Monday, July 27, 2009

Shelf Perch

The screen perch I used last year was a bit "intrusive" given the already tight space offered by an apartment so I took some inspiration from other shelf perches I've seen and made this up this weekend:

Attached directly to the wall, should be out of the way for my wife and out of reach for my son. It's made from a 17" x 23" whiteboard (Good for tallying season totals as we go! See upper right hand corner...) with a thin plywood backing for strength and composite board rounds cut in half with astroturf on top. I may make one more adjustment before it actually goes up on the wall but I'm pleased with it so far. I'm really looking forward to it being occupied...

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Milestone

I know this is a falconry blog, but things have been slow of late (although I've been making all sorts of equipment, gearing up for the fall...) so I thought I'd share a recent milestone:

My two year old son caught his first fish ever last Wednesday!


And today? By George, I think he's got it!!

I'm one proud Papa! I guess life does include more than falconry... :-)

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Falconer on the Edge

Slow day at work today so I was scrolling through some of the blogs I've got linked on the right. Falconer on the Edge is a blog by a woman who, after discovering her husband was a falconer, decided she wanted to know more about the sport and jumped in with two feet by writing a book about one of the sport's living legends, Steve Chindgren. The blog is titled after the book which came out not too long ago and the author had a link to a radio interview she did about the book recently. At the end of the interview she read the following excerpt (I was jotting it down while I was listening so if punctuation etc., is off, forgive me...):





I don't know if a person can really understand falconry without being a falconer. Until someone has flown a bird and had a kill, he probably can't really know the sport. Until he's felt the adrenaline rush and seen the life and death moments, the knowledge of falconry is academic. For the hard core falconers this kind of knowing is in every fiber of their being.

Falconry is a lonely pursuit but I don't think falconers are lonely. They're too focused to be lonely. They're doing something that gives them enourmous pleasure and enjoyment and for those of us left on the outside watching and waiting there's nothing we can do but accept it and be happy because they're happy.



I gave up on trying to explain falconry to non-falconers long ago so this passage resonated with me. I know my falconry is taxing on my family and so I can appreciate the times when they're happy because I'm happy.

Looks like a book I'll have to read!