I hate the shortening of the days
When fall drifts in at summer’s end Read more
I Hate But
Blog
The Hole
Bud Cole and Andy Grimes were rivals, to put it mildly. Each was a pointing dog trainer-handler for the public in the shooting dog category. They were based in Southside Virginia, a land where tobacco and pine trees for pulpwood and saw timber dominated the rural landscape. The year was 1963. Read more
I Wish
I wish I could ride again
One more time
Ole Leonard
Over course two
On Chinquapin
See Silverwood Read more
When January Comes
When January comes
I will be here at home
First time since 1994
Won’t be at Chinquapin
The second week
Of that cold month at home
I spent in North Florida
From 1995 through 2022 Read more
Of All the Gifts
Of all the gifts they gave me
And there were many
None were more rewarding
Than my boyhood on a farm Read more
If We See a Scout
The junior judge announced at the first breakaway,
“If we see a scout riding in front, his dog will be disqualified.”
Ben Reach, the senior judge, thought, “Oh, Hell.” Read more
What if?
What if there were no more field trials?
Soon there would be only ankle warmers
For only competition’s testing leads to better breeding
It’s not a way-out theory
It’s the truth Read more
Days Remembered
I was twenty three to thirty
Care worn and sometimes depressed
But grouse season opened
So I put my setter in the plywood box I’d built Read more
Mountain Roads
I love to drive the byways Of the counties of my youth Where the Blue Ridge rises steeply And the hollers hold streams roiling in the spring Where white pines blend with rhododendrons And hickories caress poplars and ginseng grows below Where stone bridges span the bottoms and high vistas wait at tops Where Forty Fords hauled moonshine and peach brandy to West Virginia miners in my youth Yes I Read more
The Prairies
There is something about the prairies
That’s different from anywhere else Read more