OK, so a millenium has gone by since I last posted. Oh, I thought about my blog in the mean time, but like a homework assignment I didn't want to get to, I kept telling myself I didn't have anything to post. But the obvious debunking of that is how busy I have been!

Falconry season has started, and I've got my hawks back into the air. They're not quite as fit as they were at the end of last season, of course, but every day I take them out they get stronger. My friend and one time apprentice in Laredo, Manuel Gonzalez, lent me a long-haired hunting dachsund pup to see if I can get my female, Pellrod, to accept as a hunting partner. At first I was very apprehensive, especially when I watched her around the dog. The pup at 6 months weighs about 7 pounds, so there's just not a lot of canine there. He's dark brown with black accents, a really cute dog, but the last dark-colored small dog I had she so intimidated that I finally gave her away to a friend who flies a bird that isn't so neurotic about small dark-colored dogs. She's turned into a find rabbit dog.

Well, this year the old bird has finally grown up. She hit the dog twice, and bound to him neither time, but just swatted him with her formidable foot to let him know his station in life. Since then she has virtually ignored him, and we've been out on about 4 hunts. So now I'm optimistic, and staring at a rather substantial bill with Manuel--oh, well, he said I could pay over time.

Bhut isn't that about like life? When we're young and foolish we take on the world, thrown into fights we feel strongly about without looking beyond to the longer-term consequences. As we mature we tend to become more acutely aware of the limits of our capacities, and then we learn to pick our battles. Richard Rohr, teacher and author, says he never learned anything from his successes after turning 40. His greatest teachers later in life have been his failures...

I guess I didn't fail at this dog-bird thing yet, but then again, it took a failure to get me to do it right!