I’m going to be writing this in a delayed fashion, because...
1. I’m still in a little shock
2. I’m still returning voice mails and e-mails and that’s taking up huge portions of my day. People are pouring out love, though, and I thank you for all your sweet and straight up comments. I love you all!
So. It’s Wednesday morning. I woke up at 6 a.m., a little late for me. Zack the Wonderdog was snuggled under the covers next to ThatManILove. I stealthily crept into the TV room, popped open the Mac (another story in itself) and started returning e-mails. I worked on this hard for about an hour.
And then, I lay back down on the couch and crashed.
At 9:30 a.m., ThatManILove came in to the room, concerned that he woke up and I wasn’t by his side. He said, “Babe, your phone’s been ringing off the wall.”
He gave it to me, and, dang. The voice mail was full AGAIN - 14 messages, and 15 e-mails. He started laughing. And then, he said, “Well! I checked my phone, and I have two messages, and three e-mails.” I just looked at him. He said, “Well, okay, yeah...they’re from yesterday.”
He is so funny.
He asked me if I wanted to go eat breakfast somewhere. Did I? No. I wanted to bury my head under the covers, but I knew that I could not do that. I had to get busy.
We compromised. He offered to make me cinnamon toast...a comfort food that hails back to my youth.
So off he went to the kitchen, dogs in hot pursuit. I hear him banging around, and before long, I smell cinnamon and butter. Yummmm. In a second, though, I smell something burning, and I cry out to him. He quickly assures me he’s got it, and in a minute, he comes back into the TV room bearing cinnamon toast. His is burned, but mine is not.
He sits down by me, and grabs a piece of toast, and bites into it. Immediately, his face screws up. Something’s not right. He spits it out.
I say, “What’s wrong?”
He smells of it, then reaches out for my plate.
He says, and I kid you not, “I put salt on it instead of sugar.”
And off he goes to make the real thing. You think we’re turned a little sideways by all this job deal? ThatManILove is a gourmet cook, I swear. The dogs wouldn’t even eat it.
I laughed until I cried. I did. It's never boring around here.
Ace is an English pointer. He is beautiful. He stops well away from the bird, giving you time to get up to the bird to flush it. Ace will not move - if he could talk, he would say, "It's up there, go get it, so I can do my job!" And in the field, this boy is a machine. If a bird acts like it’s going to flush, he stands. He may flinch, but his feet do not move – he will not move prematurely. Amazing.
Here, Ram is bringing the bird to his master. Notice any similarities to Zack? Ram is Zack’s littermate. Ram’s really a sweetie, but he’s not much on this practice penned birds game. He’s a wild bird man, himself. Ram wants the real thing – he wants quail season to open. Still, he did his job, and did it well. 
Meet little Miss Tracy. She’s a young pup, but let me tell you – the girl is automatic. Yesterday, there was no wind. She would get past the bird bag, and just lock down – her body would be facing the way she was heading, but her head would be pointing back at the bird, as in this picture below. The orange bag has a live quail in it, which the shooter releases in flight. And Tracy would not move until you let that bird go. She’s so precise, it’s almost comical.
Tracy’s owners moved to West Texas from California, and decided to get into the field trial and shooting sports. We are enjoying getting to know them, and I think they’re settling into Texas life really well! They drove up from San Angelo yesterday to meet us at dawn so they could work their dogs. That's dedication to their dogs and this sport, I'm telling you. I'm proud of them.
