Cisco's 20th Season

At the house in Placitas, first thing, I exercised Cisco out in the front. He's pretty much out of shape which is compounded by Red-tails' being pretty lazy anyway. He's gotten considerably stronger in the last week. I flew him from trees and a wooden bench and these evergreen shrubs that are all over the place.  I put him in his buzzard box, stashed him in the closet, and then I got Farrah ready to take to the Cibola National Forest. Her scale weight was 867, pretty heavy, pretty overweight, but definitely recoverable in the field. Out in the National Forest I was all ready to go and realized I had no glove. So back to the house I traded my glove for a hat. That's a joke. But true.  Farrah and I went the farthest in that we've ever gone. We were out well over an hour. With her high weight and being used to hunting from a t-pole, she didn't follow on very well at all.  I flushed a couple of jacks with her really well out of position. Hundreds of yards. Also one

 I have been in Placitas, NM, staying in the house a dear lifelong friend. I took her to the airport on August 12, so she could return home in Napa, CA. I have the two buzzards with me, along with Arnold the dog. I have taken out Farrah every morning after dawn for the last week. A beautiful spot just west of the Sandia range. Farrah dropped all of her major feathers, but is still growing out a number of primaries and retrices. More than I realized now that I'm flying her. Her weight is in the range such that she's not red hot, but maybe not high enough to promote fast feather growth. She doesn't follow on, so it can get boring, but she occasionally takes long flights after jackrabbits. I was trying to call her back this morning, and her response was "like a half trained Red-tail,"  an expression I occasionally use. I may feed her up some, and fly Cisco for a bit.