SCHOOL COLORS

If you intend to name a jump, please let me know your school colors. Getting to me now will allow us to put up the signs before winter hits. Also, letting me know now, will allow me to get these signs made all at once. Traveling back and forth to the sign painter’s is difficult.

Please send your $100 to David Wheeler. Send the name of your school and the colors to Lynn Stevenson, who will pass them on to me so I can get this done. If you don’t have a jump in mind, Maria Johnson and I will select one. So far we have 10 jumps picked out.

We are not allowing presidential candidates to sponsor signs!

LOOT

Liz Taylor has written a check to rise to the Thornton Challenge. She wishes everyone to know it is not for the same amount but she did her best, which is very good indeed. Thanks also to Kristin Jones for her wondrously generous check…how thrilled we are and thank you to Tom and MJ Timmerman, who we miss very much, for their donation.

All of this is allowing us to extend the roof, the insulation, in the main kennels. Mark Catron has bought twenty-one 2X6’s so we can get started. We need roofing material and some lights, as well as heavy wood for the outside gates and stall mats to be cut and placed into those doors. Bill Johnson is in charge.

John and Toot estimate that this extension will save them four hours work per day during winter. The hounds will be happy, too.

I bought the propane heaters for both kennels which will save a lot on electricity and add more warmth. The cost of filling both large tanks $600 and we think this will last most of the winner as we need only keep the thermostat in the mid-50s at most.

This will also save on plumbing costs. We received enough funds for Nelson waterers but not enough for the installation which is complicated and expensive especially for indoors. This way, I’ve re-jigged the kennels so what we do have can be placed outside at a considerable installation savings. If you think hard enough, walk the kennels enough and always, talk to the hounds, you find a way.

Bob Satterfield says he will get our men (and ladies, if so inclined) together to knock out this roof and the installation.

TREE REMOVAL

Those winds played havoc with some trees down at the kennels. Too complicated for us to remove. Mark Catron has found a tree remover, a small operation, who will do this for us at no cost if we allow him to sell the lumber. He can’t get to us until winter but we have agreed.

TWO TROOPERS

With sadness laced with gratitude, we bid goodbye to Tattoo who died in his sleep and to that loving Baby Girl, who left us peacefully. They knew they were loved.

FUTURE STARS

As great hounds leave us, youngsters take their place. Cotton, first year entry, a draft from Lili Wykle, impressed everyone. Flapper, another first-year entry, a draft from Deep Run, was confused at first but has settled right in.

The M litters, two from the first litter and more from the second, are now the leaders of our pack. Beautiful movers, keen and very biddable, we are thrilled with them. Dorky, from Orange County, also dazzles us and he has a real no-quit work ethic. His voice, basso profundo is unmistakable.

All of the young hounds, bred by us or drafted in, are doing so well. Lilac, no youngster, as always, is still the last one in. You have to beg her and she likes to drag it out but she does come to the party wagon. She also makes sure you see her roll in.

Last Sunday’s hunt, October 2, not the best of conditions but hounds managed a twenty minute run, a stop here and there and a rediscovery of the line. What will stay in memory is back at the tailgate when some of us looked skyward to see the female bald eagle pass over us low. Perhaps she was cruising the table.

WILLIAM WOODS UNIVERSITY VISIT

The students will be here October 21-23. We will need sixteen horses. If there‘s a change in that number, you will receive an email. Of all the things Oak Ridge does, this is one of the most important as well as one of the most satisfying. These good riders are the next generation of professional horsemen. All are in Equine Studies and those hand-picked to make the trip must keep a high grade point average. Most have never hunted and they quickly learn why hunting is the backbone of so many equestrian sports

In the past, you all have been so hospitable both on the field and off, that there visits are becoming legendary. The girls (mostly girls) who can’t make the trip want to know everything. When I visit in my responsibility as a trustee, they talk to me and I tell them I can’t select them. That is up to their department chair and the director of the whole program. But I do invite them to come here on their own, if possible. Oak Ridge will never turn away young person interested fox hunting. Isn’t it an energy boost to be out in the field with these young people? I don’t know who gets more out of these weekends: them or us? No matter, it is a win-win situation.

Please email Lynn Stevenson if you can spare a mount.

Many thanks,  RMB

HAVE A BONE

Thanks as always to Priscilla Friedberg and Jim Finn for those monthly deliveries of cookies. Thanks, too, for the tennis balls and for removing a downed tree on the trail.

Gib Stevenson brought us some standards and rails that he and Lynn no longer use for our puppy exercises. As you can imagine, there’s a great deal to do to run a hunt club and we are so grateful for your generosity and your surprises!