A Message to Subscribers & Friends

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Norm Fine's Blog

The publication of Foxhunting Life’s e-magazine FHL WEEK―both electronic and PDF versions―will be paused for this month of August while operations are transferred from Publishe/Editor Norm Fine to Gretchen Pelham, who will take over and carry on!

Gretchen is a foxhunter, former MFH, columnist, and photographer  already known to many of you around the country. Norm reached retirement age decades ago with nary a murmur from him in recognotion of that obvious fact. The time has come to pass the baton.

During this August changeover period, our website will remain open. All content will still be available to subscribers, including all previously-published articles (well over 1,000). These are found, as always, on the Home Page, listed by category, and accessed via the drop-down menu running across the Home Page under the slide show banner. Log in and point your cursor to the “Horse and Hound” menu tab. Click Full Article List or browse by category! There is also a search function that may be useful for you!

Other subscriber benefits are available via the drop-down menus as well.

Crossing the Country to Help our Huntsman Exercise Hounds

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Literature

By Wendell Hawken

Our horses in the gooseneck,
We’re in this capsule of a truck cab
Headlights probing thick fog, hurtling through time
And space between white and double yellow lines.
Good way to hit a deer, he says. They move around
this time of morning.

Kumbaya

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Picture of the Week

During the weeks that the purpled mulberries fall, we see from one to three foxes―dog fox, vixen, and cub―together every evening, sharing summer’s bounty. Occasionally, a deer arrives, and they all share in harmony. The iPhone image was shot through a double-pane, vacuum-sealed picture window from about 50 yards.  /  Norm Fine photo

Huntsmen on the Move in 2022

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People

By Norman Fine

It’s that time of the off-season to check up on huntsmen who are moving or retiring and those hunts acquiring or seeking huntsmen. Here’s what we know.

Guy Allman at Blue Ridge with then whipper-in Neil Amatt and hounds  /  Betsy Burke Parker photo

Live Oak Hounds (FL)
British-born Guy Allman has returned to the States from England to hunt the well-bred pack of Modern English and Crossbred foxhounds at Live Oak in north Florida. Allman has been in hunt service for thirty-seven seasons, all but three years of that time in England.

The Mystery of the Red Fox

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Our Hunting World

By Norman Fine

Red Fox (vulpes vulpes)  /   Mike Roberts photo

The genesis of the red fox in North America has long been a rich subject for discussion. DNA studies have furnished answers, revealed genetically distinct types, and led to informed theories about how distinctive alterations to those lines developed as the result of separation and isolation during the Ice Ages.

Liz Kierepka―Senior Research Biologist and Assistant Research Professor at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina State University―describes herself as “a wildlife geneticist with broad interests across ecology and evolution.” Dr. Kierepka was interviewed by Laura Oleniacz for The Abstract, a publication of North Carolina State University. Here’s what Foxhunting Life learned.

The Kriz Horseshoeing Dynasty: A Tribute

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People

By Paul Kraus

Joe Kriz and son ready for a day with the Middlebury Hunt (CT), circa 1962

Joe Kriz, known by family and friends as "UJ" (Uncle Joe), and his son Joe Kriz, known as "Little Joe," appear in the photo above in hunting attire for a day with the Middlebury Hunt (CT), circa early- to mid-1960s. In the background is the family farm in Bethany, Connecticut, owned by UJ and his brother Johnny.

UJ and Jonny were seventh-generation farriers in a family that immigrated to the United States from Czechoslovakia. The brothers lived side-by-side on the farm for most of their adult lives, including their final years. Because of their hospitality and generosity, their farm was the local hub for horsey folks in the area. Sundays and many holidays were Open House with food and drink and good cheer in abundance.

Lord Oaksey Goes Hunting

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Hunting Days of Yore

By John Oaksey

My first ride on Carrickbeg was in the Leopardstown Chase [run on the final day of the Dublin Racing Festival]. With England frozen solid, he had not run for five weeks, and I had been leading the life of Riley―or rather of Soapy Sponge: ten wonderful days hunting in Ireland.

Of course, the fox and the hound play essential parts, and I wish I understood them better. I respect and envy those to whom every cry of a hound or a note of a horn brings an immediately recognizable image―the experts to whom one clever, successful cast means more than five minutes across the best of Leicestershire, Limerick, or Tipperary.