'd hustle to within shotgun range. Old Feller got me a lot of shots at gamebirds, and I've seen a number of beagles do the same since. Given a little encouragement, most beagles will retrieve as well. They're versatile little hunters and great with kids.

Looking for a first hunting dog? Find a well-bred beagle pup, make friends with her, and just go hunting. You'll figure it out together.

Sweet Relief

2010-09-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

It's drizzly, breezy, and cool this morning in North Texas, after a dry, blistering August. Rain fell most of yesterday. Just after sunrise I heard the distant popping of hunters shooting at, and probably missing, the few resident mourning doves that didn't head south when the cool front arrived. No worry. Migrants from Oklahoma and Kansas will arrive in a few weeks.

Cate and Maggs are soaking wet and feeling fine, treeing backyard squirrels, barking through the wrought iron fence at cottontails in the neighbors' yards. For the first time since May, I can imagine following a dog through the woods or across prairie.

Looking out my office window at drizzle falling on erstwhile prairie reminds me of the effect of rain on Blackland clay. Which, in turn, reminds me of this little Corb Lund tune:

So you'll know that I haven't been slacking...

2010-08-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

Wyman Meinzer and I just completed Under One Fence: The Waggoner Ranch Legacy. It'll be out this fall.

Check out this short video on the project, narrated by Wyman.

On the off-chance you're still checking this blog...

2010-08-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

At my website, I've added links to a bunch of my newer Texas Wildlife working dog columns and feature articles, including a three-part series on "The Trained Retrieve," with help from Gregg Barrow, a sighthound piece with input from Matt and Steve, and a herd guardian article featuring Cat Urbigkit. You can check them out here.

My website has suffered as much neglect as this blog. I'm slowly working it back into shape, adding new stuff and deleting or moving old stuff.

This past year has been my busiest by far, and the next nine months will be crazy, but I hope to revive Home Range and get back to regular blog reading and commenting.

To my friends who've kept me on their blog rolls for the past year, many thanks.

Why is it so hard?

2009-10-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

I know this:

250 words, get up and get another cup of coffee.
250 words, get up and scratch the dogs' ears.
250 words, eat lunch.
250 words, declare victory and spend the rest of the day editing, chasing new work, bookkeeping or, better, yet, walking, working dogs, hunting, or working in the garden.

I'm happiest, sometimes nearly euphoric when I'm writing. I know from long experience, that I need to get my 1000 words in before mid-afternoon, after which my mind slows. I know that I'm tormented when I don't get my work done.

Why, then, do I fight it? Why do I so often sit, churn, and obsess rather than simply write "one true sentence?"

I often wonder if that mental interference or static is really destructive, a symptom of some character flaw or inborn limitation, or somehow essential.

Rabbit Dogs!

2009-10-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

For my fellow beagle lovers:

http://vimeo.com/3020911

Thanks to beagle man Andrew Sullivan.

In Season: a Louisiana Falconer's Journal by Matt Mullenix

2009-09-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

The top shelf above my desk holds a couple dozen books by authors who might be classified, broadly, as nature writers. More precisely, these are writers who have written beautifully about wildlife and wild places, people, and cultures. Lopez, Chatwin, Abbey , Bowden – lofty company. A bunch of excellent writers, folks whose work I admire, whose talent I envy, can’t quite make it to this shelf. While most of these top shelf books are well-known and a few have been canonized, some are tragically under-read, mostly because their small publishers can’t afford to promote them, and, on the surface, they seem to be about subjects many people would consider arcane.
For example, between books written by a certain gun nut and bibliophile known to fly gos hawks and run fast dogs in the vicinity of Magdalena, New Mexico, and A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, you’ll find a thin volume about hunting with a Harris hawk in southeastern Louisiana.

Or I should say that In Season: A Louisiana Falconer’s Journal by Matt Mullenix is only in the broadest sense about hawking in Louisiana. Consider this early passage in which Matt and his three year-old twin daughters, Maggie and Briana, approach a backyard trap containing a live house sparrow that will be fed to Charlie, a Harris hawk:

“You catch a sparrow, Daddy?”

Yes, well. Look at that.

The sparrow fluttered wildly from one side of the cube to the other at our approach. West Nile Virus is rampant here, and about 10 percent of the sparrows I catch are dull, thin, and variably disoriented. No medical diagnosis, but suggestive and ominous. This one seemed quite fit.

“I want to be nice, please.”

“Me too – be nice!”

We have been through this before, albeit obliquely: Charlie has to eat; Charlie eats small birds; ergo, Daddy keeps sparrows in the freezer for Charlie’s dinner. Chicken is a bird and we all like chicken, don’t we? These are Charlie’s little chickens!

But now I was going to kill a sparrow in front of my lambs…There was panic, then guilt. This was becoming a long walk to the corner of the house.

“You going to get him, Daddy?”

Yep. Daddy is going to get him.

Matt describes the young male sparrow in his fist, “shedding heat and heartbeats into my palm,” and, with his back turned to his girls, quickly breaking its neck and hoping it wouldn’t bleed much.

He takes the still warm bird to his daughters.

“Oh! He sleepin’?”

No. He’s dead, honey.

“I be nice.”

Maggie pet the still-warm sparrow, pulling back a small gray feather with her finger. She stared at this. Briana asked to hold the sparrow. I hesitated, feeling its blood now wet between my fingers, but let her have it anyway. She said an amazing thing: “Can we feed Charlie?”

I read this one night after supper and knew that I would be up late.

As the title says, In Season is organized as a journal of a single hunting season beginning mid-August and running through February. There are fine descriptions of hunts, of course, the serious hawker’s nearly obsessive tracking of his bird’s weight, and monthly tallies of game taken. In general, I dislike score keeping, but in this case, I sense that Matt is simply giving Charlie credit and charting his trials and progress much as hunting dog nuts recall coveys pointed and game treed.

More importantly In Season tells the story of a young man’s efforts to responsibly weave his hunting into his everyday life and to be at home in his chosen place, the prairies, woods , and sloughs around Baton Rouge. With restrained, precise prose, Matt describes his struggle to balance sport, work, and family responsibility. He wants his daughters to understand and appreciate his passion and believes that the connections between falconer, hawk, land, and prey can teach important lessions, whether or not the girls ever take up falconry. He knows that his wife, Shelly, can never truly understand, yet she supports his passion and does her best to help him find time to hunt.

On my hunting nights we have show-and-tell. Daddy at the window, wet and full of seeds. The girls push their faces against the glass and want to see what Charlie caught. If there’s something left, I show them. I turn it in my hands in the light from the kitchen; point out wings and the feet and the place where Charlie ate its head.

“Oh, he ate that? That’s funny!” says Maggie

I wonder that it might be.

Shelly watches. She’s trying to be neutral, happy for the girls to ask about the birds – happy there’s a pane of glass between us.

As hunting, with the modern emphasis on destinations and equipment and the “experience of a lifetime,” becomes just another form of high-end recreation, it’s encouraging to read about a man and his hawk heading out to small fields close to home. Matt’s descriptions of his barebones, ready-to-go-at-a-moment’s notice approach made me take a look at my own hunting style to see if I couldn’t simplify and keep things a little closer to home. I haven’t quite whittled my gear down to rotting, second-hand sneakers and mud and seed-encrusted jeans, but I’m making progress. Having hunted with Matt, I can now say, with some relief, that he does resort to rubber boots on cold, wet February days.

Then there’s his friendship with Ida, a brave elderly woman who loves birds in general, hawks in particular, and riding around with Matt. I won’t spoil this part of the story with an excerpt.

I count In Season among the best outdoor/nature books I’ve read. As a regular reader of the blog Querencia, I’ve long known that Matt Mullenix is a fine writer, but I wasn’t quite prepared for In Season.

But now you are prepared. Read In Season. Trust me; you don’t have know anything about falconry. If you care about country, wild things, home, family, and friends, you’ll understand Matt Mullenix perfectly.

But Where Do They Put Their Dog Box?

2009-09-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, so they're not feeding the world, but you have to admit that this is pretty cool.

Want Peace? Elect Scrawny Men.

2009-08-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

Breaking news:

1. Among men, there seems to be a link between physical strength and aggressiveness. (You may have noticed that NFL linebackers seem eager to engage in violent collisions with other large, strong men. Likewise, your average boxer seems overjoyed to have knocked an opponent unconscious in the ring. )

2. Exceptionally beautiful women can be, at times, a little... well... high-maintenance. (Enough said.)

As always, Home Range provides clear-eyed analysis of the latest science. According to Tom Jacobs at Miller-McCune:

"The power of [Vladimir] Putin's symbolism [expressed in recent photos showing his physicue] is explained by a provocative paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Authors Sell, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, link physical strength in men with both a propensity to anger easily and a favorable attitude toward the use of force to settle political disputes.

"'If governmental decision-makers are like other humans, then their musculature may be playing a role, unconnected from rational evaluation, in their decisions to go to war,"'they write. It's a bold statement, but one based on a somewhat startling premise: Brawniness, they contend, is next to thuggishness."

Jacobs quotes psychologist Aaron Sell:

"This model of behavior, in Sell's words, 'predicts that individuals with enhanced abilities to inflict costs or to confer benefits will anger more easily, for two related reasons. First, their greater ability to withdraw benefits or inflict costs translates into greater leverage in bargaining over conflicts of interest, meaning that anger is more likely to be successful for them. ... Second, their greater leverage leads them to expect that others will place greater weight on their welfare.'"

The researchers tested their hypothesis by measuring upper body strength of university students and subjecting them to questions designed to measure their temper, history of conflict, and general hawkishness. Not surprisingly, the stronger students seemed to have shorter fuses and placed greater importance on national defense than did their less-brawny counterparts.

I accept their results, but I'm not buying their broader interpretation.

Early in my rather short and unremarkable college football career I noticed, like most of the other freshmen athletes, that the biggest assholes, the ones most likely to start a fight, were nearly always marginal upperclassmen who felt threatened by more talented underclassmen. The most physically imposing players, though they were extremely violent on the playing field, were more likely to be humble and easy-going off the field. Sure, some were thugs, but most weren't. The strongest man on the team, a guard who could bench press well over 500 pounds, had a reputation for being especially kind and helpful toward freshmen.

Perhaps strong men fought more during their playground and locker room years simply because they believed they had a good chance of defending themselves whereas weaker boys and young men chose to flee or put up with abuse rather than risk a beating. Please understand that I'm not excusing or minimizing the misery inflicted by sadistic jocks and other large thugs. Nearly every group has its sadists and violent, capricious, paranoid kooks. I suspect that bullies tend to be physically strong only because strong young men have an easier time bullying. Are we to assume that violent fantasies and tendencies are extremely rare among weaklings?

During my years in the engineering world, I noticed no connection between physical stature and belligerence. In fact, the most notorious corporate bullies and guerrilla warriors - the ones I had the poor fortune to work with, anyway - were physically unremarkable. I assume that their apparent arrogance and pugnacity stemmed from inborn temperament and the cognitive ability that allowed them to dominate their high-tech work environment.

Admittedly, mine isn't a scientific survey, but I stand by it. When I was young, I loved to hit people on the football field. I'll even go so far as to say that I enjoyed the unavoidable pain that comes with any good collision. I never felt a moment's remorse about the separated shoulders, cracked ribs, and at least one concussion that I caused. I had my share of off-the-field brawls, though I never started one, and I've always hated bullies. And I damn sure understood the difference between behind-the-bowling alley fisticuffs and a military invasion. I don't think I'm unique in that regard.

Fresh out of college, I reported to my first engineering job along with about a dozen other young engineers and scientists. Compared to today's collegiate football players, I was a little fart, but I was far and away the biggest guy in my group of new-hires, and the only ex-jock. During that first week, our boss, a very skinny middle-aged engineer, called each of us in separately to discuss company policy. After covering vacation, sick days, and various acts that could get me fired, he said, "...and if you ever shove or punch anyone, you're out the door."

During lunchtime discussions, I learned that I was the only one of the group to receive that warning.

Naturally, I wanted to storm into my boss's office and knock his head right off of his skinny neck.

Okay, seriously, my new boss didn't know me at all. He made a quick judgement based on my appearance or perhaps my Kentucky drawl. (You know us hicks. We're always going around killing things. )Perhaps he thought, "This guy is a lot bigger than me, and he talks like a redneck. He might hit somebody. I had better warn him." His comment didn't bother me at all; it merely seemed odd. I knew that I was harmless and couldn't imagine that anyone could suspect otherwise.

Nevertheless, I try to keep that experience in mind.

A thought: President Obama is slender but fit, and, I suspect, quite strong for his age and weight. It's likely that he's every bit as strong as the equally fit George W. Bush. I seriously doubt that Senator John McCain, even in his prime and adjusting for his long mistreatment by his North Vietnamese captors, was much if any stronger than the current president. Gerald Ford, probably the best athlete to ever serve as President, is often remembered for his even temper and conciliatory tendencies.

As for data that suggest a positive relationship between feminine beauty and sense of entitlement ... well ... I'll defer to the experts.

Book News

2009-08-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Working Dogs of Texas should be out late next month.

Wyman and I have started work on Under One Fence, a photostudy of the giant Waggoner Ranch. It should be out Fall 2010. If you liked 6666: Portrait of a Texas Ranch, you'll like this one too.

In June, I signed a contract with Texas Tech University Press to write Right of Capture: The Looming Water Crisis in Texas. A publication date hasn't been set, but I expect the book will come out in late 2011.

I'm trying not to panic. I'll finish wearing out my pickup doing the research.

Why I Love The Onion

2009-08-18T07:19:00.001-07:00

Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women

A Highly Satisfying Moment

2009-06-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

I just emailed the last few corrections to the publisher and tossed the galley proofs of Working Dogs of Texas into the tattered cardboard file box full of manuscript drafts, notebooks, interviews, correspondence, clippings, and magazine articles dating back to 2003, when Wyman Meinzer and I first started talking about collaborating on a book about working dogs.

If you've ever written a book, you know the feeling.

Working Dogs will be out this fall.

I have plenty of other work to do today, but I'm in a celebratory mood. I'll probably just put the lid on the box and go for a nice, long walk.

Self-Sufficiency Percentage

2009-06-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

Matt Mullenix raised an interesting figure in his comment to my last post, "Endangered Agribusiness."

"Just think how large a cow Big Ag would have if the average American provided even as little as 10% his food needs through gardening and hunting?"

Have any of you ever put pencil to paper to calculate how big your garden would have to be or how much fish and game you'd have to put away for you and your family to achieve a certain level of self-sufficiency?

I like Matt's figure of 10 percent self-sufficient. It seems reasonable, though I'm afraid I'd be shocked at just how much gardening, hunting, and fishing I would have to do to achieve it - even for just Jane and me.

Any thoughts? Suggestions for making such a calculation?

Endangered Agribusiness

2009-06-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

Matt and all of my other fellow organic gardeners out there, we've got it all wrong, as this letter helpfully points out.

Is somebody feeling a little insecure?

Patrick Deneen and the folks at Front Porch Republic are all over it.

The Intermittent Gardener

2009-05-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

I can either garden responsibly or travel. I can't seem to do both during growing season. After being away for only a few days, I returned to find that my little garden had nearly gotten away from me.

It seemed my radishes had exploded.

And my container tomatoes, which had looked great when I left, are showing signs of nitrogen deficiency.

Still, things are coming along. The little peppers are Cubanelle. I need to do something about the uneven, over-crowded, unruly carrots.

I gave the container tomatoes a shot of liquid fish. They ought to look better in few days, and they are making fruit.

These are Bush Early Girls.

These are Better Bush, another indeterminate variety that does very well in containers.

My Anaheim peppers are doing well in a container. They aren't the nitrogen hogs that tomatoes are. My daughter Sarah and her boyfriend were eyeing them today. They both love hot, spicy things. I warned them. I expect missing peppers any day now.

Some thinning in the raised bed yielded this little bunch of radishes - cherry bell and white icicle.

Then, there's the embarrassing Left Bed. Note the paltry pole beans and ridiculous, lonesome pepper plant. Evidently, when I switched from engineering to full-time writing I lost the ability to count. That extra pepper plant had to go somewhere.

The poor beans - Kentucky Wonders, which grow well nearly everywhere - got off to a very late start, thanks to your intermittent and distracted gardener who happened to be struggling with an article deadline. Then, evidently believing that the Intermittent Gardener had sown the beans at an insufficient depth, a certain elderly beagle belonging to a certain inattentive daughter tromped them in a good bit deeper.

Worse yet, I broke an ancient taboo and sowed onions close to the beans. I thought I could get away with it. After all, I left a generous buffer area, and besides, I had never heard or read a scientific explanation of why one oughtn't plant onions close to beans. My parents' explanation, "Beans and onions aren't good neighbors," wasn't sufficient. Who really knew? Dad and Mom, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and others who planted and tended our family garden had never tried planting the two close together because everyone knew that you just didn't do that. Was it a matter of taste or did the plants not grow well together? Nobody seemed to know.

(Why oh why didn't I pay more attention to these dear folks, watch them more closely instead of mindlessly doing what I was told? They knew how to garden. I never ate store-bought vegetables until I went away to college. Now they've all passed on, and I don't remember how Dad built his tomato ladders.)

Anyway, I broke the taboo. Of course my onions did poorly and my beans developed some kind of nasty rust and stopped growing. Sure, the unusually wet spring could have been the culprit, but I felt the wrath of my ancestors. I ripped out the stunted onions and the worst of the beans. A dose of compost tea, followed by a helping of liquid fish and seaweed a couple of weeks later seems to have revived the remaining beans. I worked in an inch of compost where the onions had been. After another week's rest, I'll sow some more beans. We have plenty of growing season left. We'll see.

Thank goodness Jane rarely checks this blog. If she knew I had been out back photographing our little kitchen garden, I'd never hear the end of it.

East Texas Forests

2009-05-28T10:04:00.001-07:00

In case you're interested, my article on the history and status of the East Texas Forests just appeared in the June 2009 Issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife. You can check out the online version here.

Beautiful color photos as well as archival photos from the old logging days accompany the print version. Here are a few snapshots I took back in early February at Boykin Springs, one of the last and best places in Texas to see nice stands of longleaf pine.

Note the blackened boles and open open, grassy woods. Fire is a critical component in the longleaf forest.

Another National Treasure

2009-05-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

Since reading "An American National Treasure," Mark's post on Bill Mallonee, I've wanted to say something about one of my own favorite singer-songwriters, Buddy Miller. Of course when I speak of Buddy Miller, I'm really thinking of Buddy and his wife, Julie, who, nowadays, does most of the writing.

Like all novelists, I daydream about movie adaptations of my novels, and whenever I think of a movie based on The Callings, I always imagine music written and performed by the Millers.

Until a few years ago, I had always thought about Buddy Miller in terms of his long association with Emmylou Harris. Then one day while I was browsing in a bookstore, a song jumped out of the background music, and I dropped whatever book or magazine I was considering and hustled back to the music department to ask what was playing. The sales clerk walked over to the "Americana" section and pulled out Midnight and Lonesome. I've been a Buddy and Julie fan ever since.

Here's Buddy talking about his new CD:

Here's one of my favorites, "Worry too Much," from Universal United House of Prayer. I'd call it a protest song.

Like Bill Mallonee, Buddy and Julie Miller are often regarded as Christian artists, and some of their best songs reflect their faith. But you certainly don't have to be religious to enjoy their music, and I doubt that their songs get much (if any) play on Christian stations. They get lots of airtime on the Alt-Country stations here in Texas.

Here's one from Written in Chalk. I believe it's called "Chalk."

And a nice segment with Buddy and one of his favorite guitars:

Sure, some of Buddy and Julie Miller's songs are very simple, earnest, even sentimental. Twenty years ago, I probably would have rolled my eyes. Nowadays, it doesn't take me long to get my fill of nihilism and irony. More and more, a Buddy and Julie song is exactly what I need to hear.

Sure-Enough Cowdogs

2009-05-03T17:38:00.000-07:00

Leo, Randy Walker's Catahoula Cur. They don't come any tougher. How 'bout them eyes?

Helping the boss catch a horse or is Bubba just limbering up for a day's work?

Several weeks back, I spent a couple days at Ranger Creek Ranch, on the Rolling Plains near Seymour, Texas. I wrote about the visit in a short travel piece for Texas Highways. Of course I did all of the standard travel writer things, but what I enjoyed most was watching Randy Walker work his cowdogs, Leo, a Catahoula Cur, and Buster and Bubba, a pair of Catahoula-border collie mixes. Randy likes the Catahoula's grit and cow sense and the border collie's brains, class, and trainability. The crossings are working very well. He runs a cow-calf operation, which calls for gritty dogs - dogs that probably would be way too rough for sheep.

On the second morning, I watched Randy and the dogs work a small group of yearlings that weren't dog-broke. My snapshots don't do the dogs justice. Fortunately, Wyman Meinzer and I are putting the finishing touches on Working Dogs of Texas. Believe me; Wyman's photos do working dogs justice, and Randy's dogs will be in the book.

For now, though, you'll have to make due with my amateur shots.

Randy and the boys.

Getting Started

Don't Mess with Leo

Somebody gets a bright idea...

...and pays the price.

More Lazy Blogging

2009-05-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

In case any of my fellow dog lovers are interested, I've uploaded my March and May Texas Wildlife working dog columns and a Texas Wildlife feature article on small game hunting to my website. You can check them out here: http://www.byhenrychappell.com/_i_texas_wildlife__i__68129.htm.

Enjoy!

A Man I'd Like to Know

2009-04-03T07:28:00.001-07:00

Here's a man who knows how to thrive in a recession. (Hat tip to CW)

Two Days In March

2009-03-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

My home hunting ground lies along tributaries of the Red River, in Grayson County - or what used to be the Red before Lake Texoma backed up behind the dam.

Ecologists call the narrow stretch of hardwood bottomland that runs adjacent to the Red, between the Arkansas border and the western boundary of Grayson County, the Red River Area and generally consider it part of East Texas, a categorization I agree with. Culturally and ecologically, the Red River Area feels like the South.

I feel at home here.

West of Grayson County, the Red River country takes on characteristics of the much drier Cross Timbers and Prairie Region. Just to the south, out of the river breaks but still in Grayson County, the terrain opens up into Blackland Prairie.

Although squirrel season never closes in Grayson County, fox squirrels start breeding in late winter and stay busy with their young until late April or so. For me, the season is closed until May 1, the traditional opening day of spring squirrel season in East Texas.

Week before last, Cate and I spent two consecutive afternoons scouting our bottoms. Had I been inclined, I could have taken 10-squirrel limits both days. Things are looking up for May.

Spring is upon us, although the woods still have a open, raw, late winter look.

I think of these woods as mine. I'm occasionally reminded that others stake their own claims...

.... and employ their own methods. A homemade deer feeder, hidden on public land. We are, after all, in Texas.

Each to his own. I'll take this any day:

They're rarely this easy to spot.

In areas more exposed to wind, post oaks and blackjack oaks predominate - fine, gnarled old- timers, stocky, bent, and thinning on top, much chewed and drilled by their tenants, worthless to lumbermen....

... but benison to a transplanted Kentuckian.

Trees grow straighter down in the sheltered creek bottoms. There are giants here. My photos never do these woods justice.

High fiber diet? Actually, she's after the chewy center, which, seconds after I snapped this photo, shot out the end of the log...

... and disappeared here.

This piece of country suits me.

Texas's Best Wine Writer

2009-03-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

My buddy Russ Kane, an indefatigable wine blogger, writer, and all-around good guy, has won this year's Press Award from the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association. I met Russ this past September at a press event hosted by several South Plains wineries, grape growers and Texas Department of Agriculture. After two days of tastings, I was reduced to making comments like, "Hmmm...fruity," while Russ held forth on acidity, balance, texture, and all those other things guys like me have to fake. He took pity on on me, and we've been friends ever since.

Russ paid me a visit a few weeks ago during his North Texas Wine Tour. As we unloaded his car, I noticed a large Rubbermaid container full of books. He said, "Oh, that's my traveling library." Yet another reason we get along.

Be sure to check out Vintage Texas, Russ's wine blog.

I'll go ahead spill the beans and hope Russ will forgive me: He's working on what will be the Texas wine book for at least the next dozen years or so. Just remember, you heard it here first.

Take that, water hustlers!

2009-03-13T06:36:00.001-07:00

Great news from the front lines of the Texas Water Wars:

For immediate release from Texas Conservation Alliance

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Neches River National Wildlife Refuge
Contact: Janice Bezanson, 512-921-1230

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday affirmed the July 2008 decision by Judge Jorge A. Solis in favor of the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge. The City of Dallas and the Texas Water Development Board had filed suit hoping to overturn creation of the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge and make way for a reservoir Dallas predicts might be needed in fifty years. Instead, Judge Solis upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2006 creation of the refuge.

“This is wonderful news!” said Janice Bezanson, executive director of Texas Conservation Alliance. “The Neches River Refuge is exceptional wildlife habitat -- one of the most important wildlife areas left in Texas. Thousands of Texans wrote letters or signed petitions in support of its creation.”

Dallas and TWDB contended that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act by failing in several ways to do an adequate environmental assessment and by failing to cooperate with state and local officials.

After careful review, Judge Solis disagreed with the allegations and denied motions by Dallas and TWDB to require a more detailed environmental study. Dallas and TWDB appealed Judge Solis’ decision. Thursday a three-judge panel affirmed the lower court ruling.

Biologists say the land within the boundaries of the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge is some of the least disturbed and highest-quality bottomland hardwood forest left in Texas, rated Priority 1 for acquisition by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By contrast, the reservoir proposed for the site is one of many water supply options available to Dallas Water Utilities.

Bezanson described the hardwood forests to be protected in the Refuge as “fabulous”. Towering oaks and hickories shelter wildlife and provide the nuts and acorns that deer, squirrel, turkey, and other animals depend on in winter. Bushes, smaller plants, and understory trees such as dogwoods provide a diverse array of food for resident animals. The Refuge is located in the heart of the North American Central Flyway, the major “highway” for and migrating ducks and songbirds. The waters of the Neches River sustain the exceptional habitat of the Big Thicket National Preserve, the Davy Crockett and Angelina National Forests, various state parks and wildlife management areas, and the Sabine Lake estuary.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service has been barred from acquiring land for the refuge, pending outcome of the appeal,” Bezanson continued. “Conservationists are poised to donate several thousand acres to the refuge as soon as the ruling is final. We look forward to celebrating a wonderful new refuge on the Neches!”

Texas Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Neches River, and a number of other organizations are proposing that the Neches River be studied for potential inclusion in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Designating the Neches as a Wild and Scenic River would protect the river and enhance its value for tourism.

I suspect Dallas and the North Texas Municipal Water District will now go after the Sulphur River like a junkies looking for a fix.

Blogger Meet-up Continued

2009-03-05T13:35:00.000-08:00

Matt and Ernie

Matt has already covered our late February blogger meet-up at Gregg and Soo Barrow's place, but, late as usual, I thought I'd add a few more thoughts and photos.

Turns out, you can glean a lot from folks by reading their blogs and comments. When I met Gregg and Matt for the first time, in the Barrow driveway, I felt like I'd known them for years. A couple bottles of stout and a walk with the dogs only strengthened the feeling.

This was my first time afield with hawk and falconer, and I have to admit that I was surprised at the efficiency. I know that Matt is a fine falconer and, by extension, that Ernie is a fine hawk. I just didn't expect such a high success rate. Right before I left to head back to Plano, I told Matt that if I truly had to feed myself, I'd learn to fly a Harris hawk.

I have to admit that I get a real kick out of touching a hawk.

Hawkers don't need a hunting lease - even in Texas

Working a field

Gregg and Caleb

In short, a great trip with great friends and great conversation about dogs, books, and hawks. Gregg, thanks for all of the solid dog training advice. Soo, thanks a million for putting up with me.

A Plea for Hardwood Bottomland

2009-02-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

Normally, I wouldn't consider pasting a press release here, but I have to make an exception for Russell Graves' new project. A couple years ago, Russell and I worked together on an article about proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir. Regular readers of this blog know how I feel about allowing water hustlers to destroy East Texas's remaining hardwood bottomland so that clueless suburbanites can water their Bermuda grass lawns.

So please check this out and lend your support:

New Multimedia Project Highlights the Decline of the Bois D'Arc Creek Watershed
February 19, 2009
For Immediate Release
Fannin County, Texas - On the eve of the construction of the Lower Bois d'Arc reservoir, professional photographer and filmmaker Russell Graves and his partner/brother William Graves embark on an ambitious new film/multimedia project documenting the history and loss of the Bois d'Arc Creek hardwood bottomlands. The not-yet-titled film is currently in pre-production with filming slated to begin in March and wrapping up in early June.
"Our family first moved to Fannin County in 1979," says WIlliam. "We lived in a small farmhouse south of Bonham along Bois d'Arc Creek and I spent lots of time trapping and exploring the creek while we lived there." Soon thereafter the family moved north of Dodd City near the Hilger Community just a short distance from the creek and the family continued cultivating their outdoor lifestyle through ranching, logging, hunting, and fishing. William, who is a retired 21-year US Army veteran, settled less than a half a mile from his parent's home.
"In many ways, my whole outdoor heritage and ethic was shaped by the things I learned roaming the bottomlands along the creek," says Russell, who for the past 16 years, has lived in Childress, Texas. "My brother, my dad, and I spent countless hours exploring our patch of the woods and in reality, the lessons I learned really helped me launch a successful writing and photography career."
When complete, the film will explore themes of habitat loss, the history of the creek, and the water needs of a burgeoning North Texas population - all told from a personal, first person perspective.
"I hope when this film is complete people will appreciate, for perpetuities sake, the importance of the creek to the cultural and natural heritage of Fannin County," says Russell.
To see a prelude to the film, check out http://www.russellgraves.com/blog/2009/02/hunt-junkies-episode-25.html
###
For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Russell Graves at russell@russellgraves.com or 806.280.8007

Cur-Dogs

2009-02-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

A.L. "Leak" Bevil to Campbell & Lynn Loughmiller in Big Thicket Legacy:

“What we call a cur dog was just a general mixture of dogs. They had dogs of all kinds and descriptions, took the best ones and interbred them, developed the cur dog, and the strain breeds true, the best dog in the world.”

* * *

This is Cate's daddy, Coker's Dorcheat Tiger, with his boss, Greg Coker, after winning the treeing competition in the 2006 UKC Black Gold Challenge, in Dover, Arkansas. (As you can see here, and probably already suspected, tree dog competitions aren't real tweedy.) Tiger is a Mountain Cur, mostly of the Kemmer bloodline.

This is a purloined photo of Smoky, Luisa's new cur puppy. (Luisa, I didn't think you'd mind.) We've all been fussing over Smoky for the past several days. If you haven't yet read his story and registered your unqualified approval and support, please do so at once or else your status as a sure-enough dog nut may be called into question.

Luisa made an executive decision: "He is a Mountain Cur. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

Given Smoky's appearance, I'm inclined to agree. And this:

"Smoky has one of those barks that's more of a single, sustained roar."

Well, yeah. Sounds about right.

At least one commenter suggested that there may be some Plott Hound in his lineage. Could be. There may also be a some Treeing Tennessee Brindle. I could go on.

No matter. I'm sure he's a cur. I've seen a few.

In 1957, when Riley Daniels, of Georgia, Woody Huntsman, of Kentucky, Dewey Ledbetter, of Tennessee, and Carl McConnell, of Virginia, founded the organization that would become the Original Mountain Cur Breeders Association, they were less concerned with establishing a breed than with preserving a once common general type of herding and hunting dog that nearly disappeared after World War II as mountain people began leaving their subsistence way of life for steady wages in cities and towns.

Take a look at some of the old photos on the OMCBA website and you'll see that the old-time mountain curs varied greatly in appearance, and, I suspect, working style. No doubt, the old-timers were pretty open-minded about style, so long as the semi-wild cattle and swine got bunched, penned, and marked and the 'coons and squirrels ended up in the pot.

And I seriously doubt that the old boys would have hesitated to bring in hound or shepherd blood if they thought it would produce a better cur-dog. Today, we tend to think of the mountain cur as a specific breed or type. The old-timers were simply breeding curs for working conditions in the Southern Appalachian mountains. Had you asked a mountaineer what kind of dogs he ran, he would not have said, "mountain curs." He'd have answered "cur-dogs."

The National Kennel Club recognizes the cur's varied lineage. While it lists specific cur types such as the Mountain Cur, Leopard Cur, and Yellow Blackmouth Cur, the NKC also has a category for the general working cur of recently mixed heritage. While breeders of treeing curs must keep accurate records, the NKC standard specifies a height of 18 to 28 inches and a weight of "over 30 pounds." Eye color? "Green, blue, or brown." Coat color? "Any color variation is acceptable." Tails? "Any length."

What, then, does the standard absolutely require? "The Treeing Cur must show strong treeing ability in the hunting area(s) of squirrel, coon, boar, bear or cat. Their hunting ability must prove them to be more than just an average dog. "

One of the best hunting dogs I've ever known was a treeing cur owned by my buddy Donny Lynch. Molly was a quarter treeing Walker and three-quarters mountain cur - a typical treeing cur mix. She looked just like a big mountain cur. In fact she looked a lot like Luisa's Smoky. And she was a little more open on the track than your average mountain cur, and deadly on squirrels and 'coons. Whenever she'd bark or give a little yelp on a cold trail, Donny would smile and say, "There's that Walker dog showing through."

So, Luisa, is Smoky a mountain cur? I suspect so. I'm almost certain he's a cur-dog in the broad sense. Take him up to your cabin, and then he'll be a cur-in-the-mountains.

That's all the old-timers ever wanted.

Sound Advice

2009-02-09T18:09:00.001-08:00

From a certain cowboy and dog man who knows how to get cattle out of the brush:

"You'd better watch a man that don't like dogs. There's something broke in him."

Some Lazy Blogging

2009-02-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the light blogging. I'm working on a long feature article about the history, current status, and future of the East Texas forests, and a shorter travel piece for Texas Highways.

For you fellow dog maniacs out there, I just uploaded my latest two Texas Wildlife working dog columns to my website. You can check them out here.

One That Got Away

2009-01-29T19:11:00.001-08:00

Where the hell are Terrierman and his little scrappers when you need them?

Late January, and the remaining fox squirrels are sure-enough survivors. Cate treed this one in a blackjack oak, but as I approached it jumped out. She almost caught it on the ground, but not quite.

The fox squirrels will be breeding soon. I'm starting to see signs of pairing up. I'd say this one is fit to pass along his or her genes.

We'll hunt this weekend, then leave them alone until May 1, when spring squirrel season opens.

A Texas-Sized Embarrassment

2009-01-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

Compared to other parts of the country, Texas grows a modest amount of corn. Nevertheless, most of the State's deer hunters are obsessed with it. I suspect that without it, very few would know how to hunt.

Hats off to Wyman Meinzer and Texas Parks & Wildlife for saying so. Here's Wyman speaking the truth in his December 2008 article:

...it is disturbingly true that fewer and fewer people are learning these once-essential outdoor skills. In this age of spacious and comfortably furnished elevated blinds, solar-powered feeders spraying their offering of golden delight at predictable intervals or video cameras offering the "hunter" a tantalizing array of super bucks for the taking at exorbitant prices, few incentives exist today to encourage our youth to hunt in a more traditional way.

Even on public land, where elevated blinds and feeders are illegal, people find a way to cheat. A few weeks ago, squirrel hunting on public land in far North Texas, I found various camouflaged homemade feeders strapped to trees. Late in the day, I passed two hunters getting ready for their afternoon hunt. Both were unloading bags of corn from their pickups. They made no effort to hide it. After all, they were deer hunting. That's just the way we do it here in Texas.

Read the rest of Wyman's article. I'm proud of TPW for having the guts to run it.

Robert Earl Keene's Merry Christmas from the Family

2008-12-15T08:38:00.001-08:00

Yes, we've all heard this little masterpiece from the great Robert Earl Keene many times, but it always helps me get through the season - or to Christmas Eve night when I finally get into the spirit of things.

Enjoy!

If in doubt...

2008-12-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

The evidence: osage orange cuttings.

If you wait until conditions are perfect, you'll rarely hunt. I know that.

Still...

Tueday before Thanksgiving, I'd put in a good day at the word processor and had a couple hours to hunt. Wind was howling in out of the west. Treetops were whipping. A bad time to squirrel hunt, but it was the time I had.

We hunted for an hour or so without a strike. Then Cate treed a bowhunter. Fortunately, he turned out to be friendly, but I felt bad about disturbing him. Yes, we were hunting public land and I had as much right to be there as he did, but he'd picked an excellent spot overlooking a stretch of dry creek lined with oaks. Acorns covered the creekbed. I had seen several deer in the area on previous hunts. And he'd obviously lugged his portable tree stand a long way.

Then the wind really picked up so that I doubted I could hear Cate if she treed more than fifty yards away. Feeling low, I decided to call it a day.

I started to unload my shotgun as we started to head up the trail to the truck. Then Cate raised her nose and bolted into a thick stand of cedars. Since she usually yelps when she strikes hot scent, I assumed she was either cold trailing or smelling distant air scent. Moments later she treed.

I found her on an unuually large bois d'arc (osage orange or, in local parlance,"bodark"). The whipping branches revealed a fox squirrel hidden near the top.

I let her carry that one back to the truck.

Just go.

Something to keep in mind...

2008-12-04T15:11:00.000-08:00

Wisdom from an unnamed 'coon hunter who occasionally sips beer at a certain watering hole on the Red River in Northeast Texas:

"Messin' with a man's wife is a good way to get your ass kicked; mistreatin' a man's dog is a good way to get killed."

Magazine Updates

2008-11-26T07:13:00.000-08:00

In case you're interested:

"Reviving the Trinity," published in the November issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife, is now available online.

I've uploaded text file versions of "Woodcock Dogs" and "East Texas Woodcock," published in the October 2008 issue of Texas Wildlife, to my website.

I recently received word that "Water or Woods," published in the July 2007 issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife, won first place in the "public issues" category in the 2008 International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) competition.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To the blog roll with him!

2008-11-26T04:56:00.000-08:00

I've long thought that my buddy Wyman Meinzer should have a blog. In fact, I had thought about trying to talk him into guest blogging here at Home Range. He's a hunter, trapper, pilot, writer, publisher, all around wild man, and the best wildlife photographer in the country. (And you should see his hand-carved predator calls.) Wyman has kept a field journal since he was a kid, and now he'll be sharing his thoughts, experiences, and photos with us at his new blog.

So stop by, get to know Wyman, and check out his books. He's a sure-enough Texas original.

Gurf Morlix live @ the Granada Theater in Dallas Tx

2008-11-03T19:15:00.001-08:00

This Gurf Morlix tune always leaves me shaken, makes me think of a certain someone. Hang in there, gal. Hang in there.

More Tough Going

2008-10-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

Cate after a short hunt this past Thursday. Folks who think squirrel hunting is a kid's sport have never tried to spot a fox squirrel flattened out on a branch near the top of a mature oak.

Temperatures dropped here in North Texas, thank goodness. Then the wind picked up. But if you wait until everything's perfect, you'll rarely hunt.

Cate and I got out a couple of afternoons last week. Late Thursday, with the wind howling in the treetops, she disappeared into a patch of cedar and Osage orange. I heard her strike and wondered where a squirrel would hide in such low scrubby stuff. Moments later, Cate emerged with a fox squirrel which she efficiently dispatched with vigorous head-shaking and much impressive growling. You'd have thought she was fighting a bear. She handled the two squirrels in the photo in a more traditional manner.

We're heading for deep East Texas tomorrow. Soon, it'll be time to head west for quail.

Bone of Conciliation

2008-10-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

I wrote a piece on Comanche-Texan conciliation for the Sept/Oct issue of Orion. It's now available online. I've long sensed that simple acknowledgement and proximity - stepping outside of comfort zones - promotes healing far better than official proclamations. It's hard to resent someone or remain indifferent to his concerns after you've shared a meal and a few laughs with him.

You can see more of Juanita Pahdopony's fabulous art in the print edition.

Chauvinism or Hard Truth?

2008-09-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

From Associated Press:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- The man who announces the Nobel Prize in literature says the United States is too "insular" and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Horace Engdahl said Tuesday that "Europe still is the center of the literary world."

Engdahl is the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which selects the literature prize winner. He is expected to announce the winner in the coming weeks.

Engdahl says the U.S. "is too isolated, too insular" and doesn't really "participate in the big dialogue of literature."

Since Japanese poet Kenzaburo Oe won in 1994, the selections have had a distinct European flavor. The last American winner was Toni Morrison in 1993.

Is there an American novelist or poet who deserves serious Nobel consideration?

HT Bridgette Williams at Texas Pages.

Tough Going - But Good

2008-09-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

Cate after a very warm morning hunt in the Red River breaks.

Squirrel season opens October 1 in most East Texas counties. However, in the timbered hills and draws along the Red River, in a few north Texas counties where Blackland Prairie and Post Oak Savannah meet to form some of the best fox squirrel habitat anywhere, the season never officially closes, though summer heat keeps hunters out of the woods June through August and most of September.

Last week, with early morning temperatures in the low 60s, Cate and I hit a certain section of woods - post oak, blackjack oak, pecan, elm, cedar, and Osage orange - for a couple of warm-up hunts.

We did, in fact, warm up.

We started at first light, and by 9 o'clock I was drenched in sweat and Cate was stepping on her tongue. Compared to gray squirrels, fox squirrels are late risers.

Still, we had a fine time, and Cate worked well in spite of the heat. She treed several times, but the squirrels were very hard to see up there in the dense leaves. It's pretty tough for a single hunter and a dog this time of year. I blew a couple of easy shots.

But cooler days are coming. We'll try to get out a day or two this week.

Little Scrappers

2008-09-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

How's this for precocious?

A few posts back, I wrote that Donny Lynch, my hunting buddy and dog training mentor, has pups for sale. Here's a very recent photo of four of his pups on a tree. Yes, there's a squirrel up there. The gorgeous feist highest on the trunk is Sponge Bob (named by Donny's grandson Eli.) He's 11 weeks old. The little rat terriers are 8 weeks old. Some of his pups are for sale and some are not. Again, if you're interested, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with him.

Goose Throwdown

2008-09-18T08:10:00.001-07:00

Actually, I'm most impressed by the Chessie. She clearly knew how to take care of the goose but backed off at her master's command.

HT to the boys at Field Notes.

More on "Stuff White People Like"

2008-09-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

I've always considered "Stuff Various Ethnic Groups Like" harmless fun. I had my own fun with the concept here.

But Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic's literary editor, thinks that Christian Lander, founder of the blog "Stuff White People Like," offers more than lightweight mockery:

"SWPL—which catalogs the tastes, prejudices, and consumption habits of well-off, well-educated, youngish, self-described progressives—was refreshing because it’s everything a blog, almost by definition, is not. Rather than serving up unedited, impromptu, self-important ruminations on random events and topics, the tightly focused, stylishly written, precisely observed entries eschew the genre’s characteristic I (though Lander in fact writes nearly all of them) and adopt a cool, never snarky though sometimes biting, pseudo-anthropological tone. "

Further on:

"More damning is the conclusion produced by a careful reading of this often fine-grained semi-sociological analysis: a good deal of the progressives’ attitudes, preferences, and sense of identity are ingrained in an unlovely disdain for those outside their charmed circle. "

and:

"At the top of this list is anything that has to do with Christianity”—an aversion, Lander discerns, rooted not in religious enmity but in taste (Christianity is “a little trashy”), formed largely by class and education. To those of this mind-set, the problem with a great many Americans is that they don’t “care about the right things.

".... In fact, he asserts in a somewhat atypical aside that betrays the steel behind his joshing, 'White People 'really do hate a significant portion of the population.' "

Think of the Left's predictable reaction to Sarah Palin, and the Right's gleeful, cynical, and equally predictable effort to exploit it. (Perhaps we need a blog called "Stuff Right People Like.")

I'm afraid that disdain for a certain "significant portion of the population," isn't limited to the Left. Here in very white collar, Republican North Texas, among people who generally regard any form of collective bargaining as a significant slide down the slippery slope toward socialism, I'm amazed at the new-found love of the working class. Todd Palin, a union man! A sure-enough 'merican! Those goddamn liberals wouldn't last a week up there in Alaska.

Of course the ideologues and opportunists in both parties underestimate the people they simultaneously loathe and woo. Getting to know truck drivers, rural preachers, farmers, factory workers, and tradesmen would be messy and uncomfortable. Better to work in the abstract and deal in stereotypes. Engaging nimble minds where we hadn't expected to find any, seeing what can be endured and accomplished through simple religious faith, or counting friends among the uninsured "resources" freed-up by downsizing and globalization could encourage reflection. We might even begin to to question positions we've spent years solidifying and arguing.

But then we like what we like. If only the everyone else liked what we like...

Reprieve for the Ogallala Aquifer

2008-09-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

A few minutes ago, I ran across this small wire report in The Dallas Morning News:

"LUBBOCK - Billionaire and wind energy advocate T. Boone Pickens has indefinitely suspended plans for a water pipeline aimed at shipping water from the Texas Panhandle to thirsty cities downstate. Mr. Pickens is continuing to pursue rights of way for electric transmission lines to carry power generated by a planned wind farm. Spokesman said there were no buyers for the water."

Politics aside, I like and admire Boone Pickens in spite of his fearsome reputation. Several years ago, I interviewed him for the Dallas Business Journal and found him gracious, funny, and self-effacing. That said, I'd hate to be one of his enemies.

Wind towers are ugly, noisy, and potentially deadly to birds. I have serious reservations about the Kenedy County Wind Energy Development project on the Texas coast. Nevertheless, I appreciate Boone Pickens's leadership on the issues of peak oil and wind power. Yes, he has a serious financial stake, but at least he has something to offer. We have to wean ourselves from fossil fuel, and wind power is one alternative. Wind farms on certain parts of the High Plains - one of the world's windiest regions - make sense.

However, I've always opposed Pickens's water project. I'm not sorry to learn that he has abandoned it for the time being. In theory, he'd purchase rights to drill and pump fossil groundwater from all over the northern Panhandle then pipe it to customers in Dallas, Fort Worth, and other profligate water consumers. Under the outdated "Right of Capture," he could sell as much water as he could pump. Never mind that the Ogallala Aquifer, the basis of the entire High Plains economy, is being rapidly depleted by heavy pumping for irrigation. In some areas, the water level has dropped 100 feet or more.

Proponents of the plan say that water is worth more to the farmers than the crops they could grow, and that once the water is gone, agriculture on the southern High Plains will cease, and the native grasses and wildlife, even bison, could return. One way or another, the Ogallala will be depleted. Landowners might as well get the maximum benefit from the pumping rights.

This isn't a ridiculous position. Week before last, I spoke with a prominent High Plains agricultural expert about the state of the Ogallala Aquifer. I asked him why so few people, are talking about it. His answer: "Because it's too awful to imagine. So they don't imagine. It's easier to deny the problem and keep doing what you've always done."

Sound familiar? "Drill, baby, drill!"

But selling fossil water will hasten the destruction of the region's economy, leaving less time for orderly transition and will likely speed the already unsustainable growth in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex while delaying critical debate about limits.

These days, Boone Pickens is focused on wind. I wish him much success. Hopefully, he'll be too busy to get back to his water project.

The Joys of Cur Ownership

2008-09-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

I feel fall coming. Cooler temperatures, declining stress, new hunting license, fox squirrels going about their squirrelish business with renewed vigor, Cate understandably raising hell all day long, and, thus far, my dear, long-suffering neighbors not complaining to the authorities.

Jane tells me to make her hush. I respond that you probably shouldn't reprimand a tree dog - especially a pup - for treeing - or "roofing," or "fencing," as the case may be.

In hot weather, fox squirrels, like gray squirrels, are most active early and late in the day. No problem. Let the dogs in just before sunrise then turn them back out around mid-morning.

Now, the squirrels are active all day, scurrying about roofs, running along the top of my fence, trying to get at the last of my tomatoes, and generally keeping little Cate in a state of high and noisy alert.

I cannot safely shoot the squirrels with my pellet gun. Believe me, I've given it serious thought. Blessed silence plus baked squirrel.

We'll tough it out. Hunting season opens October 1. Cate can get her squirrel fix in the woods, then lie around my office dreaming squirrel dreams.

Yesterday afternoon, I gave up and let the dogs in. After sniffing everything in my office at least twice, they lay down and commenced snoring. A bit later, as I stared at the monitor and considered superfluous adverbs or wondered if there were any new entries at the Atlantic Monthly blog and otherwise worked very hard at not working, Cate cut loose at the top of her lungs. In my small office. With the door closed.

After I regained my wits and breath, I spun around to find both dogs staring at the ceiling, ears perked, brows furrowed. Then I heard the unmistakable patter of a squirrel running along the roof.

There was nothing to do but say, "Good girl!" and try to keep Cate from jumping on my desk.

Need a Good Pup?

2008-09-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Donny Lynch, my East Texas hunting buddy, has a few rat terrier and feist puppies he'd sell to the right hunter(s). Donny isn't a commercial dog breeder, though he's very serious, experienced, and knowledgeable. He occasionally breeds hunting dogs for himself and his friends. In this case he has a few pups left over, but he's not desperate to sell them. Donny hunts every day during the squirrel season, and coon hunts all summer in the East Texas heat, so he has no trouble working several dogs.

Of course no puppy is a sure thing, but I can personally vouch for Donny's breeding stock. I've hunted over all of his finished dogs and count them among the best all-around hunting dogs - of any breed - that I've ever known. During an average season, they'll account for hundreds of squirrels and scores of raccoons.

The rat terrier puppies are out of a locally famous line of treeing rat terriers often called "Dubbie dogs" in reference to "Dubbie," a large terrier that won the World Hunt several years ago. In general these dogs are silent on the track with a clear loud bark on the tree. This litter's sire is Chance, one of Donny's all-time favorites. You can see a decent photo of Chance in this article.
Chance's puppy Junior made an appearance this past July on Good Morning Texas. At just over a year old, he's already treeing well, and he accounted for a number of squirrels during his puppy season.

Ranger, the sire of the feist pups, is ounce of ounce, the toughest little hunter I've ever seen, though he's very companionable and biddable. Like Chance, Ranger is silent on the track and has a nice clear bark on the tree. He's an excellent coon dog. I blogged about him here and here.

As a general rule, I don't advertise or plug products. I have no financial stake in these puppies, nor do I know how much Donny might charge. But he's a great friend, dog man, and hunter, and I wanted to pass this info along.

For the most part, Donny places his pups with serious squirrel and coon hunters, but I suspect that if you can provide a good home and keep a dog busy with other kinds of terrier and feist work he'd be glad to hear from you. His dogs are very bold, gamey, and versatile. These pups will be very well socialized. The feist pups are around seven months old and are already starting to tree. I believe the rat terrier pups are quite a bit younger.

If you're interested, drop me a line, and I'll put you in touch with Donny.

Stuff Some White People Like

2008-09-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

First thing this morning, when I should have been working, I checked in on 2blowhards like I do first thing every morning when I should be working and noticed that Michael Blowhard scored 27 out of 107 on the "Stuff White People Like" test and found himself a little less white than he'd expected.

"Stuff Various Ethnic Groups Like" seems to be all the rage these days, so I decided to find out just how white I am. Turns out, I'm considerably less white that Michael B.

I scored 17/107.

One glance at the test confirmed my suspicion. The questions, like television commercials, are not aimed at my demographic. That is, age 48, born, raised and educated in Kentucky, comfortably settled in Texas for the past 26 years, extremely cheap...uh...thrifty and sensible

For instance, I do not know, nor have I ever known a person of any ethnicity who likes self-aware hip-hop references. Likewise Oscar Parties, Michael Gondry (whoever the hell he is), or knowing what's best for poor people.

I knew a vegetarian once. She moved to Manhattan. This past weekend, I met a young woman from California, a fellow scribbler who had relapsed after 10 years of vegetarianism. I asked her what happened. She said, "I moved to Texas."

I love dogs, as some of you may know. Also, coffee, black friends, farmers markets, gifted children, public radio, and book deals, especially those that come with an advance. My friends (black, white, and Hispanic) and I love organic food, particularly, squirrel, quail, frog legs, catfish, and any vegetable or fruit plucked from a backyard garden or orchard. Ditto bumper stickers or at least those that proclaim things like "I Hunt With Meat Dogs."

I like Barack Obama. However, I enjoy looking at Sarah Palin. (Stuff Middle-Age Men Like)

If you're new to my blog, you may be surprised that my friends and I love wine, which, according to the test, moves me toward the white end of the scale. In fact, on our hunting trips, far more wine than beer is consumed after the guns are unloaded and put away. A couple of years ago, I visited my buddy Wyman Meinzer at his home in Benjamin, Texas. We'd spent an afternoon following a pack of curs and plott hounds in pursuit of wild hogs. We were pulling back out on Highway 82, just before dark, when Wyman's wife, Sylinda, called and said, "Where are you boys? It's wine time!"

Oh, wait...

Could that be considered ironic? Maybe I'm a little whiter than I thought.

Warning: Shameless Self-Promotion

2008-07-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

I love wine writing assignments, and I'm living proof that you don't have to be an expert to get paid for tasting wine and scribbling opinions.

My article "North Texas Uncorked" appears in the August issue of Texas Highways. You can check out a much-abbreviated version here, along with a short interview and a selection of Skeeter Hagler's photos.

I'll thank you serious and educated wine drinkers for holding your laughter.

Good Morning Texas

2008-07-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

The Land Report/Working Dogs segment on "Good Morning Texas" went very well, I thought. But who is that old man with the little yellow cur?

The WFAA folks were very gracious. Host Gary Cogill made quite a fuss over the dogs and even brought them a big bowl of water. Eric O'Keefe did a great job and put in a fine plug for Working Dogs of Texas, the book Wyman and I finished early this year. It should be out in fall 2009.

We had a great time, and thank goodness I didn't have to talk!

Little Cate-Cur - Morning Show Diva

2008-06-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

I'm still not quite believing this, but I checked the "Good Morning Texas" website, and there under Tuesday - tomorrow - is "Dogs with Jobs."

Eric O'Keefe, a Dallas-area publisher, editor, and writer is launching a new version of Land Report, a magazine aimed at owners of rural land. There will be features and columns on everything from farming and ranching advice to wildlife management, hunting and fishing, and celebrity profiles. I wrote a piece on working dogs for the inaugural issue. The inimitable Wyman Meinzer provided incredible photos.

Eric's publicist landed him a spot on "Good Morning Texas," and, fine fellow that he is, he'll be talking about my article. He convinced the producers that the segment wouldn't be complete without some real working dogs.

So, Donny Lynch will be there with his feist Ranger and rat terrier Junior. Wyman's son Hunter, a cowboy and cutting horse trainer is bringing his border collie-Kelpie pup, and I'll be there with Cate, who turned a year old yesterday. Donny has promised to wear his best overalls and Wolverine boots and a starched shirt. I'm thinking of giving Cate a bath this afternoon. This would be her third, if I'm remembering correctly.

Most likely, Eric will talk for a few minutes and then we'll parade our dogs through one by one. We're just serving as dog handlers and probably won't say a word.

Naturally, I'm a wreck. I can just imagine an off-stage dog fight. Cate often howls when she's excited or especially exuberant.

Still, I'm half expecting they'll decide they don't need the dogs or don't have time. We'll see.

Counting Words, Wasting Creative Energy

2008-06-27T06:44:00.001-07:00

The University of North Texas recently launched a promising literary journal. (HT Michael Merchel at Texas Pages.) In the inaugural issue, the estimable Bob Shacochis muses on the agony of trying to finish a long, difficult novel while resisting the seductions of literary journalism.

Let me admit right off that I took great comfort in his suffering. I constantly fret about literary output. If Shacochis does the same, I must be in fine company. I enjoyed the entire essay, but found his descriptions of his daily work habits most fascinating.

"Sometimes I do fall asleep, which makes me feel miserable in every conceivable way. Neither sleep nor stimulants have any effect, however, on the speed at which I write these days, which is glacial. I begin each session by revising the 300 or 400 words I extruded–wrenchingly, haltingly–the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and I end each session with 300 or 400 new words, the dogs dancing around my chair in anticipation of their before-dinner walk. "

At first glance, that looks like a very modest output. When I'm working on a novel, actually writing as opposed to researching or plotting, I usually manage 500-1000 words per day - usually closer to 1000. But, unlike Shacochis, I'll write an entire draft without slowing to revise. So I'll spend most of a year turning out a very rough first draft, only to spend almost as much time on the second. After that, subsequent drafts go much faster, and of course there's the psychological benefit of seeing pages accumulate. I hesitate to spend time revising until I've reached the end of the story because I'm afraid a chapter or long passage will have to be scrapped or rewritten because of an unforeseen plot twist.

On the other hand, while writers like Shacochis, who revise as they go, will take much longer to reach the end of the story, they have a fairly polished draft when they type "THE END." I read somewhere that Kurt Vonnegut perfected every page before going to the next. When he finished a first draft, it was ready to go to his editor. You can't argue with success.

I'm very suspicious of anyone who claims to have perfected a method. About the best anyone can offer is, "This is what usually works for me."

Chris Knight - Enough Rope (On The Edge of Country)

2008-06-20T12:51:00.001-07:00

Kentucky boy and WKU graduate. Nice song. He talks right too.

We were there in Bowling Green at the same time. I wonder if we ever passed each other on that steep hillside between the dorms and the math and science buildling.

A glimmer?

2008-06-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

Interesting article by Sara Nelson in Publishers Weekly:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6570313.html

HT Michael Merschel at Texas Pages.

Here's a sample:

“'In every crisis lies an opportunity,' goes the old saying—and nowhere could that be more true than in publishing today. It's that kind of thinking that has led Bob Miller, say, out of traditional publishing and into creating his new venture, Harper Studio, which has reportedly already closed several deals. It's that kind of thinking that has led S&S—clearly just as worried as the next house about all the “challenges” to reading in the age of the Internet—into the digital age; just look at some of the house's new, nontraditional, take-charge new-media hires. "

and

"What I think this means: some of the quaint, arcane practices we cherish—returns, say—are going to have to go. Likewise, astronomical advances, the kind that don't make money even if the books land on the lists. And what about backlist? Is somebody ever going to figure out how to mine this most potentially profitable publishing vein?"

How many of you writers out there cherish returns?

I'll remain hopeful, but I'm certainly not optimistic.

A Sense of Entitlement

2008-06-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

According to this AP Article:

"The nation's anger over $4 gasoline is producing a lot of energy-related theatrics at the White House and in Congress. Republicans are demanding new drilling off the nation's beaches. Democrats want to tax away oil companies' profits."

and

"President Bush on Wednesday said families across the country are looking to Washington to help them cope with economically ravaging high gasoline costs. And he warned lawmakers that if they don't do something before the July 4th holiday "they will need to explain" to voters."

So the nation is angry about high gas prices. If, in fact, production has peaked and is now in or near the beginning of inexorable decline, where should we direct our anger? Really, who's at fault?

Other Arrangements

2008-06-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency, but you're interested in or worried about peak oil, check out his piece in Orion, "Making Other Arrangements." Here's the crux:

"And a harsh reality indeed awaits us as the full scope of the permanent energy crisis unfolds. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, world oil production peaked in December 2005 at just over 85 million barrels a day. Since then, it has trended absolutely flat at around 84 million. Yet world oil consumption rose consistently from 77 million barrels a day in 2001 to above 85 million so far this year. A clear picture emerges: demand now exceeds world supply. Or, put another way, oil production has not increased despite the ardent wish that it would by all involved, and despite the overwhelming incentive of prices having nearly quadrupled since 2001. "

This article ran in early 2007, so Kunstler's figures may be a bit out-of-date, and no doubt optimists and those with an interest in maintaining the belief that we can continue forever at our current pace have published refutations, either of the basic numbers, Kunstler's interpretation of those numbers, or both. I can't begin to keep up with the technical details, since everyone with a stake or a political or ideological ax to grind seems to have his own numbers and interpretations.

Most folks that I talk to here in the Dallas area are in Dick Cheney's camp: Petroleum prices are too high. Like it or not, ours is a fossil fuel economy. The obvious solution is to increase production. It's as simple as that. Drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, open offshore areas to drilling. That'll get gasoline prices down for a few years. In the meantime "they" will come up with solutions to our long-term energy problems.

But, as Rod Dreher points out:

"For the record, I agree with USA Today's editorial board that we ought to drill in ANWR, but that it barely make a difference in the nation's energy use.According to federal government estimates, if we started drilling today, oil would start coming out in 2018, and would peak in 2027 at -- are you ready for this? -- a whopping 780,000 barrels a day. According to the CIA Factbook, in 2004 the US was consuming 20 million barrels a day. If we had ANWR pumping at peak right now, it would meet less than five percent of our daily needs. And by 2018? Even more of a drop in the bucket, assuming we don't reduce consumption, which we almost certainly will have done by then. "

I don't support drilling the ANWR. I think the probability of environmental damage outweighs the potential benefit. More than 90 percent of Alaska's North Slope is open to drilling. Surely we can set aside and protect this great wilderness. Just because very few Americans want to go there, let alone live there, (It's just a goddamn wasteland! I seen it on TV!) doesn't mean it isn't worthy of protection. Nor does the fact that caribou have been seen hanging around the Alaskan pipeline (Hell, they like that pipeline!) mean that drilling and the associated development wouldn't damage the refuge's ecology.

As for off-shore drilling, I'm not educated enough to comment responsibly. I'll just say that I'm very skeptical given the cost and complexity. How close are we to effectively burning a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil? Are the existing reserves large enough to justify development costs? Here's Kunstler, in The Long Emergency:

"The ratio of energy expended in getting oil out of the ground to the energy produced by that oil in the U.S. oil industry has fallen from 28:1 in 1916 to 2:1 in 2004 and will continue falling."

I really ought to check these numbers since they scare the hell out of me. Surely, I'm over-simplifying or misinterpreting. Please, somebody tell me why these numbers aren't that worrisome, that 2:1 really is a comfortable margin. Please. Or convince me that Kunstler is wrong.

Oil industry technology is progressing! We can get the petroleum more efficiently!

Yes, but as we deplete fields, oil becomes more difficult and expensive to extract. Will technology keep pace? Or will it fall behind and the ratio of energy gained to energy expended continue to slip? And what about the effect of petroleum cost on the pace of technology?

But let's be optimistic in the short term. Let's say oil producers are able to ratchet up production and gas prices begin to fall significantly. Won't consumption, which has decreased slightly due to high prices, begin to rise? So we plow ahead, of course, as does China and India, instead of making the kinds of "other arrangements" recommended by Kunstler, Bill McKibben, and others, or for that matter, any changes. Change can be expensive, painful, and frightening, and our neighbors, co-workers, and kids might think we're odd. Worse yet, we could over-react. After all, things still seem to be working. Surely "they" will do something to keep things going.

Maybe they will. The old engineer in me still has plenty of respect for human ingenuity. I know better than to assume that the currently unimaginable is impossible. Yet I also believe in physical limits, so I'm far less sanguine than market ideologues who shrug and say, "Don't worry. Market conditions will stimulate the necessary innovation," as if economic theory, a strange brew of sociology, politics, and mathematics, is anchored by the kinds of laws that form the foundation of the hard sciences.

What should we do? We hear a lot about the need for local economies and walkable communities. But how should the average suburbanite get started?

A while back, Matt asked a similar question and received some interesting comments.

In his column in Sunday's Dallas Morning News, Rod Dreher makes a few suggestions that will cause some of his conservative colleagues to turn green and rip out of their suspenders and bow ties. A sample:

"•Dramatically changing zoning restrictions to permit small retailing in residential areas, making it possible for people to walk or bike to do their shopping. Refuse to approve new housing developments unless they are designed for pedestrian accessibility to retail areas.

•Through regulation and tax-code changes, encouraging the development of local farming, so population centers can better afford to feed themselves. Similarly, discouraging the use of arable land for development.

•Government investing in expanding broadband infrastructure to make high-speed Internet access more accessible and affordable. A recent study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found ranked the U.S. 15th out of 30 industrialized countries in terms of broadband performance. Offering tax incentives to companies that use the Internet to decentralize their workforce to homes and neighborhood clusters."

All well and good. But consider a composite suburban couple, the kind of folks who commute 10-20 miles every day, then come home and drive their kids all over creation. Both husband and wife work at professional jobs. In fact, they're probably corporate transplants, mortgaged to the hilt. They can't afford private school for the kids; if they move into the city, the kids will have to attend a very rough public school, the kind with gangs and metal detectors. Their home hasn't gained in value. There's a swimming pool where they might have grown vegetables. They've spent their adult years living like most everyone else at their economic level, their income growing along with their debt. But now they're seeing troubling signs, feeling that that ought to make some adjustments.

Any ideas?

Let's hope the optimists are right. Otherwise, I'm not seeing a smooth tranistion from the current fossil fuel economy to whatever lies ahead.

James McMurtry - 60 Acres

2008-05-29T07:05:00.001-07:00

Why am I a James McMurtry fan? Because he actually takes an honest look at people and places and sees where we're headed. No sentimentality or affected angst.

Better Late than Never

2008-05-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I left this comment on Mark's post on his new tenant:

"Nice pic. For the past several years we've had a mourning dove nest on top of the shade structure over the dog houses. Drives the dogs crazy, but Maggie can't quite jump high enough to reach it, and I keep her dog house far enough to one side that she can't jump on it and then jump up and chomp at the nest. So far this year, no dove. I kind of miss it."

Well, yesterday, I stepped outside to find Maggs whining and pacing about beneath the shade structure. Our tenant has arrived.

Cate doesn't give a rip. If it isn't covered in fur, it isn't worthy of her attention. But a squirrel on the neighbor's roof sends her around the bend.

Actually, Mama Dove has picked a good spot. She has overhead protection from avian predators, and heaven help the possum, coon, or rat snake brave or stupid enough to enter the yard. I do worry about the fledglings flapping out into the yard.

Still, I welcome the company.

In case you're interested...

2008-05-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

For the past few years I've written a hunting dog column for Texas Wildlife, the magazine of the Texas Wildlife Association. TWA doesn't maintain an electronic archive, so I've started uploading the published columns to my website. I have a few there now, and I plan to get the rest of them, along with selected feature articles, uploaded over the next several days. You can read them here.

Most of the columns are aimed at beginners, so experienced working dog folks probably won't learn much from them. Still, bird dog lovers might enjoy reading about hounds, and houndsmen might enjoy reading about retrievers, and so on.

Enjoy!

Too Fast, Too Fragile

2008-05-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

Frank Deford's NPR commentary on Thoroughbreds and the American emphasis on speed and power in nearly all sports got me thinking about pointing dogs. Modern pointing dog field trials stress speed and style above all other qualities, including hunting ability. As a result, we're seeing too many dogs with more "run" than "hunt." My own beloved Maggs descends from a long line of great trial dogs. She's a blur in the field. And she's injured more often than not because her delicate body just can't take the pounding she gives it on the rough West Texas badlands. She also has marginal hips. At five years old, she no longer wants to jump in the bed of the truck. At two, she'd jump over the tailgate. Yet she still runs flat out in the field. On warm days, she consistently outruns her nose.

But she looks damned impressive doing it - when she's within sight.

I Love Mountains Day - Wendell Berry

2008-05-05T10:19:00.001-07:00

Nothing flashy. Just plain-spoken wisdom, as always.

Grand Cayman

2008-05-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

Confession: On Wednesday April 23, 2008, between 7:15 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., I consumed four large lobster tails, a house salad, several rolls, an assortment of steamed vegetables and at least two glasses of sauvignon blanc.

Excuse: I was merely getting my money's worth on all-you-can-eat lobster night at a Grand Cayman restaurant that caters to American appetites. Besides, we were on vacation, damn it.

A diving vacation, actually. A well-traveled diver once explained to me the difference between a diving vacation and a diving trip. On a diving vacation, you mix a few dives in with your gluttony, lying about, and overspending. On a diving trip, you get off the plane, throw your gear into the rental car, and drive directly to the boat. Over the next few days, you spend as much time in the water as you can without succumbing to nitrogen poisoning. In other words, you dive the way I went at hunting and fishing back in my teens, twenties, and early thirties. I don't go at anything that hard anymore, including work.

Normally, Grand Cayman Island would be way too upscale for a cheapskate like me, but my alert and resourceful left-brained wife put together a great deal, one of those tedious and confusing arrangements involving points, miles, credits, discounts, and upgrades.

Given a choice of vacation spots, I'll head to some mountain range or other or back to Kentucky. Jane will head for the ocean. I'm a decent swimmer, comfortable in water. Jane is powerful swimmer, a former life guard, who'd rather swim a mile than walk a mile. I'm convinced that her ears double as gills.

So we left glorious spring weather here in North Texas - crisp nights and mornings, highs in the low 70s, bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, tender greenery everywhere - to land on a Saturday afternoon in suffocating heat and humidity. Sweat ran down my sunglasses as I toted our gear from the little terminal to the rental car office. (Welcome to de island, mon!) I muttered something like, "I can have this shit in Houston in August." If Jane heard me, she held her tongue.

The intrepid divers head out to sea. We don't have an underwater camera, so we ended up with the standard ridiculous tourist photos ("...and here we are at Rum Point, standing next to the giant wooden lizard.")

* * *

When I was a kid, back in the early seventies, I did some diving with my father. Dad was a spear fisherman and volunteer diver for the local rescue squad. He and another squad member taught me the basics in the pool at tiny Campbellsville College, in my hometown. What I remember most from those lessons is the gentle amusement in Dad's brown eyes, behind his mask, as we passed his regulator back and forth in eight or ten feet of water during our "buddy-breathing" exercise. No doubt my eyes were big as silver dollars as I waited those few seconds for Dad to calmly take his two or three breaths before handing the regulator back to me.

After that, we did some shallow diving along the banks of Green River Reservoir, slow, easy diving, with decent visibility. We filled up a tackle box with lures that anglers lost to roots and stumps. The number of huge bass that hung around in six feet of water in the middle of a summer day astounded me.

Dad stored his personal diving gear in a small, faded army-surplus rucksack. I loved to go through it, and he didn't mind. He kept his mask and regulator in the main compartment, wrapped in rags. His compass and depth gauge went in side pockets. His knife, in its hard scabbard, was shoved to one side of the main compartment so that when the flap was closed the big orange handle protruded. The bundle smelled of old canvas, lake water, rubber, and a scent that I can only describe as "Dad." I relied on borrowed equipment, but I had my own rucksack, and I daydreamed about filling it with my own gear.

In his work with the rescue squad, Dad located and helped recover the remains of drowning victims. I asked him about it, and all he'd say was, "Usually you're right on top of the body before you recognize it. "

Then, on a cool, gray spring day, he descended into a deep, flooded quarry in search of a missing mother and her toddler and infant. He found the car in about thirty feet of water. The windows were down. He turned on his light and looked inside. After that, my unshakable father, a WWII combat veteran, lost interest in diving. I was too young to continue without him.

Years passed, and Dad seemed to get his second wind. Still vigorous in his early sixties, he bought a new bird dog pup - this first since his best old dog died a dozen years before - and regained his passion for old pursuits. He began to talk about diving again. By this time, a couple of years out of college, I could afford my own gear. We made some rough plans, noted improvements in equipment, looked at prices.

Then he died suddenly, and I let go all thoughts of diving.

* * *

A few years back, Jane announced that she wanted to go diving in the Caribbean. I told her she'd have to take lessons and get certified, and that I'd need to go through the training again. She let it drop, and I figured that was the end of it. But this past January, we saw "Bucket List," the movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, about two cancer patients determined to do all of the things on their list - their bucket list - before they kicked the bucket. So they jumped out of planes, drove race cars, reconnected with family, and so on. A very funny and touching movie. Jane decided we'd get an early start on our bucket list. Next thing I knew she'd signed us up for scuba lessons. We finished our academic and pool lessons here in the Dallas area. We'd finish our certification with four successful training dives in the waters off Grand Cayman Island.

It all came back very quickly, though I had to adjust to major equipment improvements. For one thing, the old style of buddy-breathing is out; today's diver is equipped with a back-up secondary regulator for emergencies. Modern masks are far lighter, more comfortable, and easier to clear than the older models, though they lack the satisfying heft. No more confusing dive tables. A dive computer that attaches to your BC or wrist crunches the numbers for you.

Sunday morning on the island, we rigged up our gear, and, along with five other students, followed our instructor, Dave, down the ladder, through the rocks, and into water too clear and blue to be real.

Trouble, right off. This being my first saltwater dive, I underestimated the effect of the additional buoyancy. Twelve pounds of weight, I discovered, would barely get me under water. I worked way too hard maintaining reasonable depth as we worked our way out to the remains of an old cargo ship sunk by the British Navy in the 1920s. Jane kept looking back, motioning for me to get with it and keep up. It seems that descending thirty feet has little effect on a relationship. Still, I managed to get to the designated open spot on the bottom where we demonstrated a few necessary skills.

A bit later, as we switched out tanks in preparation for our second dive, Dave, a very reserved, patient young Brit, who'd said not a word about my struggles during the first dive, walked by and placed a four-pound weight in my hand. The second dive went much better.

* * *

It seemed to me that despite its posh restaurants and hotels, gorgeous beaches, rising financial prominence, and well-deserved reputation as a top diving and snorkeling destination, Grand Cayman Island hosts a high concentration of unhappy tourists. Eye contact was rare and fleeting, unless I happened to say "hi" or "good morning," which usually elicited a a startled glance and quickened pace. Grim or bored visages nearly everywhere, even on the beach. A typical breakfast scene: Jane and I are sitting at a table, sipping coffee and orange juice, enjoying the morning view of the beach. In walks a striking young woman, thirty-something with patrician good looks, followed by three or four young children, an uncomfortable-looking nanny and well-dressed and tonsured husband. The kids' eyes never leave their video games. The father's eyes rarely leave his Blackberry. They order without looking at the waiter. Other than the nanny' s corrections of the children, no one says anything. We noticed this sort of thing right off and saw it every day. Only in the tackiest tourist traps near Georgetown or out at Stingray Island, where crews from tour boats feed the stingrays to keep them around and tame, did folks seem to be having a big time.

Then there was the disappointing lack of birds. Maybe we were there at the wrong time of year for birding, but I expected lots of songbirds, gulls, and the like. Instead, I saw mostly white-winged doves, a few swallows, and lots of grackles. I don't believe I saw a single gull or wading bird. Maybe that's as it should be; I haven't checked into it. But I'll pass along a story. One night we were sitting in Sunset Grill, a hamburger and taco joint that became our favorite restaurant, (incredible fish tacos!) when a plane flew over so low that Jane thought it was about crash on the beach. I said it reminded me of a crop duster. The manager overheard our conversation, and said, "That's the mosquito plane. It comes over about this time every night. You've probably noticed that we have absolutely no mosquitoes." Actually, I hadn't noticed, most likely because, sure enough, there were no mosquitoes. Jane said that she was glad we weren't dining outside just then.

The life of the party. Your faithful correspondent in Paradise. Tired, sunburned, grouchy, and ready for supper.

* * *

The next two dives really were spectacular. We spent time about 70 feet deep, demonstrating proficiency with a compass and convincing Dave that we could take off our masks for a few seconds, put them back on and clear them without freaking out. Mostly, though, we eased along above the coral, watching turtles, tarpon, and schools of fish I couldn't identify. One of my regrets is that I didn't do more reading on the ecology of the island and its waters. Earlier that morning, a group of divers saw a hammerhead, so we kept an eye out, but didn't see one. Jane didn't seem especially disappointed.

Jane loves diving; she's thoroughly hooked. I like it. Actually, I took more pleasure in her delight than in the actual diving. Although I was quite comfortable, save for mild ear squeeze that forced me to slow my descent and equalize more often, I couldn't help but feel like a foreign object. Maybe it was the Darth Vader hiss of breathing from a tank. Maybe I prefer the mystery of something coming from unseen depths to take my fly, lure, or bait. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky and prefer to spend my time where I feel I belong. Or perhaps the world's best diving can't match the wonder of being a kid six feet deep in a Kentucky lake, easing along with Dad, looking at schools of largemouth bass and bream, keeping an eye out for lures tangled in the brush.

More Excuses and an Upcoming Trip

2008-04-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

My apologies for my lack of blogging and commenting, and thanks to Mike for the nudge to my already guilty conscience. I've been buried under work, but then everyone else works too, and they still manage to keep their blogs current.

Jane and I blast off on a short diving vacation tomorrow. I promise a full report with photos when I get back home. I'm taking along James Howard Kunstler's new novel, World Made by Hand. Expect a short review sometime in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience, and please keep checking in.

Once again, the Onion nails American culture

2008-03-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there's more truth in satire than in the best reporting, as this piece from the Onion clearly demonstrates.

Computer Crash

2008-03-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

My not-so-old computer quit for good this past Friday. I finally got up and running with a new one late last night, but after jumping through all of the Internet configuration hoops, I seem to have dropped some email. So if you commented on my blog posts or sent email and now think I'm a rude SOB who ignores his friends, rest assured that I'm merely a clumsy SOB (Senile Old Birdhunter) who sometimes loses email. I hope you'll re-send your comments.

My Amazon/B&N Problem

2008-02-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday I logged onto Amazon.com and ordered Coal River by Michael Shnayerson and two books in the Oxford University Press "Very Short Introduction" series. Even with the typical heavy discounts, the order qualified for free shipping. The following Saturday morning, I received an email from Amazon saying that the books had been shipped. Yesterday, (Monday) shortly after lunch, the books arrived at my front door.

How can any independent bookstore, other than those dealing in very rare, specialized, or antiquarian books, compete with that kind of service and convenience? Of course I love to browse bookstore shelves and racks, and I rarely leave without buying something. But for the past several years most of my book purchases have gone like this: A review on a new book or an essay about a writer's work catches my eye, or I'll need a book or journal for reference. Instead of heading to the bookstore, I click over to Amazon. But not without a twinge of guilt.

In most ways, I was crunchy (Jane would say cranky) before Rod Dreher entered high school, though I'm very grateful for his articulation. I can't help it; I'm wired that way. My preferences are based more on my upbringing and inborn temperament - the influences that shape my sensibilities - than on politics or even moral reasoning. Certain things just feel right while others feel cheap, vulgar, or exploitative.

So I want to support independent bookstores. I would go well out my way to do business with a good independent bookseller if I could find one within remotely reasonable driving distance.

Or I like to think that I would. There are a few small issues that make me wonder.

Yes, independent bookstores are increasingly rare, but I've visited several in various Texas cities and towns, and, with rare exceptions, they don't stock my books. Oh, they'll be happy to order them for you, but books by a minor regional novelist don't justify shelf space that could be more profitably occupied by the works of better-known writers. And of course that's perfectly reasonable from a business standpoint. Independent booksellers have limited shelf-space and they're fighting for survival. They can ill-afford to placate every neurotic writer who comes along.

Then there's evil, predatory Barnes & Noble. They stock my books, especially here in Texas. When I have a new book out, community relations managers from various B&N stores around North Texas call to schedule book signings, which means that my books get time in the front window and on front tables - space that Texas Tech University Press, my fine little publisher, could never afford. Throughout the year, B&N recognizes local writers through author of the month promotions. B&N can afford these little outreach efforts whereas the independents need to score very popular local writers or big-name literary writers from elsewhere in order to justify the time and expense required to put on a worthwhile event. Of course independent booksellers do get behind works by new or obscure writers that would otherwise be overlooked, but their numbers are small, and they can do only so much.

I understand the independent booksellers' predicament. I also want people to buy my books. Whenever readers send me email, I always ask how they found out about my book and where they bought it. Nine times out of ten, they read a review in a newspaper or magazine. Then they ordered the book from Amazon.com or picked it up at B&N.

So, despite the convenience of Amazon.com shopping, I still find myself browsing amid flocks of teenagers drinking five dollar cups of coffee. Maybe I'm petty or mercenary.

On the other hand, I have to say that my frequent business with Amazon.com isn't totally inconsistent with my natural crunchiness.

For decades Union Underwear, which made - you guessed it - underwear (for Fruit of the Loom) was far and away the largest employer in Campbellsville, Kentucky, my hometown. The town bent over backward to accommodate "The Factory." Working lives were spent in the bleach room or on this or that line. Women worked grueling shifts stitching together T-shirts as fast as they could feed material into the machines, then went home to help their husbands with farm work.

Then came the 1990s and NAFTA. The Factory shut down and moved to Mexico. Unemployment in Taylor County shot up to 18 percent. The degree to which the local agricultural and business economies had eroded became bleakly apparent.

A few years later, Amazon.com built a huge distribution center in Campbellsville and put a lot of people back to work. To a rural, Southern, non-union population accustomed to employment at The Factory, Amazon's work environment seemed downright progressive. Amazon.com, of course, saw a very stable workforce in a region where the cost of living is relatively low.

So when I place an order through Amazon.com, I tell myself that, in a minuscule way, I'm supporting old friends, former neighbors, and classmates. On my website and on this blog, I'll link to Amazon, despite the company's annoying practice of prominently hawking used copies just below the listed price of a new copy. (I certainly don't object to the used book market, and I'm thankful for every reader, but given a choice, I'd prefer to earn my tiny royalty.)

And until something changes, I'll continue to root for independent booksellers while doing business with the allegedly bland, heartless, soulless, predatory chain that stocks and occasionally promotes my books.

Townes Van Zandt - Marie

2008-02-21T10:24:00.001-08:00

I stumbled across this and just had to share it.

Everybody loves "Pancho and Lefty," but of all of the songs the great Townes Van Zandt wrote and sang, "Marie" is my favorite. The song knocked me out the first time I heard it and has haunted me ever since.

There's an unfortunate audio synch problem throughout the second half. If you're inclined to be distracted by it, just close your eyes and listen. You don't have to be a lefty to be moved by "Marie."

Proper Beagle Work

2008-02-19T15:23:00.001-08:00

Sure, Uno's a looker, but can he do this? My first hunting dog was a beagle, and I still love the breed. Back then, we rarely called them beagles. Usually, we just called them "rabbit dogs." Looks like this guy has some good ones.

It's Getting Colder

2008-02-15T17:51:00.000-08:00

My Blackland Prairie piece, published in the February issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife, is now online. Meanwhile, even in our current recession or economic downturn or whatever it is, subdivisions and strip malls continue to crawl over the North Texas Prairie and creek bottoms. Where are all of these people coming from? What happens to the homes they're leaving? My part of Plano is full of empty strip malls.

I've been thinking a lot about Matt's recent post about "letting the cold in." That idea has stuck with me since I first encountered it more than twenty years ago in Vance Bourjaily's The Unnatural Enemy.

Warm spots are getting awfully scarce in northcentral Texas.

Sure-Enough Dog!

2008-02-15T17:05:00.000-08:00

Donny Lynch and Ranger, his fine treeing feist, late last month in the Sabine River bottom. Ranger treed either a squirrel or 'coon in a hollow tree. He was climbing up the trunk, barking every breath, and had hung onto the hole for several seconds while I fumbled with my camera. Donny had just stepped up behind him when I snapped this photo.

With Ranger's help, Donny, our friend"Smooth," and I took seven squirrels in about two hours in very warm, windy conditions.

At only three years old, Ranger is one of the best all-around hunting dogs, I've ever known. He's fearless when facing outraged 'coons and is a deadly-accurate tree dog. He's also a delight in camp and handles beautifully in the woods. Donny rarely has to raise his voice.

Year before last, Ranger got stuck while chasing a 'coon into a hollow cypress tree. While Donny desperartely tried to call him out, he continued to bay his quarry. Finally, we could hear him struggling to get free and worried that the 'coon would chew him him up while he had no room to move. We ran a quarter of a mile back to the truck and were gathering the ax and saw (the chainsaw was out of fuel) when Ranger came huffing through the woods toward us.

Donny leaned on the truck bed and let out deep breath.

I said, "Wonder how he got loose?"

Ranger stood panting, awaiting further instructions.

Donny said, "He probably ate is way out."

When Editing Becomes Rewriting

2008-01-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

First thing this morning I vowed that I would write 500 words for a magazine assignment before blogging or reading blogs or checking email - all of the normal and nearly irresistible ways of avoiding work.

So much for willpower.

I had been planning to wait until tonight to blog about the piece on Raymond Carver in the December 24 issue of The New Yorker. But then a tiny crack in the discipline dam quickly gave way to complete collapse. I gave in and listened to a short NPR segment on Caver's relationship with Gordon Lish, his longtime editor at Esquire and Knoph. Now, my creative juices are trickling in that direction, and I won't be able to redirect the flow to a more responsible course until I've posted a few thoughts on Carver, Lish, and the writer-editor relationship.

I discovered Raymond Carver back the early nineties as I was beginning to read beyond hook and bullet and nature writing. I started with his short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and went on to read nearly everything he published.

Much has been made of his minimalism, but what struck me was the clarity and elegance of his simple language, and, even more important, the sense that here was man of decency, a man who had struggled and suffered, one who'd known failure and could understand and forgive weakness in others. Reading his stories about failed relationships, alcoholism, murder, and betrayal, I felt the gentleness with which he handled his struggling, absurd, often miserable characters. Here was an adult, a writer who could be trusted.

At times, though, his stories frustrated me, not because he failed to meet my expectations - a writer works under no such obligation - but because I felt that something was missing or that Carver was telling me something through omission, but I was too thick to get it. Some of Hemingway's stories leave me with the same feeling, as if he wrote much more, then went back and excised it. Of course critics and scholars tell us what we should infer from those silences, but I'm often left thinking, "Well, maybe."

Hemingway famously said that when chiseling stories, a writer should go back and "take out all of the good parts." I don't think he meant that at all. His related statement - apocryphal or not - that a writer should be prepared to "kill his babies" makes more sense to me. In other words, beware of your own "best" writing; it can get in the way of your story.

According to The New Yorker, Carver wasn't as severely minimalist at mid-career as critics have long believed. Manuscript drafts and correspondence show that Lish cut some of Carver's stories by more than 50 percent and literally rewrote the ending of the title story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." Furthermore, correspondence between the two make clear the anguish the heavy editing caused the newly sober and fragile Carver.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love met with critical acclaim, making a literary star of Carver and complicating his relationship with his old friend Lish. As he gained confidence, Carver began to stand his ground. His later, lusher stories earned high praise from critics, putting to rest (in my opinion) the notion that Lish propped him up.

These revelations jolted me because "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" has stayed with me all these years because it moved me and at the same time left me with the feeling that Carver was holding something back. Turns out, Lish held it back.

Carver's original (or very lightly edited) version of the story, under its original title, "Beginners," follows the article and selected correspondence.

Did Lish go too far? I think so.

Is the story better of worse for Lish's editing? I'm still thinking about it.

If you think that famous literary writers work with complete confidence, read a few of Raymond Carver's letters to his friend and editor.

And if you haven't done so, read Raymond Carver.

Carry the Damn Camera

2008-01-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

Back in the early nineties, when I started writing for the bird hunting and gun dog magazines, I had to provide photos with my manuscripts - for no extra pay, of course. On every hunting trip, I tried my buddies' patience by holding things up to photograph a dog on point or by bringing everything to a halt if the light was especially good. I have never been a good photographer, but a bunch of my simple shots saw the light of publication. But constantly worrying about photos took some of the fun out of hunting. I vowed that if I ever wrote for magazines that work only with real photographers, I'd leave the camera at home and concentrate on my hunting and any stories that might come out of it.

Well, I'm happy to say that I haven't submitted a photo in a dozen years or so. My stories seem to read better accompanied by photos by Wyman Meinzer, Russell Graves, and other pros.

But these days, of course, digital photography is easy and fun, and the results are immediate. And of course I like to include photos with my blog posts.

Still, I'm usually too lazy to carry a camera.

I paid for that laziness earlier today.

I took Cate to a creek bottom a few miles from home. It's within the city limits, so I can't carry a shotgun, but the place is covered with huge pecan trees, several kinds of oak, hackberry, and Osage orange, and it's loaded with fox squirrels.

Cate is really starting to tree. She's been treeing and barking at squirrels that she can see for several weeks, but lately, she's starting to tree by scent only, and she's learning to follow timbering squirrels through the treetops, barking every breath - a nice, clear, chop, almost as deep and smooth as a coonhound's.

Cate struck about 50 yards away amid a stand of huge post oaks. For several seconds, I couldn't find her even though she was raising hell. Then I heard scratching up in the trees - a squirrel running up a trunk or branch, I assumed.

No, Cate running up the trunk of a big oak that had fallen against another old giant.

There she was, my seven month-old pup, eight feet off the ground, standing on the trunk of a leaning tree and reared up on the tree that held the squirrel, barking her head off.

And I had no camera and no gun. Nothing to do but cheer her on.

Directly, the squirrel timbered. Cate ran back down the leaning trunk, following the squirrel by sight. She lost it after a few minutes, but had that been a real hunting situation, that squirrel would have gone in the bag.

Next time, I'm carrying the damn camera.

Too much drive or too little sense?

2007-12-18T17:43:00.000-08:00

Heidi and me in the Pease River bottom in 1992. She's wearing her "It's Hell Being a Bird Dog" expression while I pull off her boots after a morning hunt. Some years, the river bottom is a carpet of sand burs. (Photo by Brad Carter)

* * *

Patrick's blog about hard and soft dogs in general and his beloved Trooper in particular really struck home. In regard to working terriers, Patrick describes a hard dog as one that goes in teeth first and never backs up regardless of quarry or conditions. A soft dog, on the other hand, usually locates and bays the quarry until the hunter can use his tools to extract and dispatch it. Not surprisingly, over the course of a long field career, the hard dog suffers more damage than his softer counterparts.

Expanding on Patrick's description, I might call Maggie a hard dog. She descends from big-running field trial stock, and, true to her lineage, she's a very fast, wide-ranging slasher with near-maniacal prey drive. Yet she's fairly easy to handle, because she likes to stay out in front. You won't win a field trial with a dog that casts out and comes around behind you, no matter how many birds he finds. I have little doubt that if a skillful handler campaigned Maggs on the field trial circuit, she'd be competitive. She's a stylish blur, just what judges are looking for.

And she has spent much of her career sidelined by injuries. Unlike her Aunt Molly, a sturdy 55- pound thoroughbred out of the same bloodline, Maggs is a very delicate 42-pounder. Even though West Texas quail country punishes her body, she knows only one speed and one way. Hit the shin oak motte at full tilt; dive off of the 6-foot bank; run flat out over the roughest, rockiest, most broken terrain imaginable.

So she tears up a knee, and the doc orders a month-long break in the middle of quail season. The next year, it's a badly strained ligament in her paw. Two weeks of crate rest followed by a month of only light exercise. I could go on. She re-injured her paw early this season, but seems to have recovered. Still, I'm waiting for the next blown knee or serious gash.

Heidi, on the other hand, came from a solid but undistinguished line of gun dogs. Oh, there were field champions way back there, but she wouldn't have gotten a second look from a field trial judge. Yet she took a sensible approach to her job. Instead of running flat out, she covered her ground at a comfortable lope. Yes, she'd sometimes get out a quarter of a mile or so, and she'd swing around and nail a covey two hundred yards behind me, but she slowed down when she needed to and understood that it's best to ease into a plum thicket. As a result, she could hunt two long days in a row or several consecutive half-days, all season long.

Yes, we gun dog lovers owe much to the field trial folks. We have better dogs today because of competition and testing. But a field trial heat typically lasts 30 minutes and is likely to be held on fairly open, gentle ground so that judges and handlers can see the dogs.

I love hunting with Maggie. With her big heart and sweet nature, she'll always be one of my favorites. But I'll think long and hard before buying another pointing dog pup sired by a field trial champion.

Out and About

2007-12-13T06:29:00.000-08:00

Russell Graves has some great photos from his trip to Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and some righteous bow hunting shots.

Julie Zickefoose visited the Bosque Del Apache NWR around the same time and grouchily argues against sandhill crane hunting.

Rebecca gets some great news.

Mike, at Sometimes Far Afield, takes us on a pheasant hunt in the Texas Panhandle.

Rod Dreher worries about intellectual incest at universities.

Steve Bodio shows us his new goshawk here and here.

Terrierman rips price-gouging veterinarians.

Take a quick look through Chas Clifton's eyes. Personally, I like his view.

Cate and the Coyote

2007-12-12T08:09:00.000-08:00

How 'bout them ears?

Two or three times a week, I run Cate in the woods along a creek that wends through a park near my home. I can't carry a gun, of course, but the woods are full of fox squirrels, and Cate is starting to tree. We're violating the local leash law, but no else walks in the woods. There are no trails there - other than old game trails - and real woods, with briars and deadfalls, are just too untidy for most suburbanites. They stick to the paved trails that run through open, mowed areas of the park.

A large male coyote lives along the creek. We see him on nearly every outing. On cool days, we'll sometimes find him lazing in the sun along the edge of the woods. As far as I know, he causes no trouble. The first time Cate encountered him, back in early October, she weighed all of 18 pounds. But in her currish little mind, this was something to be chased, caught, and whipped to a frazzle. She took off after the coyote, baying bloody murder. The coyote loped away, probably wondering about this crazy little blond dog. Nowadays, after a few scoldings, Cate pays the coyote little attention. Usually, he stops and watches us at a distance, obviously waiting for us to pass so that he can go on about his business.

Unfortunately, he terrifies folks who walk their small dogs through the park, even though he never bothers anyone. Someone has complained to the local animal control people. Lately, I've been finding wire snares along the game trails. I suppose I ought to start packing wire cutters in case Cate runs into a noose.

Of course no one worries that dogs might get caught in these snares. After all, no one actually goes into the woods. There are wild animals in there.

I wonder. Just how tame do our woods have to be to satisfy safety-obsessed suburbanites? Can we not tolerate one beleaguered coyote?

Back to the Panhandle

2007-12-12T07:36:00.001-08:00

Weekend before last, Brad Carter and I loaded the dogs and headed back to the Panhandle. We hunted in a cool drizzle Friday afternoon. The dogs found a couple of coveys, and we took a few birds while Cate howled in her box. We got back to the truck just before dark and let her out. While Jack and Maggs drank from a windmill tank, Cate jumped in and paddled around. Then, of course, she had to go back in her box soaking wet.

Next morning, we hunted in the rain. I topped a hill south in the river and felt a warm breeze out of the South. Sure enough, the rain stopped and the temperature rose. By mid afternoon, we were sweating and the dogs' tongues were dragging. Still, we managed to move a few coveys. Cate got acquainted with sand burs.

Jack, Brad's French Brittany, points a covey beneath a cedar.

Brad waters Jack from a canteen. We tease Jack about looking like a little bear. He doesn't seem to mind.

We moved a few more coveys Sunday morning. A good hunt, all in all. Maggs held up well - her paw seems fine. The plains got some much-needed moisture, and we took home a few birds. We're not covered up with quail this year, but I'd say we have plenty.

Panhandle Hunting Trip Report - Finally

2007-12-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

Way back in mid-November, the hoped-for cold front never came. The first afternoon, Brad and I cast Jack and Maggie up a brushy draw in the breaks south of the Pease River and tried not to think about rattlesnakes. It was clear and about 80 degrees. I had already seen a rat snake crossing the road. The mesquite was still green, as was the waist-high broomweed and the thickest crop of ragweed I've ever seen. The Rolling Plains made excellent use of the spring and summer rains.

Of course the dogs were stepping on their tongues fifteen minutes later when they plowed into a big covey that made a joke of the old rule that says that bobwhites rarely fly further than 80 yards. After a fit of whoaing, cussing, and whistle blowing, we got the dogs started in the direction most of the singles had taken. Amazingly, they found and pointed a few of the those birds, which had flown across a wide draw then up and over a hill. Most of them were a good 150 yards from where we flushed them. Of course they probably ran after they lit, but you get the picture.

Two hours later, with the sun disappearing behind the red cliffs above the Pease, we made it back to the truck, sore-footed and out of water, but encouraged. We'd moved three big coveys in about two hours, in miserable heat and rank cover. Certainly not impressive by Texas standards but much better than last year. Big coveys usually mean a good quail population. In lean years, six-bird coveys are common, even early in the season. A couple of good frosts, a little rain or snow, and we'd be in business.

Maggs on point. Seconds later, a covey flushed. Note the rank cover.

Next morning, we woke to fog and cooler temperatures. We moved a couple of coveys, but by lunchtime, the sun had burned the fog away and we were faced with another November day fit only for golfers and rattlesnakes.

Even worse, Maggs was favoring her left front paw. She injured a ligament in that paw last season but seemed to recover after a six-week rest. Still, I suspected she'd re-aggravated her old injury. I checked on her after lunch, and sure enough, the outside of her paw was badly swollen. The hunt was over for good ol' Maggs.

But fear not. After a three week rest, Maggs was back in action.

Stay tuned for another update.

Typical Panhandle bobwhite country. Looking north over the Pease River breaks.

I'm back - with apologies

2007-12-04T17:49:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the light (non-existent) blogging the last few weeks. Magazine deadlines have left me with little energy to spare. Many thanks to everyone for all the good hunting wishes, and to Matt for the blunt and completely justified reminder.

My Opening Day Approaches

2007-11-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

As much as I've enjoyed recent hunting stories by Rebbecca, Mike, Patrick, and others, I have to admit that they induced sharp twinges of envy. Sure, the dogs and I have been out for runs, but these weren't real hunts. Most of the time I didn't even carry a gun; I'm still a little nervous about shooting around Cate. She's bold, but why rush things? Quail season opened the last weekend of October. I tried not to think about it as I went about my weekend chores. This past weekend, with temperatures in the 80s, I was actually glad I hadn't headed for West Texas.

But cooler temperatures are coming. I'm heading out tonight for the boonies up along the Red River for a few days of quiet work and some late afternoon runs with Cate and Maggie. Come Friday morning, we'll load up and head for our quail hunting grounds along the Pease River, in the southeastern corner of the Panhandle. I'll be meeting my old buddy Brad Carter there, along with his Brittany, Jack, and old English setter, Buck. Cate will be along for the ride, and she'll get in some short romps. Maggs is in decent shape and ready to go.

I have high hopes. The Rolling Plains got more than enough rain. Quail numbers were horribly low at the beginning of the breeding season, so I'm not expecting one of the legendary Texas boom years. But the hunting ought to be pretty good.

We'll see.

Wendell Berry's Wisdom

2007-10-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a long magazine piece about reconciliation. As I've done so often over the past 20 years or so, I went to my bookshelf to consult Wendell Berry. Over the past two days I re-read The Hidden Wound, his book on racial healing and reconciliation, written when he was only 34. As always, he offers much wisdom, concisely and beautifully. Here are two samples:

"There is, I am sure, such a thing as a sense of guilt about historical wrongs, but I have the strongest doubts about the usefulness of a guilty conscience as a motivation; a man, I think can be much more dependably motivated by a sense of what would be desirable than by a sense of what has been deplorable. The historical pressures upon race relations in this country tend always to push us toward two complimentary dangers: that, to whites, ancestral guilt will seem an adequate motive; that, to blacks, ancestral bondage will seem an adequate distinction."

and,

"It may be the most significant irony in our history that racism, by dividing the two races, has made them not separate but in a fundamental way inseparable, not independent but dependent on each other, each needing desperately to understand and make use of the experience of the other. After so much time together we are one body, and the division between us is the disease of one body, not of two. Even the white man and the black man who hate each other are, by that very token, each other's emotional dependents."

I've never understood why Wendell Berry is not better known and more widely read and discussed. Then again, simple wisdom and decency, without irony, cynicism or sentimentality, seems of little interest to the intelligentsia or the media these days.

Not Quite Dead

2007-10-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

Chris Vognar's movie column on the revival of the Western, in yesterday's Dallas Morning News, got me thinking about western novels.

It seems that cultural taste makers have been trying to drive those last few nails in the Western's coffin for at least the past three decades. I've long assumed that the themes and settings of the Nineteenth and early Twentienth Century American West simply don't resonate with modern Manhattan and West Coast sensibilities. They pronounce the Western dead because they have no interest in it. Therefore it nearly dies. Bookstores stock only a few Louie L'Amour and Matt Braun titles, if they stock westerns at all. One editor told me that westerns are books written "by old men for old men." Never mind that elderly men actually read and are more likley to have disposable income (not having spent it on cars and electronics) than the coveted 18-35 crowd. Sometimes, I get the feeling that the literary world is a bit like the high-fashion business.

No doubt changing tastes and a glut of horrible novels and movies in the 1950s and 1960s helped bring about the Western's decline. Nowadays, few people fully embrace the old frontier triumphalism - at least in its most simplistic forms. I suspect that urbanization plays a role too. Mountain men, buffalo hunting, and Comanche horsemanship are just too far removed from modern reality. (Unlike, say, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.)

Then along come Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma and Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Sure enough, the American public can work up an interest in Western movies, thanks to modern marketing, our celebrity culture, and - let's not forget -great stories.

So why not good, well-marketed novels?

I'll admit that I have a stake. I've written two novels that can be called Westerns in that they're both set in Nineteenth Century Texas. I certainly wouldn't call them traditional Westerns. (One academic reviewer accused me of "postmodern grotesquery." I wasn't sure whether to be offended or flattered.) New acquaintances of my generation often ask me about my novels, and I do my best to describe them. Often as not, they'll say something like, "Oh, I don't read Westerns, but I'll buy one for my Dad. He loves them."

Thank heaven for Dads. Long may they live!

Water Dogs

2007-10-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

Another scorcher today. Somebody said it's supposed to be fall.

I took the dogs out for a run this morning. They headed straight for the pond. Just as well. I didn't feel like fighting through poison ivy in the woods and head-high giant ragweed along the field edges. Right now, I can't imagine temperatures in the 50s, let a alone frost. But the dogs were glad to be out.

Who said treeing dogs won't fetch?

Maggs is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever wannabe

Two knotheads

Too Hot to Hunt

2007-10-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

Damn this Texas heat. Low 90s today, with more of the same predicted for the rest of the week. We should get a nice cool front in here next week.

Took Maggs and Cate out for a run this past Thursday at a wildlife management area near Lake Texoma. It was just too hot in the fields, and the woods are still full of poison ivy. Mostly, the dogs swam in the lake. Cate just turned 13 weeks old, and she's paddling around like a duck. Just followed Maggs right in. Curs aren't known for retrieving, but she'll fetch a small training dummy or tennis ball all day long.

On the way home, we drove through Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge. Lots of wading birds and resident ducks, and, in the road near the headquarters, the biggest timber rattler I've ever seen. Yes, timber rattlers are docile compared to diamondbacks and cottenmouths, but it got me thinking about floundering around in the hot woods with a small pup. I never let fear of poisonous snakes keep me from doing what I want to do, but seeing a big one makes me especially mindful.

Maggs caught a 'possum a few nights ago, but, bird dog that she is, couldn't bring herself to chomp. I looked out the back door and found little Cate dragging it around by its tail. I put both dogs in the house, and a few minutes later the 'possum woke up and went on about its possumish business.

As you can see, we've had a slow news week at the Chappell house.

Prairie Remnants

2007-09-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

I spent a morning last week exploring a small parcel of unplowed Blackland Prairie with Matt White,author of Prairie Time: A Blackland Portrait and Birds of Northeast Texas.

I've lived in the Blacklands, in the Dallas area, for the past 25 years, but this was the first time I had ever seen virgin Blackland Prairie. I've seen many working pastures with little bluestem and and other natives that provide decent habitat for grassland birds, but nothing like this.

Unplowed Blackland Prairie is far and away the most endangered habitat in Texas if not all of North America. Of the original 12 million acres, only about 5,000 remain, mostly in the form of small patches on private land. This particular patch survived only because it was set aside as a hay meadow and was spared the plow. Even when the cotton and corn crop failed, you could feed yourself and your family on a piece of prairie with a milk cow and a few hogs or other livestock. Matt had an interesting theory on these remnants. He said, "The very best of the old Blackland farmers had a practical conservation ethic that's rare today. They knew that they had to plan for contingencies because they couldn't just run out and buy whatever they needed, like we can today."

Prairie Rose - Blooms April-July

Blue Sage

Gayfeather

Chest-High Big Bluestem

In 1848, upon arriving at the edge of the Blackland Prairie, Dr. John Brooke, an emigrant from England, wrote,

“It was the finest sight I ever saw; immense meadows 2 or 3 feet deep of fine grass and flowers. Such beautiful colours I never saw…”

Later, after settling in Grayson County near the northern edge of the Blackland Prairie, he wrote,

“I can sit on my porch before my door and see miles of the most beautiful Prairie interwoven with groves of timber, surpassing, in my idea, the beauties of the sea. Think of seeing a tract of land on a slight incline covered with flowers and rich meadow grass for 12 to 20 miles…”

Keep that in mind if you ever drive through the Dallas area.

I just finished a feature article on the Blacklands for Texas Parks & Wildlife. I believe it's scheduled for the February issue. It was interesting, worthwhile work but very depressing.

If in doubt...

2007-08-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Post more puppy pics!

Donny with Cate and his rat terrier puppy Junior

Donny decided to take his puppy Chance Jr., with us to Minden , to show him off a bit and give him some crate and truck time. The more hauling and handling now, the less stress and confusion come hunting season.

In his prime, Junior's sire, Chance, was probably the best squirrel dog I've ever known. With Junior, Donny hopes to keep the line going. So far, things are looking up. Junior is big, bold, and friendly like Chance.

Chance and Junior

Now nearly eleven, old Chance is finally slowing down a bit, but he can still give you a good half-day hunt in cool weather.

Back in Marshall, we stopped in to visit our friend Ricky Houston, a serious squirrel hunter and rat terrier man. He wanted to see Cate, and I wanted to see Ginger, his pup. Ginger comes from a well-known line of large rat terriers established by Bobby Davis over in Louisiana. (Donny; Ricky; Bobby - did I tell you this story takes place in the South?)

Ricky with Ginger

Cate gets pummeled

Sure, life can seem pretty rotten at times. But as long as there are pups, how bad can it be?

A Productive Trip

2007-08-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well, look what I brought home from Minden, Louisiana.

It started on a Tuesday afternoon three weeks ago when Donny Lynch, my East Texas hunting buddy, called. As usual, he began by expressing his surprise that I actually picked up the phone then complained for five minutes or so about how it’s damn near impossible to reach me.

I assured him that I always screen my calls and only took his because I misread the number. That seemed to satisfy him.

I said, “What’s up?”

“Nothin’. I just called to talk dogs and squirrels with an old hunter.”

Of course he was up to something.

I waited.

He paused.

After a moment, he said, “I found you a cur dog.”

Yes, I’ve wanted a cur ever since I hunted over Donny’s old dog Molly, and especially after spending time in the woods with his young cur, Whitey. But I had convinced myself that I ought to wait until next year. This coming season I wanted to get Maggie, my German shorthair, into a lot of quail, and I wanted to scope out some good squirrel hunting spots close to home. Then I’d be ready to take on a cur pup.

Donny already knew all this, but I repeated it. He said, “You won’t find any better breeding anywhere around here.”

Coming from Donny, that meant something. He convinced me to give the breeder a call. I promised I’d call in a few days.

“Them pups is ready to go. They’ll be gone before Sunday. His dog has won everything around here, and the gyp is out of top Kemmer lines up in Tennessee.”

Okay, I’d call right away.

And I did. Then I called Donny back and told him I’d pick him up on my way through Marshall. He’d started it. He’d have to ride over to Minden with me.

I knew before I went that I’d buy one of those pups. The breeder, Greg Coker, is a serious squirrel and ‘coon hunter. His cur Tiger, the sire, is an excellent competition and hunting dog. The dam, a superb 'coon dog, belongs to his friend in Tennessee. Neither of the men were professional breeders looking to make a profit. Rather, they were breeding hunting dogs for their own use - always a good sign where experienced dog folks are concerned.

There were ten pups. Two females had been selected to go back to Tennessee with their Mama. True to their Kemmer blood, most of the pups were yellow. Greg and his brother would keep a pair of brindle males. After that I had my pick. I’ve always found dark brindle coats striking and backwoodsy. All of the curs I had known back in Kentucky had been brindled. But Jane likes yellow. (When Mama ain’t happy, and all that….)

Anyway, the pups tumbled out of the pen, and their mama, probably to her great relief, went over to join Tiger in another pen. Two bold females caught my eye right off. In the end, it was just a matter of picking one because I like her four white socks. I found the sire and dam calm and friendly, and neither barked or paced excessively despite the visitors and excitement.

So we loaded “Cate” and headed west. Donny, who took a shine to the other yellow female, later admitted that he had to repeatedly remind himself that he already had a yard full of good dogs at home.

Of course Maggs was appalled that first night, but she's a good sport.

Since then, Cate has been eating like a hound and growing like a thistle:

'coons beware!

Much to its benefit, the mountain cur isn’t recognized by the AKC. Hence the healthy variation in size and color. Until fairly recently, the mountain cur really wasn’t a breed at all, but a “type”bred strictly for working qualities. We all know the benefits of breeding records, judicious line breeding, and competition.. We all know the dangers, too. The cur has always been a rawboned, rural meat, hide, and stock dog, the sort of dog unlikely to catch the attention of the Fancy and well-heeled competitors. Let’s hope it never does.

Cate, a Kemmer Stock Mountain Cur, or Kemmer Cur, can be registered with the United Kennel Club, the National Kennel Club, and the Kemmer Stock Mountain Cur Breeders Association. For those interested in such things, the UKC website offers a brief history and breed standard.

Should be an interesting fall and winter.

Blogswick Stew

2007-07-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Michael Blowhard takes on the human population growth-is-always-good crowd.

James Howard Kunstler wonders if we’ve reached peak tech.

Chas Clifton gives us the straight poop on a certain black bear food.

Matt Mullenix has reopened his hawking blog.

Grumpy Old Bookman lets loose another entertaining haymaker at literary snobbism.

Enjoy!

Apologies and Appeals

2007-07-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

My apologies for my recent lack of blogging. I’ve been holed up in the boonies for the past several days, away from the Internet and telephone, trying to make progress on my part of the working dogs book I’m doing with Wyman Meinzer.

I’m struggling with an introductory essay on the history of the canine-human bond. I’m thinking 2500-3000 words, aimed at a general audience.

For reference, I’ve checked A Dog’s History of North America and Dog’s Best Friend, both by Mark Derr, A History of Dogs in the Early Americas by Marion Schwartz, and Lost History of the Canine Race by Mary Elizabeth Thurston.

Naturally, Derr, Schwartz, and Thurston agree on very little.

In Dog’s Best Friend, Derr begins his history of the wolf-human relationship 500,000 years ago, pointing to evidence that Canis lupus variabilis and Homo erectus pekinensis were “sharing time and space, food and shelter…” He further mentions that remains of Homo erectus and wolves dating back some 400,000 years, were found in Kent, England. He does not come out and say that there was a working, religious, or ceremonial relationship between species, but it seems implied.

Further along, Derr states that tamed wolves were well on their way to becoming dogs by the end of the Paleolithic Age. He frequently uses the name “wolfdog,” to describe short-faced wolves or very wolfish but nearly domesticated canines.

He then says,

“Among the predators hunting them [large Pleistocene herbivores] were saber-toothed tigers, scimitar cats, dire wolves, gray wolves, and humans with their wolfdogs.”(my emphasis)

Yet, a few pages later, he writes,

“By 15,000 years ago, people around the world were raising dogs, [my emphasis] with the centers of activity being northern Europe, including England, northern North America, especially the Arctic region, the Middle East, China, Japan, and Siberia. Presently, the earliest fossil called a dog comes from Obercassel, Germany, and dates to 14,000 years ago, the late Pleistocene or upper Paleolithic.”

Mary Elizabeth Thurston begins much more recently:

“Tantalizing hints that a relationship of some sort was forming between people and wolves during this era come from La Grotte du Lazaret, a 125,000-year-old complex of Paleolithic shelters discovered in France in 1969, where wolf skulls appear to have been set at the entrance of each dwelling, leading excavators to speculate that canids already were incorporated into some aspect of human culture at this very early stage.”

Thurston also puts the development of the true dog well into the Neolithic Age:

“Some of the earliest known skeletal remains classified as dog come from the Neolithic site of Jarmo, situated in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains spanning Iran and Iraq. Radiocarbon-dated to 6600 B.C., the fifty-three cranial and mandibular fragments of big-boned canids suggest that they may have been descended from mountain-dwelling wolves who were larger than their brothers in the floodplain.”

As for the use of dogs or “wolfdogs” in the hunting of giant Pleistocene animals, Thurston writes,

“At a twenty-five-thousand-year-old mammoth hunting camp in the Ukraine, for instance, some distinctive wolf skulls were found along with butchered remains of at least 166 mammoths. The skulls were markedly different from those of average wild wolves, with many of them exhibiting foreshortened muzzles, diminished tooth size, and teeth crowding, all traits hailed as more common to domestic dogs than wolves.”

I’m confused and would appreciate any comments, especially suggested reading. I’m not trying to wimp out of doing the needed research; I’m in over my head and need a bit of guidance. Also, my deadline looms large.

In a recent comment on one of my blog entries, Steve mentioned that some of Derr’s dog-evo seems out of date, but noted that scholarship on that subject is moving rapidly. Further comments?

Again, this will be a commercial book aimed at a general audience, not a scholarly work, so I don’t have room to guide readers through each author’s arguments. However, I do want to provide a reasonable treatment, one consistent, as far as possible, with current scholarship. In other words, I don’t want to make a fool of myself.

Many thanks!

Tagged by Terrierman!

2007-07-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

I had thought (hoped, actually) that as a relative newcomer to our little community of bloggers, I might escape notice. But no. Patrick, every bit as alert has his terriers, refused to let the new kid off the hook.

I'll do my best. No doubt my friends and loved ones could come up with a much longer list of quirks and foibles.

1. Just before dark, when it's not too hot, I like to sit in the backyard, sip red wine, and admire my tomato plants. Jane finds the practice odd and amusing, but not surprising.

2. In an earlier career, I designed circuitry for military weapon systems. For the most part, I enjoyed the work immensely, especially the part that involved running around in the desert testing prototype equipment. Although I find my current career as a writer more satisfying overall, I miss the math.

3. I get a bit annoyed when people ask, "How did an engineer become a writer?" Clearly, they know nothing about engineering or writing, though they probably think they do.

4. I like to think of myself as thrifty and sensible. My two daughters think I'm cheap.

5. I'm a morning person. I like to get up very early and drink a pot of coffee while sitting in the dark in my easy chair. I tell Jane that I'm working, and I am. She doesn't buy it.

6. Although it's a terrible dog training practice and more than a little ridiculous, I've always given my dogs nicknames. So far it hasn't caused even the slightest confusion. My agreeable dogs have responded well to both names and nicknames. My hard-headed dogs ignored both.

7. I have a good sense of direction in the field, but in restaurants, I often have trouble finding my table after a trip to the salad bar or men's room.

8. I am certain that car commercials are not aimed at me.