Indiana, Farms, and Tracking

The Whitted farm has been in Alan’s family through his mother since the 1830’s.  The original farm was 150 acres.  When Maxine’s parents died, the farm was split between Maxine and her sister Margie.  Maxine got the farmhouse and 70 acres attached to it.  Margie got the 80 acres across the road.  About 10 years or so before Maxine died, she had the farm transferred to her 3 children.  Maxine and Sonny had lifetime use of the farm.  Maxine died a few years ago. 

When Alan and I were engaged and then married, we spent at least one weekend a month at the farm.  The farm hasn’t been a “working” farm for about 35 years.  It has pastureland, rolling hills, and lots of woods.  Tim really enjoyed it when he was young and brought various friends to visit.

Last week we drove up for the day so I could track with Magnum.  I want to get more experience tracking in the woods.  Alan laid a track that started in a pasture and then wove in and out of the woods.  The track was 1500 yards and aged 2 ½ hours.  Magnum did great.  He missed an article as he was going up a hill.  He was off the track by about 20 to 25 feet, but got himself back on it.  I think he had been following a recent animal trail.  Then in the last fourth of the track, he wanted to make a left turn.  I was able to get him back on the track and we discovered the problem when he finished the track.  Alan’s exit path had been too close to the track.  When Magnum was trying to turn left, he was following the exit path.  Tracklayers need to walk at least 50 feet away from a track. 

Yesterday, we tracked on the farm surrounding our house, which leads to woods also owned by our farmer friend Joe.  Joe tills his land; so there was bare earth and some ground up corn stalks.  Alan again laid a 1500 yard track, aged 2 ½ hours.  I wasn’t sure how Magnum would do on bare earth, which doesn’t hold scent as well as vegetation.  Magnum was awesome.  His only challenge was near a ditch close to where he was to enter the woods.  Scent collects in ditches.  There are a herd of deer that we see regularly on this farmland and they run along the ditch.  Magnum wanted to go to the ditch.  I thought I could tell from his behavior that the track didn’t go that way.  He struggled with it and kept trying to get to the ditch.  I finally took a step forward and said back to work.  It did the trick and he got back on the track running into the woods.  We zig zagged through the woods and came out into another farm field.  It really is great fun and exercise to get out with Magnum and track.

Elections

Okay maybe it’s a little late to talk about the election results, but suffice to say that I was very happy on Wednesday.  It’s been a long time since I stayed up late to see the election results, but I did this year.  I was concerned about the network reports showing Ohio 49% to 49% for the presidential candidates, even though Ohio had been called for President Obama.  When the local networks said that ballots from Cuyahoga and Summit Counties were just coming in, then I knew President Obama was definitely going to carry Ohio.  Then I decided to stay up to see Romney’s concession speech.  I watched most of the results on PBS because their commentary is so much better than what is on the networks, but I kept switching to the networks to see the actual vote counts.

After a least an hour after the election was called for President Obama, Romney appeared for his concession speech.  Didn’t he look like a deer in the headlights?  The next day I discovered why.  I don’t follow the conservative news channel and hadn’t been aware they had predicted a big win for Romney.  And, Romney was so sure of winning that he didn’t prepare a concession speech.  Actually I can understand not preparing a concession speech. 

So now with the elections over, it appears that the Tea Party or as I like to call it The American Taliban can’t get a candidate elected to a statewide or national election.  They get candidates elected as representatives in areas gerrymandered.  Or so it appears to me.  On the season finale of “The Newsroom” Aaron Sorkin had his anchor, played by Jeff Daniels, who is a moderate republican define the Tea Party as having views as “ideological purity, compromise as weakness, a fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism, denying science, unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, a hostile fear of progress, a demonization of education, a need to control women’s bodies, severe xenophobia, tribal mentality, intolerance of dissent and a pathological hatred of the U.S. government.”  Jeff Daniels’ character ended saying, “They can call themselves the Tea Party.  They can call themselves conservatives and they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn’t.  But we should call them what they are The American Taliban.”

Here, here!!

So as our Congress tries to resolve the financial crisis, let us all encourage our representatives and senators to increase taxes on the 1% and to compromise.  It is always compromise that makes governing possible.