Hunting Weather

We went hunting yesterday. It was raining and cold. Only about 10 of us made it out, 6 of whom were from my barn. Most of those hunting were staff. It was muddy. Very muddy. Burton and Giggles and two other horse were wearing "mud tails," a very attractive way of tying up a horse's tail to keep it out of the mud. It made them look like horses out of an old English print. It accentuates the haunches.

It was a very strange day of hunting. We were at Annapolis Rock which is famed for its ditches. Within the first four minutes somebody fell off. Then the hounds hit and we ran clear over to Sunnyside -- a totally different fixture several miles away. We jumped a large-ish coop and promptly sat in the drizzling, dank, cedar woods for a while. Our hounds had "split," which means there were now two small packs instead of one pack. We could hear hounds everywhere around us. This makes things difficult for the staff and the huntsman -- if one group hits and runs, they have to hunt the fox but also round up the other pack, wherever it is, and try to get them all back together. One of the two little packs seemed to be cruising the back of a subdivision, tearing up people's yards. The other part of the pack seemed to be stuff in a large thicket, several acres big.

For the next several hours we picked through the sides of hills in the drizzle. No trail. Total bushwacking. Very mushy. At one point I said to my friend Rebecca that I felt like I was in a Ken Burns document. She said she felt as if she was returning from the Civil War. Our friend Garland said he thought he might be part of Moseby's rebellion. At several points we got stuck and Roger our master had us scaling slopes through thickets into the backs of people's yards. Imagine how we must have looked to them.

Then we heard the hounds running and careened back to the road. We were hemmed in by a guard rail where the road went over a bridge. Roger heads straight down the river to the bridge and tried to ride his horse under the bridge in the sluiceway, in the rain. We all hesitated, unwilling for once to follow our master. Our horses were parked at various angles on the side of the hill, all of us peering down at him as he picked his way in his red coat down the rocky river. And then he got stuck -- the water was too high and the bridge was too low.

I was willing to just jump the guard rail and get on the road and run. We eventually reversed back up the muddy hill.

The other major part of the day was our numerous river crossings. The banks were so soft that as soon as one horse went across the bank gave way entirely, so the next horse had to find another way. At each crossing (there were many) we all basically fanned out to fend for ourselves across. Burton, being Irish, was non-plussed and generally jumped down and in and then jumped out with minimum of fuss, his mud tail bobbing in the air behind him. My friend Mary Ann was doing the same thing on her horse Scout, how I learned speaks English. "Jump, Scout.". And he would.

One of our members was unlucky on a clumsy horse and ended up completely underwater in the cold. Another horse fell clear through the mud up to his bobbing mud tail.

At one point, oddly, we were picking through the woods and came upon our huntsman, of all people. He was off his horse, who was standing stock still, on his people feet, completely entwined in a vine. He could not moves his limbs, it appeared. We could just barely make him out through the under growth. Meanwhile the hounds are running and we can hear them rolling but there is our hunstman immobile in a vine. Roger got off and extricated him, and we were off.

Towards the very end of the day we view the dastardly hunted fox, cruising through a horse paddock behind a house. Carter runs down to the woods -- "tally ho behind the house!". Our hounds were down in the deep bottom, running straight up the river to a steep hill, in pursuit. We sat in the field high on the hill and heard them coming. For a long while. They were a ways back and the fox was on ahead. Then they pour out of the woods all around us, eventually running around the horse paddock (the horses within were a bit put off) and we sit them hit the scent and take off as one, finally reunited pack, through the fog and drizzle and low cloud cover, over the harvested fields, and away. And we followed, of course.

A good, although bizarre, day.

New Market Hounds

For two weeks the four foxhunting clubs in central Maryland (Howard County-Iron Bridge, Potomac, Goshen and New Market-Middletown) have been engaged in celebrating a 100 years of something -- I'm not quite sure what. It's not hunting in Maryland because that goes back to pre-revolutionary day, but anyway, 100 years of something very good.

This means we've had four hunts where all four club are hunting together which makes for a merry mob scene and lots of socializing but also means we've been traveling around to each other's fixtures. The territory in each of the four clubs is rather different, interestingly, so it's been very educational.

Yesterday we hunted on New Market-Middletown territory up in Frederick County west of Sugarloaf Mountain. It was the grounds of the Maryland Horse Trials training facility. Dale had told me the day before it was a flat fixture but I began to doubt her as we drove along beside the Mountain. Then we got to the turnoff and we had to go down into a deep ravine with the trailers and back up a switchback road at 2 miles an hour up to the top where we found a mighty plateau stretching away to the West. I said to my traveling companion, "flat? In fact, it is RATHER HILLY." Then once we parked, all we could see were these enormous Olympic size cross country jumps set about this huge field high on the mighty plateau. We became nervous. Burton eyed the obstacles with interest. Then it started to rain. Boo.

Because there are four hunts, that means four masters and four hunstmen and four sets of whips and four fields (only one pack of hounds, though). Huge numbers of people and horses. We milled about the mighty plateau in the drizzle as if were Washington's army massing for a charge. The other hunts have more men than we do so there were many red coats. Then we set off galloping madly across the plateau towards the woods down in the bottom. We were so many of us that we fanned out across the fields in a wide swath, maybe 10 riders wide, and we all thundered along for many minutes because the field is so large. The drizzle smacked us, the mud flew up at us. All one could see was the rumps of the horses ahead of and the sea of red coats up front (I was pretty close to the front) and the flashing of boron shoes in the dim light. It was wonderful! It was like a cavalry -- a cavalcade! The horses were exhilarated! We looked behind and saw the field covered with hundreds of horses and riders swarming after us, followed by pickup trucks with hangers on and photographers. We raced and raced and raced down. We were in a flat out gallop. We all started to giggle as we cruised along at high speed, I sang out, jokingly, "I forgot my girth!" People chuckled. My friend George who rides a giant dappled Clydesdale thing named Charlie who is really not very fast and fairly shakes the earth has he travel is trying to get him to move on by telling him "whoa lightning!" This makes everyone collapse in laughter which is dangerous when galloping. We gallop madly on in this manner, getting dirtier and warmer and wetter, for about 15 minutes at which point we jump a small obstacle into the woods and stop. Steam rises from the horses. The people all look at each other brightly and say some variation of "awake now?!"

And that is basically what the next 3 hours was. Madcap galloping around 2,000 acres of privately held land in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain in the drizzle. There were maybe half a dozen of these huge enormous fields -- some were plateaus, some were shallow basins, some were pitched down towards a body of water, some were pitched off toward the mountain. The fields were separated by little streams with silver maples all around. One of the fields had cows in it -- the cows lumbered after us in their creepy cow way but couldn't keep up. Burton looked down his horsie nose at them.

The fields were so big that we had an unobstructed view of the entire hunt at work, which we can never see in our own territory because we are very hilly and wooded. Burton and I were running down one hill at one point and saw before us the pack, the huntsman, the first whipper-in, the whips that park at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, and the master with us the field, all spread out below. It was like an 18th Century English hunting print. At another point were at the top of a field and the hounds were working at the bottom of the field just at the edge of the woods, and the woods spread up all the way to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain in an uninterrupted sea of red oaks and sugar maples and silver maples. No human habitation in sight.

The most humorous moment of the day was when our friend Rob Long fell off at the halt while we were checked. He was trying to retrieve a flask from our other friend Robbie, we believe, and something went horribly awry. His fall at the halt was preceded by comical "whoa! whoa! whoa! noises like a Looney Tunes cartoon. We all clapped. The second most humorous moment was when a man on a wound up rocking horse looking steed went cavorting by and I said, "demonstrating the capriole?" and he said, "oh, is that was this is called?" The capriole is one of those foolish movements the Lipizzaner horses perform. When non-Lipizzaner perform it, it is usually an accident.

Another funny moment was when we came up around the back of one of the fields and had to scale a mountain covered in cedar trees after running speedily through what seemed to be a bog. As we were scaling the mountain (tiny stony trail with sheer cliff to the right) my friend Susan and I say to each other, "yes, a flat fixture, Dale." Tee hee. She later claimed she thinking of some other place.

Afterwards we had a fabulous brunch of fresh oysters and fried oysters and apple pie and scalloped potatoes and some succulent meat dish and green beans and cheese. Then we drove back down the ravine and the switch back road and went around the Mountain and back to Howard County where the horses got bubble baths and then dinner and then were tucked off into their now dark fields in their pajamas

The clubs had so much fun hunting together that we decided to do it again next year, even without the celebration of 100 years of whatever it was we were celebrating..

Kona's Education

Kona is doing very well at Pleasant Prospect. He's been there two weeks now and is already looking healthier and fitter and he's getting used to trail riding.

Every day is a trail riding day at Pleasant Prospect so part of the thought process is that if ever a horse is going to get good at crossing water and dealing with ditches and going through mud and sliding down hills and galloping up hills and jumping downfall and dealing with herds of cows and deer popping out everywhere and packs of docs and paddock after paddock of grazing fellow horses who want to chat and waving fields of hay and tall fields of corn and steeplechase jumps and water fountains and stone walls, etc., it is at Pleasant Prospect. No wonder they are all such good foxhunters.

Kona is not afraid of anything, as it turns out. But that does not mean he necessarily is interested in "letting nature touch him." So we are engaged in an educational process in which he is learning that it is futile to protest and that our destination is to be decided by the rider, not by him. He is quite mannerly when following behind another horse. It is a different matter when he is in front, or alone. Some notable highlights:
Kona went out with a group of three other horses and four dogs the other day. He was being ridden by Jennifer -- one of the people who breaks foxhunters. I was on Giggles bringing up the rear. Dale was on Manny and another girl was on a horse called Dancer who is learning to travel in groups. The four dogs were quite lunatic -- leaping in and out of the river along side us, running at the horses feet, etc. Manny had a small fit -- Kona didn't budge. Dancer stepped on bulldog and we thought may have broken his foot based on the wailing and screeching that arose from the little dog. Kona looked at the dog in disgust. Turned out the dog was fine. Eventually the dogs got tired and followed along right behind Giggles and me panting in a pack and oddly, the noise of the panting was quite deafening to me. I couldn't hear a blessed thing other than the dogs. Kona passed the "dog test."
There is a a place Kona does not like to enter the woods. You have to go down a little hill and around a jump (or jump it) to get onto the muddy track. There are large plants and ferns and things that look like pitcher plants everywhere and some trees. Kona does not like this spot -- I do not know why. So Jennifer tries to make him go and he plants his feet and whirls around and acts like a jerk and runs sideways and curls his neck up and goes backwards and pouts. Jennifer says, "uh, no." And after some fuss and fighting Kona moves very quickly down the hill and past the jump in a very agitated and engaged way. Jennifer comes back and makes him do it three more times. Less fighting each time. Eventually, no fighting. This is why Jennifer was riding him. Success!
Then Kona and I went out a few days later with my friend Amanda who was on Burton. This is when Kona began to realize that resistance is futile and he went first through any of number of stream crossings and mud holes and ditch crossings. Burton plodded patiently along behind. A few times Kona decided he'd rather not go and we had a brief scuffle and I won every time. Yay! At one point he slid down a ditch and bumped his large hindquarters on the side of the ditch on the way down which knocked him off a balance a little so we went careening through some undergrowth and emerged victorious on the other side. He was nonplussed by it all. Just had a few twigs in his hair.
Then we went to cross one of the many streams we must cross to get home and just as we were stepping into it a frog jumped off a rock and said "ribbit!" and hit the water with a big splash. Kona went into reverse gear and poor Burton only just got out of the way in time. On our next attempt Kona decided to jump the stream starting as far away as possible and jumping as high in the air as he could. We flew through the air. I felt like I was on a carousel horse -- whee!!!! It was hilarious. I guess frogs are scary. Burton is behind saying, "do I have to do that too? Looks like an awful lot of energy." He decided to just walk through the stream.
So, everyday is an adventure. Next steps are to see what Kona does cantering through the woods (I may try that today....) and cantering in the fields (don't plan to try that anytime soon). Then we will jump small logs, etc., all the while striving to remain mannerly.

And the best part is that now I have two horses that can go out in the trails! Burton is safe enough to be a guest horse, provided the guest does not become alarmed at Kona's occasional antics. I bet by the end of the summer Kona will be perfect at the farm! And I bet he's hunting by the end of the season (we'll have Jennifer take him out the first few times....!).

A Day in the Park

I had a wonderful ride on my new horse Burton yesterday.

It was a very beautiful day to begin with and Burton and I set out across Jennings Chapel Road into the Patuxent State Park all by our lonesomes. It was around 4 pm. Burton had a couple weeks off because he got a little skinny and was pooped after hunting all season. So yesterday he was feeling good.

The park was unbelievably beautiful. For those of you who do not know it, it is a very large park that follows the whole length of the border of Howard and Montgomery counties and then continues on through Prince George's and Calvert counties to the Chesapeake. It is huge. Up near us the Patuxent River itself is not more than 50 feet wide. When it empties into the Chesapeake it is huge like the Potomac. The Patuxent has grown on me. A lot of our hunting territory is around it and we spend quite a lot of time leaping in and out of it after the fox. Some of you may recall the alleged four foot drop Burton and I jumped in a yee-haw fashion after Robbie the day he whipped -- that was into the Patuxent.

The Patuxent travels along between banks that are very well defined and rather overgrown. Sometimes it reminds me of an English river, the Cam or perhaps the Avon when it runs past Salisbury. Sometimes it reminds me of Plum Creek in the Laura Ingalls Wilder book On the Banks of Plum Creek.

The water is clear and about 3 feet deep at its deepest and moves quickly along over pebbles and large flat rocks and fallen logs. Above the banks is a lovely grassy flat area that runs about 50 yards back on each side and then the land starts to rise up steeply. We sometimes run up and down the hills -- at the top of the hills are the huge farms that make up a lot of our hunting territory -- Harwood (where opening day is), Sunnyside (Rob Long's place), Tranquility, and Pleasant Prospect.
Roger, our master, sometimes refers to the land down by the river banks as "the deep bottom." One major access point into the park is Annapolis Rock (my favorite fixture!) -- if you keep going all the way to Damascus you end up below our kennels.

Yesterday the flat area down in the deep bottom was beautiful -- the grass is starting to grow up, the skunk cabbages are in, the fiddlehead ferns are unrolling, and wild wood daisies and violets and buttercups are everywhere. The swamp roses are leaning out over the muddy trails and the willows and oaks and sycamores have leaves -- although the leaves have not turned dark green yet. The park is strewn with evergreens as well -- cedars, fir trees, pine trees. It is so varied -- one will go through a pine forest and then a meadow with scrub and then a flood plain of birch trees and then an old oak grove. This is the park I have sometimes said resembles Narnia. Yesterday it also resembled the Elf forest in Middle Earth -- accessed from the Shire.

Burton and I cruised along one of the trails that skirts the edge of the deep bottom near the hill that runs up to Tranquility. The trail runs over some lovely jumping logs, up and down the lower part of the hillside over flat rocks and through cedar trees and willows and lots of daisies and buttercups. It was perfectly quiet down there protected from the wind. We were alone -- just him and me deciding together where to go and at what pace. At one point we crossed the deep bottom to go into the beautiful river so that Burton could have a drink of water and blow bubbles (he likes to blow bubbles). We stood in the water with the sun bright on the ripples and the beautiful pebbles and the green grass and looked around. We heard birds. We saw dogwoods and wild spirea and lots of other white woodland flowers that I will have to look up in my Maryland plant book. Everything was green and white except for the wild violets on the deep bottom, which were beautiful.

After cooling in the creek, we tried to find a way out on the other side but failed -- we lept up the bank but 20 yards later were met with an impenetrable wall of evergreens and scrub, so we went back the way we came.

We moved along up towards Sunnyside and went through an area with logs set close enough together to make a sort of five jump combination element with a slight turn in the middle. Soft muddy footing -- dappled light from the trees. SO FUN! We went through ditches -- Burton's forte -- and practiced turning on a dime for no reason other than it was way fun. I was riding Burton in a bit much lighter than the one I usually hunt him in and oddly, he was a lot more responsive (although that might have been because we were alone).

We ended up behind Harwood in a beautiful overgrown narrow lane running up a hill with cedar trees on either side and I was arrested by an amazing smell. I slowed Burton up and we looked around for the source of the amazing smell.

I realized we were in a lane on a softly inclining hill that was covered with honeysuckle that was blooming. I don't think I've ever been in the middle of so much honeysuckle. We stood in the lane about half way up the incline and looked at all the white honeysuckle, which was growing under shorter cedar trees so the blue sky was right above us. I could not see the top of the hill - it went on and on. The footing was cedar tree needles (or whatever you call them). We stood there for a while. Burton ate some grass and skunk cabbage and honeysuckle. I thought to myself that next time I should bring a halter and a sandwich and a book and Burton and I could spend a goodly amount of the afternoon on Honeysuckle Hill. I looked around and saw numerous trails shooting off the lane into the cedars and honeysuckles. It was like a secret garden within the park. I assume we must have hunted very near here before but without the honeysuckle -- it was a place transformed.

I had the feeling of being very far away from everything normal -- almost a time warp. I don't think I had ever been right where I was before yet I knew pretty much exactly where we were. I was alone yet with a living companion (Burton) who could not really speak per se but with whom I was communicating. I knew I was in the 21st century -- I had my blackberry and cell phone in my pocket, Burton was wearing high tech stud shoes on his feet, and I was sitting in a state-of-the-art German saddle -- yet we hadn't seen anything for hours that was inconsistent with a 14th Century ride in Sherwood Forest. I would not have been shocked if Robin Wood walked out from the honeysuckle. Or even if Braveheart had bashed through with a band of Scottish warriors. Perhaps even the stupid bard in Monty Python singing "Bravely brave Sir Robin, brave Sir Robin ran away!".

Burton and I thought about this for a while. Burton sighed. I sneezed. He was fairly tight-lipped about everything, frankly. I started to whistle Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, no-one could hear me after all. Burton cocked a hind leg and flicked an ear. He ate a branch of something. I looked at the sun between the cedar trees. I saw an airplane way up high on the Eastern jetway. Burton made a funny noise with his nose and tried to avoid a bee. It was lovely.

Then we pretty much ran all the way home -- down honeysuckle hill and through and along the deep bottom and up the five log combo and over the river and up the steep hill and out of the park onto the cornfields at Tranquility and back across the road into the long driveway at Pleasant Prospect. I ducked under branches and generally tried to keep sticks out of my face. Burton jumped oer the swamp roses hanging over the trail to avoid the sticker-bush-in-horse-knee syndrome. We went so fast and so effortlessly through all the Narnia territory that I started to laugh and whoop out loud -- sounds instantly taken away by the breeze. Anyone who saw us would have concluded we were nuts -- horse and rider blasting through the spring woods at top speed amidst gales of laughter.

And then we did see someone. Just before we turned up out of the deep bottom we ran across an angler on the path dressed in true angler gear, complete with things dangling from his hat an everything. Burton stopped short -- we had seen no people or animals for hours. The angler stopped short too. He clearly did not expect to see a sweaty, muddy horse and a mildly hysterical woman. In fact, everyone was quite surprised to see everyone else. Burton questioned the fishing rod. The angler appeared to realize this and backed slowly into the swamp roses and dogwood trees. We nodded hello and went on our way.

Once we were home Burton had a bubble bath and some dinner and then went back out in his field where he told his roommate Stonewall all about his beautiful day in the park.

Burton's Self-Guided Tour and Kona's Haircut

Burton and I went on a self-guided tour today. I decided that he would be allowed to go wherever he wanted at whatever pace he desired. I applied neither leg nor rein. I assumed he would amble along and eat dandelions. But no. He did amble along for a little while and then of his own accord he turned purposefully towards a log into the neighboring farm and jumped it. Then turned around and jumped it back. Then trotted gainfully on through the woods and skunk cabbage to the in-and-out, which we took, made a right to cross the river, and took the tire jump. Then he bush-whacked his way through some impassable woods to a patch of grass in the sun, which he ate.

Weirdo.

Then I went to see Kona and put him out in a field where he stood with his mane waving in the wind. I watched him for about an hour and decided his mane was way too long for the warmer weather so I took him inside and gave him a haircut. He feels much better now.

Annapolis Rock

We hunted yesterday in the beautiful 70 degree weather. Location was Annapolis Rock (my favorite!). True to form, nothing happened for the first two hours and then we hit the "one o'clock fox" and had a 35 minute run over hill and dale and then we were all so incredibly hot (horses, hounds and humans) that we called it a day.

Of note:

• I drove the small trailer with Burton and my friend Amanda's mount. I was very excited, convinced it would all go better than last time because my only passenger was my friend Amanda, a supporting, soothing, wise and experienced soul.
• Everything went exceedingly well for the first two and a half minutes until I hit my friend Crystal's truck before we even left the barn yard.
• Please note that Crystal was parked in an extremely stupid place -- leaving barely any room to get between her and a stone wall. I elected not to drive the horses into the stone wall but instead to slide by Crystal's bumper.
• The aluminum fender of my driver's side trailer wheel made contact with the passenger side front fender of Crystal's truck.
• Amanda and I immediately start worrying. OMIGOD! I HIT CRYSTAL's TRUCK! Do you think Dale saw? (she was in front with the big rig). Shall I keep going? Was that really bad?
• We keep driving. Me: Do you hear that funny noise? Is the fender hitting the trailer tire? Amanda: I don't hear anything. Do you see the tire smoking? If not, it's fine. Me: You don't here that weird whiny noise? I don't see any smoke -- that's good. Amanda: That whine is the sound of your diesel engine. Kim: Oh. Dang that's loud. Amanda: What does the damage look like? Kim: Looks bad, real bad. Fender all bashed up. Amanda: Don't tell Dale until after we're done hunting. Kim: Dale's gonna KILL me! Amanda: I'd be more worried about Crystal if I were you. Kim: I'm going to die. [note we do not wonder how the horses are, oddly]
• I did in fact drive exceedingly well the rest of the way and even made a hairpin turn into the fixture with no problem at all AND I pushed the four wheel drive button with no problem.
• We arrive at Annapolis Rock. We get out and rush to the trailer fender. There is a dent and a scrape and the fender was touching the tire. But, being aluminum, I was able to pull it right back into shape mostly except for the dent.
• Then I actually have the stupidity to ask Amanda if she thought I drove okay. She looked at me sideways and said, "well, uh, except for hitting that other truck, yeah, you did pretty good. I wasn't really that scared. Once we got over, you know, hitting the truck and all."
• Crystal did not notice anything amiss, believe it or not, until I went over to her truck once she finally arrived and pointed it out. She said, "Oh, whatever, that's just rubber. Rubs right off." How 'bout that?
• So that just left dealing with Dale -- which we agreed to do much later in the day.
• Then we finally opened the trailer and looked at the horses. They were both standing there very wide-eyed, as if they were saying, "Gee, that was .... different."
• Main features of the hunt were I almost fell off at the walk because I was turned around talking to Amanda and a tree came out of the woods and got itself all tangled up in my hat/head/reins, etc. I was pulled all the way down like I was doing the limbo off the back of my horse -- I thought my hat was going to get ripped off. I stayed on amid shrieks of laughter from everyone else in the field and Burton looked back at me as if to say, "I'm SO EMBARRASSED."
• From then on for the rest of the day the man riding in front of me would turn around to say "Low branch Kim, be careful, hah hah hah." Whatever. This is, of course, why one is always told to try to face in the direction one's horse is traveling.
• Then, our run was notable because the hounds got the scent on a hot southerly wind which is apparently almost unheard of. Good hounds.
• Kathy Brighoff's horse tried to roll with her on it and she stood next to it on the ground with her reins in her hand kicking at him with the toe of her boot in a very funny looking way and hollering "get up you idiot! get up!" (letting your horse roll like that, even if you manage to get off in time, is a good way to ruin your saddle).
• When we were done, we took all the horses down to the river for a drink and a cool down.
  Then Rich Roemer's horse actually did roll in the water without any regard for Rich. This earned Rich the "Rubber Ducky Award" which goes to the rider with who takes the most interesting spill in the water during the season. People started singing "Rubber Ducky, you're the one! You make hunting lots of fun!" on our amble through the pine trees back to the trailers.
• The weather was so warm that it made the pine needles smell yummy just like summers down South in pine tree land. And the warm breeze and the visit to the river was all very summery.
• Later that night at the barn I show Dale the trailer. And you would never believe it but she says to me, "you actually did not make that dent. Ironically, Crystal made that dent herself a few years in a similar vehicular mishap." Can you believe that? What are the chances? No wonder she wasn't peeved. Dale also said she was perfectly fine with the scrape on the fender because at least now the fender looked a little bit shiny in one place and wasn't that nice?
• But we had a lot of fun with Robbie later on -- Dale made us a yummy venison dinner. I say very casually -- "so, I did a great job driving the trailer today. Went fast where I was supposed to and slow where I was supposed and didn't clobber the horses and even did the hairpin turn into Annapolis Rock with no problem. I was really proud of myself. You would have been really proud of me too." Robbie looks at me in wonderment. "Dang." A moment of silence. Then Dale can't help herself any longer --- "Yeah, she did real good. Great Except that she HIT CRYSTAL'S TRUCK BEFORE SHE EVEN GOT OUT OF THE YARD!!!" Hoots of laughter from me and Dale. Robbie literally sits down on the floor and looks at me with a totally shocked expression on his face. Dale finally explains to him that Crystal had in fact parked in a really stupid place etc. etc. but closes by looking at me and saying, "but nevertheless, I think it will be a while before we let you drive the big rig." Oh well.

The Old Fashion Race

I rode in our Old Fashion point to point today -- this is a horse race where the objective is to make it through three designated "points" out in open hunt territory in the fastest possible time. It doesn't matter what route you take or what order you do the points in -- literally, the fastest route between point A and point B wins. You have to turn in a poker chip with your number on it at each point to prove you actually made it around.

Points were the abandoned caboose on the Jefferson Farm, Wendy Tackis's Gate (we knew it!) and a fat log in the woods on the way to Brown's Chapel Road.

Thirty-three horses raced.

I came in fourth over all and Burton won the award for fastest non-thoroughbred horse.

The winning time was 27 minutes and something. We came in just over 31 minutes. Slowest time was an hour and a half.

Pretty much galloped the whole way -- jumped a stone wall and an enormous tree and some telephone poles, as well as several streams and banks. This means we were literally standing up in our stirrups for a solid half hour which is tiring even for those of us who ride all the time.

Footing was very slick so the horses worked real hard and were blowing for a good long while when were done and totally lathered.

Hardest part was heading for the finish line through what I call the "tube orchards.". Baby trees planted everywhere with plastic tubes around them to protect them. It's like skiing a slalom course on horse back only your hands are very sweaty at this point and it is hard to steer effectively because you can't grip the reins very well (no gloves on because that hampers one's ability to get the poker chips out of the pocket of one's ladies' hunting frock). So horses essentially bashed through the tube orchards and tubes flew everywhere.

Burton tried to manoeuvre around them all because he is rather nimble and also smart but didn't tell me which way he was going until the last minute for most of the tubes so at least once we had to sort of jump around a tube and at least one tube met its botanical demise and I'm sure I did not win any points for style. Robbie -- who was two horses ahead of me (came in second) -- basically took out an entire diagonal line of tubes up and over both orchard fields trying to catch Giggles. He made a stupendous noise. Steering is not his forte.

My barn cleaned up the awards -- we got first through fifth places and then seventh through tenth, and won fastest overall (Jennifer on Giggles), fastest non-thoroughbred (Burton), fastest woman over forty (Karen on Godiva), fastest woman under forty (chick who came in right behind me so I was TECHNICALLY the fastest woman under forty), fastest man under forty (Robbie), fastest staff member (Dale) and also fastest maiden rider (not me, even though I qualified for that too -- they try to spread out the awards).

My trophy is an enormous silver bowl -- The Margaret Gallagher Memorial Bowl -- with the names of the fastest non-thoroughbred horses and their rider's engraved on it back to 1988.

Pleasant Conversations While Fox Hunting

We went foxhunting yesterday for the first time in almost month. We have been snowed in and then plagued by an outbreak of equine herpes since the day after the Hunt Ball, which was Feb. 10.

Everyone was most excited.
Notable events:

• We had nine horses to get ready in the morning. Our three person crew was a little rusty from its hiatus. I was the leg, belly and hoof lady, Robbie was the head, face and back guy, and we fought over who had to do the tail. Brittany was the tack girl (mainly). Dale roved around and told us all what we're doing wrong, as per usual.
• Two hours later, once all the horses were cleaned and tacked, it was time to make our human selves beautiful. I was very excited to wear my new proper ladies' hunt frock that I had purchased on a recent shopping trip to Virginia hunt country along with a genuine English vest with a wool back (very hard to find, oddly). My frock is as heavy as a curtain and lined with wool and very smart. My vest has 6 buttons down the front, way more than the lousy 4 buttons on my nasty old sateen-backed vest.
• We load up the trailers and then I go to put my stuff in the truck for the big rig, where I usually ride with Dale. Robbie usually drives the small trailer. Instead, I am waylaid and told to put my stuff in the small. "Put your stuff in here." "Why?" "Cuz you're driving this trailer." "Oh. What are you going to drive?" "Nothing, I'm passengering with you." It was Dale's plan to train me to drive the trailer. I think this is all good and well except I suspect that having Robbie as my chaperone would be like learning to drive with a cross between your father and your despised ex-boyfriend.
• And I was right. As soon as we pull off the property it begins. "Speed up. Okay, slow down. Speed up. You can go the speed limit. The speed limit is 40 here. Slow down. Don't go so fast. Why are you going so slow. You just clobbered the horses. Hope the horses are okay. Easy on the turn. Don't stop at this stop sign. STOP AT THE STOP SIGN! Okay, that's okay. Pretty good, I guess. Beep and wave at the landowner ('HELLOOOOOOOOOO landowner!"). Okay, you can speed up again. You don't need to go so fast on the curve. Make a hard right but don't stop. Roll. Roll. Roll. Don't stop ("but Robbie there's a car coming") okay stop but be careful about the horses. No brakes down this hill use your momentum. Put on your brakes down the hill! Etc." At one point he made his point about how I could go a little faster by leaning over and physically pushing my foot down on the gas. I got the point. Every now and then I got "hey, I really like this song" or "you got any cookies in your fancy new ladies' frock?" but mainly it was stop go slow fast left right, etc.
  Our exhausting 15 minute drive culminated with me pulling into the yard at the kennels to a sudden outburst from him "PUSH THE BUTTON! PUSH THE BUTTON! YOU NEED THE BUTTON! NOW! NOW! THE BUTTON!!!" I had no idea what was going on. What button? There is total chaos in the cab of the truck. Are we going to explode? We both start screaming. Finally Robbie leans all the way across me and pushes a tiny, hidden, virtually invisible button between the steering wheel and the driver's side window to turn on the four wheel drive. He thought without it we'd get stuck in the four feet of grass we had to drive across at the kennels.
• We were so ridiculously early, despite all that, that we stayed in the truck with the heated seats and started sipping our flasks and eating cookies. The angst of the drive was quickly forgotten. Other trailers arrive and note that I am in the driver's seat, not Robbie. Many of the women nod with approval (you go girl!). They do not know what it took to get there.
  The hunt itself was quite wonderful. There was lots of ice and snow in the woods, and we stayed mainly in the woods. Horses, hounds and humans were most happy to be out. It was cool -- mid-40s, but my curtain-esque ladies' frock and wool-backed vest kept me warm and toasty. Burton was one of the few horses still in shape from the snow storms (lots of people couldn't exercise their horses at all of late) so we cruised effortlessly up and down all the hills, through the mud, muck, ice and snow, through the creeks, over the bean-fields, etc.
• I learned how to gallop down hill on a sheet of ice. Not as hard as you think. You basically just can't think about the fact that it is ice.
• I learned how to jump down hill into clouds of kicked-up snow. I used to be terrified of jumping downhill AND of riding in snow. And now I think my favorite thing may just be jumping down hill in snow!
• Robbie was whipping a little and went off into the woods to get a hound that had become inappropriately obsessed with a groundhog. He starts whopping at the hound to "leave it! leave it!" Sounded a lot like his driving instructions, actually. The hound ignored him and broke the groundhog's neck and then brought the groundhog over to the field and presented it to us with great pride. Carter then starts in on the hound, "leave it! leave it!" Hound moves up the field and passes me and I say "leave it!" too even though I'm not sure I'm supposed to as a mere lowly member of the field and not staff or honorary staff or even a person with colors or anything. Amazingly, the hound drops the groundhog right next to me and Burton! Burton looks at back at me in shock, as if to say, "Dang woman! The hound did what you said!"
• Roger our master was quite entertaining on this ride because he told us that our Old Fashioned Point to Point race would be at this same fixture on Saturday. This is basically an intra club races where you have to get from start to finish by going through three designated "points" and the fastest one there (who is usually the one who knows the territory the best) wins. So the whole day he is dropping hints like, "well, here we are at the bridge on Long Corner Road -- could be a point!" Or, "some of you may know that we call this Morris's Pond. So if that's a point, now you know!" Or, "this is the fence line on Wendy Tackis's property. So would you have any idea what I meant if I said Point 2 is the intersection of the gas line and Wendy Tackis's gate? Hmmm? Anyone? Get the point? Hah ha!" Everyone took careful note of everything.
• Afterwards Robbie did not let me drive (shocking) and instead we went to lunch at a place in Mt. Airy. Being in the truck when Robbie is behind the wheel is like going on a personal guided tour of Vehicular Mishaps Through the Ages. Imagine Boomhauer from King of the Hill, or a Maryland tobacco auctioneer, describing the first time he ever drove over this particular hill in a sports car with his buddies in high school ("I tell you what, we had NO IDEA this hill was here until we were 30 feet up in the air looking down at it! Dang!), or whether that rotted jeep in so-and-so's drive way could pull his jeep out of the river, or how we could hunt so-and-so's farm if only we could get the rigs up the road without getting stuck like the time he did with a 27 million horse trailer and only a 2 cylinder motorcycle engine (or maybe it was just a bicycle chain, can't remember) but he SUCH AN AMAZING DRIVER that he was the only one who made it in (dang), or describing the time he called 911 cuz some woman went off the road into the river Right At this Very Spot Here on Daisy Road, Kim! and was screaming her head off so at least he knew she wasn't hurt that much, ("I tell you what Kim, If you're screaming, you can't be that hurt."). I also learn every iota of his work schedule for the week, even the extremely boring parts of it. I learn his views about Country Music Old and New (he prefers New).
• I observe a pretty bird flying in the air. I say, "that's a loon, my Mom told me all about it." Response: "Dang that ain't nothing for a big bird -- once I saw this pterodactyl, and it was 27 million inches wide, and it had brown AND black feathers and was carrying a baby tyrannosaurus rex in its mouth which it almost dropped on my jeep but I tell you what me and my buddies GUNNED THAT THING and got back to the Outtatheway Cafe just in time but it sure was a close call...." Etc.
• We get to our lunch spot. It still strikes me as odd to drive up to a diner with two fully loaded horse trailers in full hunting attire (we are careful to take our spurs off before entering), and walk into to sit down to an hour+ meal with a bunch of people who have just come from church. Horses just hang out in the parking lot in the trailers. What if someone stole them? What if they got in a fight? What if they get cold? Don't people think we're weird in our canary vests and tall boots?
• At lunch I learned that somewhat unexpectedly that not all country people demand the same level of polite cocktail party chit chat that I'm used to or that my colleagues require at firm outings or that Robbie appears to indulge in while driving the truck. There I am, shell shocked from my cacophonous truck ride, vainly trying to make conversation with everyone, asking them about their upcoming plans, seeing if they enjoyed the day's sport, etc. I notice that no-one else is talking much. Dale eventually says, "you know Kim, we don't normally talk this much." I say, "oh?" She says, "yeah, if you weren't here, we'd be sitting in companionable silence." I look at Robbie suspiciously (surely HE would not be silent?). Robbie smiles and suggests I practice some companionable silence.
• And the irony of that just takes my breath away.
• So the next time the boy is hollering at me in the trailer, or one-upping my nice loon with pterodactyl stories, or claiming to be totally non-plussed by a damsel in distress cuz "screaming equals consciousness" or some such nonsense, I plan to holler right back at him "Hey! Give me some Companionable Silence!" Like Castanza on Seinfeld -- SERENITY NOW!

And of course, that has become our new favorite joke.

The Hunt Ball

Each of you has asked about the hunt ball on Saturday night:

• The ball was a smashing success -- we had a ball! The men were resplendent in their scarlet tails with canary lapels, the women were elegant in their black and blue floor length gowns.
• The bartender was a bit surly but we won him over.
• The food was smashing.
• The band was excellent.
• The whip cracking contest was thrilling. My friend Robbie won by cracking a whip something fierce without ever cracking a smile -- very serious cracker. There was actually a "crack-off" because my other friend Rebecca, who had never cracked a whip in her life, almost beat Robbie, the honorary whip, ironically. Robbie's prize was .... a whip. Very excellent.
• Roger, the master, tried to get me up on the floor to compete but I demurred. Then I went out into the foyer to practice for next year.
• I was deemed the "woman with the best hair." My hairdresser did my hair to much oohs and ahs from everyone. It took me hours to get undone later. Hundreds of little rubber bands and bobby pins. He told me that I was "not exactly flame retardant" due to the amount of hairspray he used but that I "would withstand a category 4 hurricane."
• Someone committed a major faux pas by wearing a red dress -- only female masters can wear a red dress so she was castigated by the staff. TRADITION!
• The next day we went hunting at Hardwood, the site of opening day. Roger congratulated those of us who made it out and said we all got little check marks in his black book for having such excellently strong constitutions.
• The day of hunting was fabulous. We "drew the pond" early in the day and pursued the fox over some very large manmade jumps -- the largest I have yet done on Burton. Then we jumped innumerable logs in the woods, definitely the most jumping I have done out hunting.
• I learned how to foxhunt in snow and ice -- a little slippery in the woods but the footing out in the wide open cornfields was excellent.
• We got as far as Pleasant Prospect -- quite a ways -- and then had a fabulous gallop across three open cornfields at top speed. It may have been the fastest flat out gallop I've ever done.
• Beautiful sunny day -- blue sky.
• During our fierce gallop, my friend Jonathan came up next to me and we turned to each other and said, "Well, hello! Beautiful day, what? Excellent sport!" We remarked how far we've come that we can chit chat on the back of horses going 35 mph over snow and ice without a single worry.
• Funniest thing about the hunt was Jonathan borrowed a crop from Dale before the meet.
• We gave him a nice black crop with a handle and a tassle. By the end of the day the handle was gone as was the tassle -- totally destroyed. He said, "Here, you can have this back, uh, thanks." Hilarious.
• I also got to drive one of our trailers (we had five going on Sunday) with horses in it. Very fun. First time I had driven a trailer fully loaded.
• Now we are all getting ready for the race meet and the old fashioned point to point that occurs two weeks before the race meet (we all ride in the old-fashioned). We expect no hunting the rest of the week due to the snow storm.

Wonderful day hunting yesterday at Annapolis Rock in the snow flurries. The pine forests and the rocky outcroppings up there make it seem like Narnia.

Robbie (from our barn) whipped in for the first time and was very honored and we were all very proud. Also, our field master was Frankie who is only 25 or so -- Roger was away -- and our field consisted mainly of younger people and new members. It was sort of a vision of the future -- the group of people who could in theory be hunting together for the next 20 years. And Dale was also away so we were in charge of the barn and the trailers on top of all that.

We had some astonishing feats. At one point "staff" came through and it was Robbie (which was kind of funny and which made us both laugh) and he cuts in front of me and takes off through a creek bottom that was very rough terrain with lots of scrub brush and low trees and we were going faster than I've ever gone -- it was like a car chase scene in a video game. Robbie was chasing a hound back to the pack and I was chasing Robbie because he was going towards the master and the rest of the field was chasing me. But Robbie and I were faster because Robbie's horse was a thoroughbred and Burton is seven eighths thoroughbred and they are both Pleasant Prospect horses after all so they are basically perfect. Burton was amazing -- leaping tall buildings in a single bound, etc. We jumped all kinds of things -- piles of downed logs that were very wide and mounds of stuff we didn't know what it was so we jumped it and collections of vegetative type things and crevices and ditches. There wasn't any time to think about what we were doing really, the horses were in charge and we just stayed in the middle of our stirrups.

The hound was in font of us the whole way. We looked up along the ridge top at one point and saw the rest of the hounds rolling along flat out up there. It was the hounds on top and us on the bottom for at least a mile along the creek. And it was lightly snowing -- it was very very fun. Possibly the most fun ever.

We eventually came to the Patuxent which we had to cross but the only way is a vertical bank drop down. We could see maybe 2 feet of bank above the water but we didn't know how deep the water was. Robbie's horse slides down the bank into about 2 feet of water, which makes for a total drop of about 4 feet. It seemed okay. Burton takes a different approach and leaps off the bank out into the river and into the water, converting the four foot drop into a bigger drop. It was amazing. The field behind starts going "whoa! look at Burton!" I'm up there yahooing in the air. Then after we land in the water he does the dolphin leap in and out of the water until we get to the other side. I bounced around a lot on top. It made me laugh. About 100 yards later we put the fox to ground. Someone came up to me and said, "I saw that bank -- your horse is Irish, right?" Yep.

Then we went and chased another fox and had similar amounts of fun. We crossed the river several more times. We scaled a near vertical cliff that was so steep and long we had to go up it one by one -- very Man from Snowy River. We circumnavigated three or four fields of winter wheat up on top of the ridge at top speed. The light started to fail. The snow kept up. People got cold. Our flasks were empty. We went in for the day.

After putting the barn to bed Frankie, Robbie and I went to the Olney Tavern to get warm and we had dinner and stayed late and talked about how much fun it was to have the next generation in charge and how we did pretty darn well for ourselves and weren't we lucky to have such an unusual hobby.

Lessons Learned While Fox Hunting

Someone asked me today how my friend "the stable boy" was doing -- referring to a new acquaintance many of you will recognize as the person I got stuck in a rapidly rising river with on New Years' Eve during a little late night Howard County four-wheeling mishap (we were in a jeep). I guffawed at the reference to him as a stable boy. He's not a stable boy! He's a....foxsteepler (foxhunting steeple chasing somewhat wayward youth). But it made me laugh and consider all the very unusual things I have learned or experienced so far in my short foxhunting career that I would never have expected to learn from this allegedly snooty sport. As follows:

• I have learned that one of the warmest places to be on a cold winter's morning is the inside of the compost pile. I learned this because the man driving the mushroom composing truck (which is like something out of Battlestar Galactica -- large fog lights and loud belching noises) fell off his perch into the compost pile one morning before dawn while we were getting the horses ready, and the fox steepler told me that he probably wasn't all that upset about it because at least now he was warm.
• I have learned that there is a vigorous debate ongoing among Howard County residents about whether it is better to leave the salt bags open or closed on the back of your personal snowplow.
• I have learned what it feels like to have a man in a camouflage baseball cap emerge out of the pre-dawn snowy darkness and say, "Ma'am, I have your manure receipt." (I said "thank you very much" in my most polite manner and put it in my pocket.)
• I have learned that the only way to get a jeep out of a river is with another jeep and a winch and a bunch of guys.
• I have learned that you can't just sign up to go ride a bull in a rodeo. As it was put to me, "Are you kidding? You gotta KNOW someone to be able to do that!"
• I have learned about a sport where grownups strap a five year old child onto the back of a sheep. The sheep waddles off, the child slowly falls off the sheep, and the grownups roar with laughter. People pay money to watch this. It's called Mutton something or other.
• I have learned that West Virginia blackberry moonshine and beef jerky make a perfectly adequate breakfast.
• I have learned that foxhunting horses do not care for cardamom spice cookies.
• I have learned that a Dooley is a kind of truck. I now know what people are talking about when they say that my whatever-I've-lost is in the Dooley (and I've found many of my missing things in there). I also now know that when the foxsteepler says he's bringing his Duramax he means his Ford truck, not his flashlight batteries or something.
• I now know what it feels like to be hosed down with warm water in the wash stall like a horse (see above entry re jeep in river).
• I have learned that a skid loader (whatever that is) is a sufficiently desirable thing that people will drive all the way to Hagerstown, West Virginia, to get a good deal on one.
• I now know what it feels like to be a horse riding in the back of a horse trailer. Very like the NYC subway.
• I have learned that it is not uncommon for country people to give each other boxes of mushrooms for Christmas presents. These are known as "Christmas mushrooms." They make people happy.
• I have learned the expression, "Does it Gator?" Which means -- does this horse allow itself to be lead by a person who is driving the John Deere tractor thing, aka, the Gator? A horse that Gators is desirable. A horse that does not Gator is a pain.
• I have learned that the hunt club gives landowners a turkey on Thanksgiving. Unless the landowner is a club member, in which case they are expected to buy their own turkey.
• I know that when people in Howard County see each other after a long absence, they say things like, "I tell you what! I haven't seen you since Hector was a pup! Dang!"

That's it for now. I'm sure others will come along.

New Year's Even

New Year's Eve was a foxhunting day. We hunted up in Marriottsville, Maryland, and then went to the Olney Tavern afterwards to drink in the new year. We arrive around 6 p.m.

About 11:30 pm Robbie says, "I'm going to go get the piece of shit, and I'll meet you at the farm." The "piece of shit" was his four-wheeling jeep, complete with a winch on the front. It was drizzling slightly by this point.

So I drive to the farm, begin putting on various layers of clothes and duck taping my boots together. Robbie shows up with the piece of shit. It is now raining.

We head off into the back woods. I am equipped with a flashlight and a bottle of Bushmills. Piece of shit keeps dying on way down. Robbie keeps restarting it. We drive gaily into the river over a vertical cliff, practically, with intention of driving down the river and out the other end and back up to the barn. River is maybe 2 feet deep at this point. Piece of shit dies in the river. Robbie can't get it started. I drink my Bushmills and wave the flashlight around. Robbie is out in the river waist deep in water with the hood up. I drink some more Bushmills. Robbie starts getting on the phone calling his fellow Mur-land rednecks. "I'm stuck in the river with Kimberly! Come get me out! There are fishies swimming by!" I snootily declare that my name isn't Kimberly. Robbie tells me I'm not helping. Half an hour or so later Robbie announces we have to swim for it. Water is rising. I sit in disbelief.

Nuh uhn, you mean, get in the river?
Uh-huh.
And get wet?
Yes, let's go.
There must be a better way. Can you fix it Robbie?
Nope.
[silence]
Okay!

So he starts heading for the riverbank and falls down and is completely underwater. I, the city slicker, get out of the piece of shit and walk daintily to the riverbank, no falling, no swimming. Hah!

We get back to barn after a long slog in the mud and rain and hit the wash stall where we hose ourselves down like horses. Then we crash for the night at the barn managers house, on the property. At this point it's like 1:30 in the morning. Pouring with rain.

Next morning go down to river to find it has risen like 4 feet and the piece of shit is almost fully underwater. Had to get another jeep to get it out. I have since ordered a "no parking sign" to put in the river.

That is the story of New Year's Eve.