"How big a feller are you? Well then, I'll pack a lunch!"

As promised (threatened?), here are some photos of last weekend's BRHA trail ride. The Sunday ride was, in part, a benefit function to raise money for the family of a feller who has pancreatic cancer. My buddy Ted, owner of kNockahoma won the half-n-half lottery (total collected was $300) and donated back his winning half to the cause. Ted's a helluva guy, and I'll whup any man's ass says different. Some of the pix below are mine and some are Ted's. This is a shot of our destination, Moore's Mountain, a favorite take-off point for hang-gliders in warmer weather.
This isn't the shot I thought I uploaded, but does show most of the riders, about 1/3 of the way up the climb. There were between 20-30 riders on this trip. Nuther pic of Ted's. This is a view from the top of Moore Mountain. The rider in the photo is at the descending trail, which wasn't much of a trail. The ride up was relatively comfortable. The ride down, was very much like that scene from The Man From Snowy River, where all the riders stop at the top, except for the hero, who rides off the cliff. That's what we did...off the cliff and straight down. This is one of my photos.

This is a shot of mine of kNockahoma (on right) and Sonny (Ted's horse), when we stopped near the top. If you could read kNockahoma's mind, you'd hear: "Please don't climb your fat ass back on top of me..."

Another of mine from the top. Moore Mt. is in northern Alexander County, near the southern line of Wilkes County. This view is toward the southeast.

Picture from Ted of the Livermush Guy aboard kNockahoma. The horse is thinking, "This guy never missed a meal in his life." It truly does take a mountain-sized man to make a horse this big look soooooo small. The ride turned into a walk after the Snowy River episode, though. The entire trail was approximately 8 miles, and we walked the last three or so. Poor horse.
Below, is a photo taken on Saturday (2/14), the day before the trail ride. Maggie refused to show her face with me in the same picture. On top of my hat you can see the number of birds I shot (zero), which is exactly equal to the number of birds flushed and the number of birds pointed. Maggie is justifiably disgusted at her owner for taking her to hunt in places that haven't seen quail in a coon's age.

25-30 years ago, this part of the world was full of wild coveys, but no more. The habitat has gone the way of the family farms, and the predators (thanks to the NC Wildlife folks for introducing coyotes and fostering the preponderance of turkeys and bobcats) keep the quail population thinned to near nothing. Next weekend is the last chance for this season. Maybe we'll make one more try for grouse, if it's cold enough that hunting that hard (grouse hunting in NC is hard, hard work) won't beat us up too bad.