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Lisa W-B’s ranch horse, Whiskey, has long maintained that hunting consists of turning loose the beagles, then spending about 2 hours rounding them up. His belief was vindicated today when The Short Bus (TSB) managed to bring 4 errant hounds back to the huntsman! 
Today’s Short Bus was Mr. Blondie, Whiskey, and Ruby the Hot Peruvian Chica… 2 blondes & a brunette. Whiskey was “very excited” when we started out - this meant that his eyes were open, his ears were perked, and he was walking in a circle when he could have been standing still. Ruby was a little agitated, as usual, as we set out, but quickly settled in behind Mr. Blondie’s big QH butt and calmed down.
In addition to TSB, we had ZoE as huntsman, somewhere between 2 and 4 whippers-in (we had at least 2 official ones, plus 2 others who seemed to be sort of whipping - ZoE can sort this out), plus one visiting gentleman on a Missouri Fox Trotter. We hope he had a good time & will join us again. I think that was it - except for the guest, I think everyone else was at least part-time staff. We started out with 6.5 couple and brought 5 back in, but .5 was waiting at the trailers, and the other 1 came in during the afternoon.
TSB spent more time than not with the field in sight - or at least within earshot :lol: And we mostly managed not to get in the way :yes:
At some point, we were heading towards where we had last heard the horn when I spied several hounds headed our way. “Oh, crap!” I hate it when we end up in the way.
But then we heard the horn off behind us, and realized we had stumbled upon some walk-about hounds (or you could say that we cleverly zeroed in on them, knowing they had split off from the pack - that works, too). We counted 4 - and thought there might have been another one wandering around alone, but we had 4 for certain.
By then, ZoE was parked off to the south of us, blowing that long note that I call “Get yer butts over here right now!” So TSB decided that we should encourage the Lost 4 to go join her.
Mind you, we had no idea WHICH hounds we had found (although we knew Dancer was not among them, and were pretty sure that Huelwyn wasn’t, either - but beyond that, we were clueless). So we couldn’t call them by name. “Go to her!” and “Pack it up”, even when growled in our most authoritative manner, had little effect.
It was like calling kids in to do their homework. “Um, yeah - just a minute! Be right there…”
So then we tried sort of driving them in as if they were cows (we, of course, had no whips). That was somewhat more successful than calling to them, and they eventually wandered off in the general direction of the horn, with us ambling along behind.
And, indeed, when we reached ZoE and the others, the Lost 4 had gotten there before us. So we were feeling all macho studly about our bad selves, rounding up errant hounds.
That was pretty much the excitement of the day. We managed to (mostly) keep the field in sight and (mostly) stay out of their way, and ended up out for about 2 hours.
It was a GORGEOUS day. Sunny, with enough of a bite in the breeze to be refreshing. Mr. Blondie was flat-footed calm at the beginning and only started getting a little testy at the very end (2 hours seems to be about his limit). The desert was GREEN and the footing was soft (a little too soft in spots). A wonderful, wonderful day to be out & about with good friends and good horses.
TSB never saw a jack (we often do, but not today), but we had a great time anyway.
Enjoy the photos!
Yesterday morning was a perfect way to spend time in the beautiful, crisp sunshine with good horses and friends.
The footing has been too dangerous to jump so EVERYONE is going through gates. :winkgrin: Usually one of the whips opens it and they count on me to dismount and close the gate.
