I Was the Vixen’s Designated Kit-Sitter

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Wildlife

By Dave Ellis, Wildlife Photographer

Dave Ellis photo

I had found the den of a family of red foxes and was going early each morning to take pictures of the mother and her young kits. The kits were five or six weeks old, and were at that curious, exploring stage. Their life at that point pretty much consisted of eat, sleep, and play.

The father did not seem to be around, so the vixen had a lot of work to keep her four kits fed and safe. She was not stupid. She soon figured out that she could make use of me. She had to spend several hours each day off in the woods hunting in order to keep the little ones fed, which meant that without a father around, she would have to leave them alone and subject to being found by other predators.

Louis “Paddy” Neilson, MFH

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Remembrance

Paddy Neilson, MFH, whipping-in at Cheshire / Jim Graham photoLegendary horseman Louis “Paddy” Neilson III, MFH, died Thursday, September 5, 2019 at the age of seventy-seven. He was the husband of Toinette Phillips Neilson, with whom he shared thirty-one years of marriage.

Paddy served as Master, alongside his daughter, Sanna, of Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA) and was a winning race rider and trainer. He hunted with Cheshire since childhood and served as full-time honorary whipper-in for the last thirteen years of his life, jumping his last fence in the line of duty just a couple of weeks before his death.

The Old Coop on My Half Farm

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Literature

By Sarah Martin

My Half Farm, in Wentzville, Missouri, was a part of the main fixture of the Bridlespur Hunt Club (IL) from 1957 to 2006, before urbanization forced the club to relocate further west. My Half Farm is still home to hunt horses, the My Half Farm Beagles, and is a regular fixture for the Three Creek Bassets.

The Old Coop on My Half Farm

The Old Coop she stands bended, a dip across her bow
Where time has weathered wood, barely even two-six now.
Many years have passed and she beckons as if to say,
Do you remember when the hunters came my way?

The Old Coop sits heavy, where imposing she once stood.
Many a hunter snapped his knees, back when times were good.
Up and over they did go, landing downhill, facing north.
Over I've flown many times on beasts now left this Earth.

Squire Osbaldeston: A Sporting Prodigy

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Hunting Days of Yore

By Norman Fine

Squire Osbaldeston, MFH (foreground) on Ashton, with Sir Frances Holyoake-Goodricke on Crossbow, 1830, hunting the Pytchley in Melton Mobray, Leicestershire, England. Oil painting  by John Ferneley

London-born in 1786, George Osbaldeston was a natural athlete. He rowed for various schools that he attended, including Eton and Oxford, neither of which he matriculated. He assiduously avoided academic work, but set high standards for rowdy behavior and was expelled from most of these fine institutions.

He was an outstanding cricketeer, bowling and batting as an amateur in numerous important matches. In 1818, however, he was barred for life from membership in a club as the result of an intemperate outburst, effectively finishing his career in important cricket matches.

Andre Pater: An American Journey

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Art

By Norman Fine

Oil painting by Andre PaterThe Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington, Kentucky will mount a retrospective exhibit of the impressive work of Andre Pater. Sixty-six equine, sporting, and recent Native American works borrowed from private collections will hang from Friday, September 13 to Sunday, November 17, 2019. The closing day will coincide with the Keeneland Sporting Art Auction in that city.

Mr. Pater will give a talk on Saturday, September 14, the first full day of the exhibition. He has been described by many as the heir to the late Sir Alfred Munning’s throne, and a glance at his racing and hunting works are convincing evidence that the comparison is valid.

A Woman’s Place

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Our Hunting World

By Salley McAden McInerney

The author, a hunt coat, a stirrup cup, and a horse named Cort.I reached into the left, front pocket of my foxhunting jacket, a vintage black and grey-flecked wool frock made by Brittany Riding Apparel of New York. My fingers found something thin and soft—a faded blue pack of ten-cent stamps with an enthusiastic message from the postal service about using your zip code.

“Help us give your letters top speed.”

Five-digit zip codes were introduced in 1963; ten cent stamps were issued in the early 1970s; I was issued in 1955.

I inspected the stamp book further. What is the story of the stamps? And the story of a riding jacket I had been given by my mother on Christmas Day, 1972, but had never worn?

It’s the story of a woman’s place.

Coyote In the Mist: A Fleeting Engagement

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Subscribers' Space

By Derek French

Illustration by Sheila Armstrong Hodgson

The primal fears of our ancestors remain not that far beneath the surface of our psyche. We think of ourselves as sophisticated human beings. Superior to the animals around us. We communicate well between ourselves. But can we cross that border to reach understanding with other wild species? I had an incident that challenged my rational mind and brought to the surface some deep, dark fears from the primeval past.

It was early November, the time of year when I like to get my small country property tidied up and put to bed for its long winter sleep. I had been tied up with city matters for most of the day and returned home with just enough daylight hours left to finish some cleanup work on the three-acre field at the back of the property. This remote little idyl borders on the cedar swamp which marks the property line to the west.

Jack

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Literature

By Maxine Kumin

How pleasant the yellow butter
melting on white kernels, the meniscus
of red wine that coats the insides of our goblets

where we sit with sturdy friends as old as we are
after shucking the garden's last Silver Queen
and setting husks and stalks aside for the horses