It looks like a White Christmas this year in the Helderbergs

This picture was taken on the night of December 9. Then it snowed pretty much for two days.

This is a view from our field onto a barn and dog yard. While it is a beautiful picture, it also brings back a memory of all the inconveniences of winter in the country: being snowed in and feeling isolated, a need to get a long driveway plowed, a dog yard filled with snow etc etc.

These two pictures were taken after a sunset, without a flash or tripod. The ISO setting was 20000.

Young dogs love to play in the snow. This picture shows Luna and Volt having a lot of fun for as long as it is not too cold!

Winter has arrived

On Wednesday, a day before Thanksgiving, first winter storm arrived. We probably got around 8-10 inches of snow, enough to affect travel plants for many. We were invited by friends who live 35 minutes from us and on Thursday afternoon roads were in a good condition. The snow is still with us and it still covers trees and bushes. The sight is magical.

This is our dogs' yard during the storm.

A view from our kitchen window on Wednesday afternoon.

Thanksgiving morning, just after sunrise.

On Friday morning we realized that we must have quite a few deer around here judging by the number of their tracks in the snow.

If the snow stays on the ground, it will be pretty much the end of tracking season for. We will continue to hunt if it does not get too cold.

The beauty of hunting season

15 minutes after sunrise on the opening day of gun season: a view from our blind

The Helederbergs in their autumn glory: the colors are peaking

I know that a tracking season is in a full swing and there are so many stories and pictures to share with readers of this blog. But this fall has also produced some exceptional colors so I am going to post a sample of my pictures. They all have been taken in this area in the last two weeks. There is no other place I'd rather live in September and October.

This picture shows a small swamp just 3 miles from our place in Berne, NY. Several years ago a hunter harvested a black bear here that was over 500 lbs. By the way, ten days ago or so one of our trail camera caught a short video of a pretty big, fat bear on our property, just ten yards from our dogs' fenced field.

A view from our property onto the Helderbergs.

A view from our driveway onto our neighbor's land across Route 443.

Woodstock Lake, Berne, NY

Few days ago we had our first frost, and this was a view from our front porch.

I was running errands in Cobleskill today, and this was a view of I-88. It looks like colors are in their peak.

The Helderbergs - summer in its glory

Even though I have not posted any nature pictures here for a while let me assure you that I still take them, almost every day. Most of the time I post them on Facebook just because it is easy to post one-two pics at a time without any special story or report to go with them.

We are overrun by rabbits. We did not expect it because the winter was pretty severe, but it seems that many of them have survived and reproduced. You can see them just about everywhere - in our enclosure, by the driveway, in the middle of our fields and even int he woods. This is good news.

It is also exceptional year for wild flowers. The picture below was taken in June. Now the fields have been mowed.

Not a great year for bees, but we saw quite a few of them when sumac was in a full bloom.

We see quite a few birds around our place, and this American Robin fledgling risked its life and tried to get to our dogs' yard. I prevented it from happening and hopefully it survived.

We see at least two different flocks of wild turkeys. These ones came out onto a mowed path to get dry after a severe thunderstorm and downpour.

A new generation of barn swallows was born in our barn, and the young birds have already left. However, just yesterday I noticed a new nest in a different part of the barn.

We see a regular guest to our pond - Great Blue Heron. This picture was taken at a swamp by Tabor Rd in Berne.

This is also where I took a picture of this family of Canada Geese. They were resting by the road and when they saw our car, they walked to the water and swam away.

As always summer sunsets are spectacular and they really make me appreciate all the beauty around us. There is no other place that I'd rather be...

Spring brings ducks to our pond and hopefully... puppies to our whelping box

While I am waiting for Tuesday's puppies to be born (this is my second night of hovering over Tuesday's whelping box), finally I have a little bit of time to catch up with the blog.

Spring has finally arrived in the Helderbergs! We thought that it would never happen this year. Yesterday, on Thursday, was very warm, in the mid-60s, and even though a lot of ponds and small lakes in this area are still frozen, our pond is clear now. This year we have a chance to watch some migratory diving ducks, which have paid us a visit. Most likely they will be soon on their way north, but in the meantime we have been enjoying them.

The two pictures were taken three days ago, when we still had some ice on the pond. These are Ring-necked Ducks, and the small flock on our pond has three females and five males.

A week ago we had a nice visit from Walt Dixon, who brought Billy's son with him to run him in our fenced-in field.  Walt just got back from Cincinnati, OH, where he gave a presentation "Why in the World would I need a Blood Tracking Dog?" at the recent Biennial Gathering of the Professional Bowhunters Society.

Walt Dixon and John Jeanneney

Dachs is maturing nicely.

It seems that some rabbits survived our tough winter, and finally our dogs can get some runs on the snow-free ground. The two pictures below show Kunox von der Dohlmühle, who tomorrow is going to be nine months old. He is not a little puppy any more!

Kunox's best buddy is Mielikki, and my camera just loves her. Taking pictures of dogs is not easy, but Mielikki's engaging personality and her athleticism came through well in these two photographs.

A very tough winter for all of us in the Helderbergs

This is one of the toughest winters that I remember in the 15 years we have lived here. Snowfall is almost double of what we had last year. It has been cold, and today is an exception with temperature above freezing. It will dip much lower tomorrow again. Wildlife has been suffering.

The picture below shows "our" deer a month ago, and they looked in a really good shape. Actually this winter we have seen more deer on our property than ever before. They feed in large groups on the browse at the edge of the field. One morning we saw 20 deer there, and our neighbor reported seeing 30. They come to his bird feeders and try to to eat sunflower seeds.

February 12 - deer looked in a good shape.

Few days ago we had yet another winter storm, which left a glaze of ice everywhere. It stayed on for two days. This is when I took the three pictures posted below. It sure looked beautiful, especially in the sun, with trees sparkling as they were decorated with Christmas lights, but deer were not able to feed at all.

Brunches were covered with ice, and deer stayed hungry.

Deer lost a lot of weight. Some of them (not the one in the picture) look really thin.

Craig Dougherty, our friend and outdoor writer, wrote this article for the Outdoor Life blog two days ago. "As I write this, western New York is cleaning up from yet another winter storm. My whitetails may be in trouble. I’m not sure they can take another hit this late in the season. We began to sound winter deer alerts more than a month ago as the winter weather continued to intensify and spring seemed but a distant fantasy. Sadly, not much has changed since then. Most mature does entered winter with a 90-day supply of fat reserves, but those reserves are running dangerously low. It may be the middle of March, but the thermometer is still saying winter. Most Northern areas are well into what the Winter Severity Index (WSI) refers to as “severe” to “very severe” winter conditions."

We see a lot of wildlife activity on our driveway. I wonder how many different tracks you can see here.

John gets some outdoor exercise every afternoon when he goes for a walk with a dog. His walk are limited to local roads that are plowed. The picture shows Tommy.

Let's hope that the second half of March will bring some warmth and snow melting!

A rare sunset

These two pics were taken yesterday at sunset. John and I stood in front of the house with our jaws open. The colors disappeared within 5 minutes. The whole experience was quite incredible.

A long holiday break is over! Books, puppies, and our plans for 2014.

It is very hard to get back to frequent blogging after a long break, and this is my first attempt! Let's start with pictures of showing John and me with our German puppy Kunox. The two pictures were taken just few days ago. We like Kunox a lot, and have high hopes for him.

We had a very nice holiday break that filled us with warmth and good feelings as in the last two weeks we went out or met with various friends just about every other day. It was great to catch up, eat good food, drink nice wine and altogether being able to relax. We wish all our readers and friends a Happy New Year - may it be healthy, peaceful and prosperous.

We love living in the country but winters here in the Helderbergs can be tough. It seems that the current winter started a long time ago even though officially it has been just two weeks.

The three pictures above were taken in the first half of December, and all this snow melted when we hit really high temperatures just before Christmas. In the end we ended up with a very green/brown Christmas Day. This, of course, was not going to last, and now a true winter has arrived. Yesterday we have a foot of snow, and temperature plunged to -7 F (around -22 C). Tonight is supposed to be even colder. This picture was taken this morning:

All dogs have been staying inside, and they have not been complaining. Thrill of  the first snow has been long gone.

This is going to be a very busy year for us. John has been working for a long time on the 3rd edition of Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer, and he should be done soon. When he completes his part, my work is going to start: editing and preparation of the book for production. Also we are planning to do a new, short book on dachshunds. This is the breed that we are most familiar with, and we'd like to pass our experience to new owners, handlers and breeders. And we also are planning to have two litters of puppies. All in all it looks like my photography is going to take a back seat in 2014, and probably we will not make it to too many dog events.

We have eleven dachshunds now, and our oldest is FC Asko von der Drachenburg, who is doing well at 14.5. Knock on the wood, but at present all dogs are fine, except for some minor ailments that our older dogs have.

Having so many dogs puts a lot of restrictions on our life, and especially our ability to travel, but I don't know how else one can have a multi-generational breeding program. Only through multi-generational evaluation and selection a breeder can have a breeding program with specific purpose and direction. The continuity of our breeding can be illustrated by Asko's descendants:
Asko--> Gilda--> Keena--> Paika--> Sky and Tuesday
and
Asko--> Elli--> Billy--> Keena--> Paika--> Sky and Tuesday
Elli goes back through Agata, Kuba to FC Fausto de la Grande Futaie (imported from France in 1990). Gilda goes back through Sabina to FC Gerte vom Dornenfeld (imported from Germany in 1988).

Speaking about puppies, we are swamped with inquiries about puppies, and at this time we are not taking any more reservations. However, Justin Richins from Utah just had  a litter of pups sired by Remi (Remy von Moosbach-Zuzelek), out of our Mielikki's sister - Macaria Raptor. Justin can be reached at jrichins@thehuntingcompany.com. Also Gail Berger from Pennsylvania is expecting any day now puppies out of Bee (a daughter of our Billy), who was bred to our Tommy (FC Tom vom Linteler-Forst). Gail can be contacted at grammyberger@gmail.com.

These two pictures show Bee at the 2013 NATC Zuchtschau, where she received
the excellent rating for her conformation.