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A Good Deed Rewarded

At the end of this day, number five, sixty pointers would have each hunted an hour in braces. Before the last brace was released, the judges announced that two of the dogs that had gone down earlier in the week should be ready to go down together at the end of this last scheduled brace in a call-back, its length to be, “Until ordered up.” Read more

Woodcock

I love woodcock pure and simple Not because they are tasty or pretty But for other virtues aplenty They are amazing for their hippy life style And courage in flying many miles  Read more

A Hiring Choice

Ben Reach was often asked for advice by quail plantation owners on hiring decisions. It was not for legal advice but people advice, or in modern parlance, Human Resources advice. Ben was known as a sound judge of human beings, of character and management skill, particularly in the quail plantation realm. For a person to manage traditional quail hunts, horseback and mule-wagon type, the first consideration was safety. This required skill and judgment and what Ben and Sam called First Responder attitude. A person who never lets anything distract them from safety. Character was an equally important trait. Lack of it had ended the careers of many, in plantation management as in all jobs in requiring honesty, and that was all jobs. It was March. Fly fishing for panfish was much on the curmudgeons’ minds. Ron Silver, owner of Noyankees Plantation, had asked for a meeting with Ben (his lawyer for Georgia-centric problems) and Sam (his personal physician while in Georgia). In summer Ron lived in Massachusetts where he had made and still invested his considerable fortune. He had in Boston other lawyers and physicians. Read more

Priceless Treasure

Our family had no traditional inheritable wealth. But we had a treasure chest of unmeasurable wealth in family stories. They often carried lessons. Among my favorites is the story of Uncle Walton and the trombone. Uncle Walton was the youngest of my father’s four brothers, born in 1901. My father, nicknamed Jack for a family border collie stock dog who died the week of his birth in 1897, was second youngest. Robert, Quin and Harry, Jr were the others. Read more

Crime and Punishment in the Bird Dog World

In the summer of 2003 there appeared in the venerable American Field Magazine, founded in 1874, an announcement that would shake the rafters of bird dog kennels across our continent. Henceforth, the FDSB would require DNA proof of FDSB registered parentage to recognize a dog’s wins in FDSB sanctioned trials. The evidence required would be in the form of a cheek saliva swab, to be analyzed by a company in the business of such analysis. Read more

Lesson From a Storm

Third cutting Fine and bright I had mowed raked hauled and stacked it With schoolmates just Two months before Also that summer We had dug a deep well Run a pipe to the barn Plumbed in a frost-free spigot Through it we now filled buckets of H-2-0 for the ewes Read more