Single Digits!

The widget at the top of my blog is officially in single digits. Trapping season is literally right around the corner!!

As for the check list:

Food? Check!

New Traps? Check!

New Nooses on Old Traps? Maybe tonight...

Bait? One sparrow so far in my trap and last weekend was the State club's annual picnic where I made connections with a couple people with pigeon coops who say their places are almost infested. So I'm sure we'll have plenty. Throw in a few pet store feeder mice and we'll have our bases covered.

New Indoor Perch? Materials have been priced but it'll have to wait until payday. Shouldn't take me long to put together.

Clean Out Mews? Not yet, but since that's where all my old traps are, it may be another thing to tackle tonight or at the latest, this weekend.

Get Miscellaneous Gear In Order? Check, for the most part. A member of another forum I'm on let me in on this brilliant, (if not rather obvious, duh!) piece of advice: Falconers only used left-handed gloves but they usually come in pairs...turn the right-handed glove inside out and presto, left-handed glove! So I've even got a couple of new gloves for the season!

I've been eying the local starlings every morning and thinking, "I'll be coming for you soon..." Next entry will hopefully (barring any especially exciting news between now and then...) be about trapping adventures and possibly about my new charge for the season!

I'm giddy, this is better than Christmas I tell ya!

So Much To Do And...

...So little time?

While I diligently check the widget at the top of my blog just about every day (in fact, I have a friend who will ask me every time he sees me, "How many days til trapping season?" because he knows I'll have the correct answer), it just hit me yesterday that I have a lot to do to get ready for the upcoming season and the time to have it all done is quickly approaching!

Stuff I have to do has been rolling around in the back of my head for quite awhile now:

Stock up on bird food (Check! Yesterday I picked up enough starlings to last me at least until a new kestrel is hunting, if not the entire season.)

Build a new trap (a new style I haven't tried before, just for kicks and giggles)

Tie new nooses on my old traps (I know they work)

Set out my sparrow traps (gotta have bait)

Clean out the mews (gets used mainly for storage in the off season)

Build a new indoor perch (we'll chat about that later, honey!)

Get all my other miscellaneous gear in order (Glove, leash, jesses, anklets, etc...)

I dunno, putting it in list form makes it seem less intimidating but it's a lot of small projects that are going to take up a bunch of time. Time well worth the effort however as I am really looking forward to this season (as I do EVERY season). A lot to look forward to this year, one of my good friends just got his license and will be trapping and training his first red-tail, I should be getting my upgrade to General at some point (after 15 years!), and there's a possibility that a significant life changing opportunity that I've been working on for a while will come to fruition during the season and mix things up as well...

Can't wait!