We drove to KS last friday and picked him up Saturday morning. The drive out was awful in 40 mph cross winds and snow. I was beginning to believe the storm was a hint to turn around and forget about a dog, but we made it there and back safely. We had stopped there on our way back to Colorado from our Thanksgiving visit and told the kids I knew the people and wanted to visit. The kids had played with the 7 males from the litter of 11 puppies. They thought my "friends" just happend to have a litter of puppies.
When we pulled into their drive Isaac remembered it was the house with the puppies and they were all hoping the puppies were still there to play with. Olivia said, "I bet the two with the blue and green colars are already gone." They had no clue the green colar was to mark our puppy. We went in the house and our puppy was inside waiting for us. We let the kids play with him for 10 or 15 minutes before Heather asked them if they wanted to take him home. It took us almost as long to convince them that he was our puppy and was going home with us and that he was ours when they played with him the first time. From there all the way back to Colorado was a never ending argument over who got to sit in front of the kennel that Bow was riding in.
So far he has been a good puppy. I've been using the kennel to house train him and I think he is going to catch on pretty quick. I've been reading several books on trainging pointing labs, by the way he is a pointing lab, and have started the early stages of retrieving. He loves to chase after the bumper and bring it back, but only give him a little and then put it away while he is still exited about it. We'll see how it goes, but I think the only thing that will hold him back will be my patience for training.
I have several Christmas photos of the kids to post, but haven't downloaded them to the computer yet. I'll get them up in the next couple days.
Happy New Year!
We skied on Saturday at Ski Cooper. Ski Cooper is a much smaller area than the resort we skied last year, Beaver Creek, but it is plenty big for us and there are no crowds. It was snowing pretty hard while we were there but we still made several runs. Isaac and Olivia picked up where they left off last year, but Boyd needs a couple more times out to get back up to speed. He tired out pretty quick. Heather had a couple falls that I missed while keeping track of the kids, but I could tell she planted her head into the snow by the amount of snow wedged between her goggles and helmet. Last weekend we had around 15" of snow and from the 6th to the 9th we had from 12 to 18 additional inches of snow.
First things first, I killed this doe on our Thanksgiving visit back home. Someone, I think Cheryl, asked me to quit showing hunting pics and show pics of the kids. So, this picture is for you Cheryl. HA!
Pegram Kids at Thanksgiving.
Dad, enlightening any audience he can get.
Which one is Eli?
Sam and Isaac searching for their brain.
Joe showing off the lunch made just for an elk hunter.
Michael wondering how he got talked into this.
Not sure what these two guys were doing at 9,000 ft, but I almost stepped on them.
Joe, Michael and Kelsie fishing for trout in Turquois lake in the rain. Heather , Nancy and Isaac watch. You can see a few fish in the lower left corner.
The mighty hunter (Dad) all dressed up but no elk to impress.
Dad and the Flattops in the background.
Wild flower that I don't know the name of.
This is the first day of my Bighorn ewe tag. There were 10 sheep around the rock you can see through my spotting scope. They were around 2,500 to 3,000 ft above me, and of course I took off after them.
A while later I made it to this point at treeline. The sheep are bedded on that diagonal line where the snow is melted just above the tree tops. If I could just get to the log above the scrubby trees I should have a 40 yard shot.
The interchange way down below is where I started from.
This is where they were when I finally got up there. I never could get closer than 100 yards and I hung out all day hoping they would feed my direction. That never happend and I made it back to the truck after dark. I was very tired.
I packed in this camp about a mile and a half up a drainage just to treeline on the second day to hunt for a few days.
This is a few sheep out of a group of 13 that I planned to hunt on day 3, but they disappeared never to be seen again. I did try to ambush four that I found close by that evening, but while watching two of them from 75 yards one had got above me to about 40 yards and caught a glimpse of me sneaking in. I had to slide on my but back down the steep slope to find my pack in the dark. I could not find it so I had to make it back to my tent with no light and find it in the morning.
This is the rock slide I climbed up through to stalk the same four sheep from the night before after finding my pack. I though I had them, but instead of continuing to feed up the slope past the rock outcropping I snuck to, they bedded on the far side of the chute they were feeding in and 68 yards was all I could get to . They finally winded me and spooked. I again had to slide on my but all the way back down to the trees. The climb up wasn't much fun, but the slide down was nerve racking. If you kick a rock loose, it will roll a half mile down the hill.
This is looking back down the drainage from the same spot as the last picture. Last nights stalk had been on the edge of the trees on the slope to the left. At this point I called Heather and had her meet me in Georgetown with the 7mm mag. I had had enough climbing and sliding back down and planned to shoot one and let it slide down to me. I never got another chance. I got to 275 yards on the last day, but was not comfortable with that range and before I could get closer they made it to the trees and I never could find them again.
This is the head of the drainage that I was hunting. This is well above treeline.
This is Mt Elbert this morning on my way to work with the first rays of sun shining on it. Elbert is the highest peak in the state, one of the many 14'ers. Both it and Massive can be seen from our house. This was taken just north of Leadville.
This is Mt. Massive at the same time as the last. Massive has the largest amount of acreage above 14,000 ft of any of the 14'ers in the state. I plan to climb it some day.
