Blog

Old Handler’s Prayer

August 26, 2024 | Poetry | Comments
Oh, please give me a puppy Can cast to the rim Of the biggest pasture  In South Alabama  Oh, please give me a derby  Will go to the limits  Of its hearing  Then come back alookin’ for me Read more

Smells We Don’t Forget

August 20, 2024 | Poetry | Comments
There are smells from childhood We remember into old age A favorite of mine is from age six When I sat on my father’s lap Behind Maud and Bird Our team of Belgian mares  Read more

Holes and Rules

August 13, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
“Every dog has got a hole, and his handler has to hide it,” was a truism in the world of bird dog field trials.  This led to an experiment at the Deep South Open All-Age Championship, initiated by John Steed, owner of Fat Pine Plantation, venue of the Championship. Steed issued bodycams to each of the six mounted marshals he sponsored to ride throughout the Championship. Before the first breakaway, he met privately with the marshals. Read more

Some Happy News

August 1, 2024 | Announcement | Comments
I just learned that Hunter Gates had last year joined the staff at Chinquapin Farm as head dog trainer, successor to Ray Warren who has retired. Hunter last week described it to me in an email as “the best decision of my life, I love it there.” He emailed from summer training camp in South Dakota.  Read more

Spring Shuffle Delayed

July 29, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories, Ted Baker | Comments
Oliver Bain sold his AI (artificial intelligence) Unicorn (billion-dollar start-up) to Microsoft instead of taking it public. He was 58, and unknown to any around him, had a secret ambition he would now satisfy. As a boy growing up on a farm in Virginia, he had walked with his father, a dirt farmer, behind home grown pointers and setters after quail.  Read more

A Dread Problem and a Solution

July 22, 2024 | Booty Blevins, Short Stories | Comments
Sam Teel and Booty Blevins had been partners ten years, never had a fight. They argued some about how to fix a problem, but each knew that was healthy. They didn’t make much money, but loved what they did for a living, training and handling pointing dogs on the field trial  circuit.  In their day there was just one circuit, for shooting dogs were yet to be a separate circuit, formally. Sure, there were wide dogs and short dogs, big country and less big, major trials and weekend trials.  Read more

If You Care Too Much

July 15, 2024 | Poetry | Comments
If you care too much That the bird falls dead You’ve missed the point Of the hunt my friend  It’s not about What’s in your bag  Or hard shots made  On which you’ll brag  Read more

The Handoff

July 10, 2024 | Short Stories | Comments
The year was 1955. Buck Reed had returned home to South Georgia from the war in Europe ten years before and embarked on his career as an all-age handler of pointing dogs as successor to his father, Sam, who had then retired from the same trade, turning his string over to Buck. Sam sadly died a year later of a heart attack, victim of the near universal curse of his generation, cigarettes.  Read more

Siblings

July 2, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
“Inheritance brings out the worst in people,” Ben Reach often reminded his friend Sam Nixon M.D. when the old friends discussed the inevitable deaths of their shared patrons (Ben’s clients, Sam’s patients). A prime example occurred when Minnie Blanton asked the curmudgeons to meet with her jointly about a change she wanted to make in her will.  Minnie was the widow of Buck Blanton, long time manager of Tall Pines Plantation, a showplace quail plantation just south of Thomasville. When Buck retired the plantation’s owner rewarded his long service by giving him a modest house and ten-acre curtilage on the edge of Tall Pines, subject to a buy-back option if Buck or a successor in his family ever wanted to sell it. Buck had left it to Minnie.  Read more