Ramble: All Night Caffeine Death Spiral
Here’s the problem:
It’s not only the adrenaline from the excitement of watching my dogs do a really good job hunting that makes it impossible to come home and go straight to sleep. It’s the fact that since 8 PM on Saturday, I have consumed over 40 ounces of coffee. What’s strange is I don’t recall urinating at all during the hunt. I wonder where all the coffee ended up.
Still in my veins, all that sweet caffeine.
Still in my ears, the deafening sound of 9 dogs treeing cheered on by 5 humans elated by the spectacle.
“What in the freaking hell is going on?”
While we were hunting, while the dogs were treeing not one, but at least 3 confirmed raccoon perched in a ratty cottonwood overhanging the creek, a neighbor of the property we have permission to be on, yelled out at us.
“We’re just walking around the orchard hunting the hound dogs,” my fellow hunter yelled back.
The conversation went on for longer than I thought possible considering the noise of the dogs not 40 yards ahead and the creek the two were shouting over. To me, the neighbor seemed mad because of the strong, insinuating tone and aggressive shining of his flashlight. I ended up walking ahead to get to the dogs and my fellow hunter stayed long enough to confirm that everything was okay. Wouldn’t really matter either way because we had permission to be on the farm for pest control purposes (though we let many raccoon live we weren’t supposed despite the request of the landowner.)
I was impressed by all my dogs tonight.
Finn started out strong making a mad dash with Charlie’s dog Nyx ending up what appeared to be treed based on the extended lack of movement on the GPS. Nyx ended up coming back at Charlie’s command but Finn stayed and treed … I will have to review the tracks but my guess is he was at the tree with multiple coon.
Roux was more vocal than ever tonight. Screaming while working out tracks and roaring at the tree. He isn’t getting his feet up on the tree, which I realized I haven’t really encouraged one way or the other—it’s just not something I think about in the moment. What I’ve noticed is he gets to where he can smell the critter and sits his butt down and roars. Finn does this too, working the wind to smell the critter in the tree, though his sit is not quite as pronounced as Roux’s.
Coulee seems to have gained a new level of maturity and is becoming more and more selective with her bark. I believe the elk-and-deer-breaking session we had two weeks ago has her thinking more before she opens her mouth. Of course there must be deer tracks and scent everywhere—it is hazelnut orchard. But there are also tremendous numbers of raccoons, and from what the farmer told my fellow hunter, very many grey fox. Before, Coulee was barking at every smell. Or maybe not every smell, but barking at all the smells that got her excited. Problem was, all smells were getting her excited. I have always felt like the dogs are not just barking, but barking directly to me as a form of communication between us. Coulee has just wanted me to know about all the smells, so it really never bothered me … until the excessive barking really started getting on my nerves. I just wanted to know what she was barking at. Something must have clicked because tonight, she was not the first dog to bark, and when she did finally open her mouth, we were looking at raccoon eyes shortly after.
But to me, it was Plum who stole the show in many ways with his signature “Death Spiral.” The only bluetick I’ve seen or heard of running around with his head up in the air smelling the wind, you can always tell when his smelling something because he starts running in tighter and tighter circles until he’s practically spinning in place. This behavior has become very reliable and Plum is a good gauge if there is actually something there or not.
He does bark up trees with nothing in them from time to time, but as soon as the Death Spiral kicks in, you know darn well Ol’ Plum smells something up there, somewhere, not exactly sure where, but boy there’s probably something up there.
OK, that’s all I got. I think I might actually be able to fall asleep now.
If you read through all the way until the end—and I don’t blame you if you didn’t—I appreciate you.
Sincerely,
Niklas
2:20 AM, Sunday, February 21, 2021