Logan Elm Lonesome and JJ Little Girl

When I first starting hunting with Uncle Ken, he had retired from GM and moved to Bainbridge, he was 48 years old. I had not seen him in years as after my parents divorced when I was a teenager and he and Aunt Trula did not come to see us. It was weird because we had seen them a lot up until then I even went on vacation with them a few times. Well it had been years and at a funeral he and my cousin Lester started talking about hunting and as deer season was coming up in about 2 weeks Uncle Ken asked us to come and stay and hunt with him, so we agreed but I could only hunt Saturday as I had to work. I arrived early that Saturday morning and as we made our way to the woods Uncle told Lester where to hunt and as he started that way Uncle Ken said “Beach why don’t you and me hunt together “ and I said ok. Well we found us a spot and sat down.  Beach he said if you do not mind let’s just talk a while? We sat down and talked for the better part of the day. Two weeks later Uncle Ken seen an ad in the paper Beagle’s for sale. He called me on the phone and asked me if I would be interested in being partner’s in the dogs if they were any good. Since that day for the better part of 20 years Uncle Ken and I hunted together almost every Saturday. We have hunted squirrel, rabbit and deer together but some of the most fun we had were with 2 beagle’s named Logan Elm Lonesome and JJ Little Girl the dogs in the paper.  My dad and cousin and friends had joined us at time’s and  made it more memorable as we shared laughter in both good days with rabbits as well as days with no rabbits.

Lonesome and JJ had been field trial dogs and were getting up in years when the previous owner sold them to us. Now they may not have won many trophies but were top shelf gun dogs.    I have seen those dogs run a rabbit an hour or longer before we got it, as they never quit. And at time’s we had to catch them and pull them off the track if the rabbit would go in a hole as they would try and dig it out. One day my uncle wounded one and it went in under a junk pile and ole JJ crawled under it on her belly caught it and brought it to him. I was hunting one Saturday with a friend Tommy and he had 2 rabbits and I had not even got a shot, when one jumped and started away from me it was too far but I shot anyway. The dogs ran it for an hour and a half after that and I kept telling Tommy I crippled the rabbit. He just kept laughing and rubbing it in. The rabbit went in a hole in a fence line now the hole was big as the dogs could go in the hole far enough that I could not get a hold of them to move on. Lonesome finally came out and I grabbed him and started over into the brush. I told Tommy that it was the only way to get JJ to come out was to get Lonesome on another rabbit. Well we jumped one and got Lonesome running but JJ still was not coming, I kept watching the fence and row and about 15 minutes passed and I started laughing and hollering at Tommy, I told you I wounded that rabbit look . JJ was trotting toward me the rabbit in her mouth she came up to me and put her front paws on my knee and gave me the rabbit just like a retriever. Tommy wanted to see the rabbit, to see if there was any shot in it but I refused.

Tommy attend several hunt’s with us and we always had a few jokes on him on one hunt he was close to my uncle when a rabbit jumped and when it did Tommy swung his gun and shot at it. My uncle quickly got on him and said man we do not shoot at the rabbits when they jump, we get the dogs on them and let them run, Tommy apologized and they moved on. Well about 3 hours later on Uncle Ken and Tommy were standing together smoking and shooting the breeze when a rabbit jumped and my uncle swung shot and killed it. Now Tommy started on him hey man you said not to shoot on the jump, and my uncle quickly said oh hell man you can’t believe a word I say and started laughing. On another hunt with him he had not got used to hunting with dogs yet. Now Lonesome and JJ were medium slow dogs on the track so sometimes the rabbit would be 75 or eighty yards in front of the dogs. So when the dogs started back towards us you had better be ready because the rabbit was already coming back and probably Already close to you as was the case this day. Tommy was probably 50 yards in front of me. I seen the rabbit and killed it. Now Tommy said that there was no way that rabbit got past him and I said it did. Just watch the track the dogs take as they come to us .The dogs came within 6 feet of where Tommy was standing he could not believe it.  

Uncle Ken was known as the luckiest hunter it seems that most of his shots were what we called stoppy  ever got was shots were with their ears pinned back and they looked like they were four feet long they were moving so fast. At times we would stop and take a break and as we sat under a tree JJ would almost always come and make a bed in the leaves next to me and rest.  But the minute Lonesome would strike a track or we stood up she was off to hunt again. She would be so wore out at the end of the day that I had to carry her in my arms back to the truck.

Those were grand days we would hunt one farm in the morning, then get us a sandwich a cake and a pop for dinner and eat in the cab of the truck and hunt another farm that evening. In the time we had them before they died there was not a day that we hunted that we did not have a race, one winter between my uncle, dad and I we killed 123 rabbits and we counted only 5 that got away. I have owned other dogs since Lonesome and JJ but none have ever been close to those two dogs, either in quality of hunt or in memories with family or friends. We only paid $250.00 for the pair but I would not have taken a million dollars for those dogs. We lost Lonesome to coyotes I believe as Uncle Ken turned him loose one evening in the spring to let him run a little , has he had done a hundred times, but he never came home. And one of the saddest days of my life was the day I buried JJ Little Girl at the edge of my Uncle’s garden. Not only did those two dogs provide with memories but they also restored a family. My Uncle Ken is now seventy one years old and no longer is able to hunt and my dad has passed away. But Ken and I still sit by the heating stove drinking coffee and telling tales of Logan Elm Lonesome and JJ Little Girl. I may  never own a dog has good ever again.

Uncle Ken, squirrel hunting, Moonshine and stolen timber

I got home from my cabin this afternoon after being there since Friday night.
I had been looking foward to this holiday weekend as it was the first since squirrel season cam in this past Thursday. My family has always hunted on Labor day weekend as far back as I can remember. And at one time when I was a kid , several Uncles and cousins, my grandpa Patton and my dad, it was like a family reunion. But this year it was Uncle Ken and I only. Uncle Ken is seventy two years old and he does not see well or is able to do much walking. So Saturday he and I jumped in my old pickup put it in four wheel drive and rode to the top of the Ridge and parked within  about thitrty yards of the Hickory grove. The Hickory grove was silent as a cemetary we found no sign of  squirrel's. We had gone about twenty yards into the grove and Uncle Ken had to rest so we sat down on a blown over Hickory tree. As we sat resting and talking a gray blundered upon us and I shot and strung him on my belt. We sat there talking about hunts from years past and the good times. After about twenty minutes he was rested and wanted to walk out on the point and check out some Walnut trees where we have always bagged some in years gone by.Just as we were nearing the point I heard a squirrel cutting on a nut, Uncle Ken said go ahead Beach I am going to sit and rest. I worked my way thru the underbrush and found my quarry there was four squirrel's in a slick bark Hickory eating what we Appalachian Americans call pig nuts. I killed one as it came down the tree, but that was all I managed as the other three never permitted me a good shot, and I wanted to get back to Uncle Ken. When I did he was sitting resting and aked me what they were eating , as he said I never heard them or seen anything. His shirt was soaked with sweat and I could tell he was very tired, I said Uncle Ken let us get out of here and I will buy us some breakfast, OK Beach he said. We got back to the truck and I helped him in, and drove back down the mountain, cleaned our squirrel's and I gave them to him. he said I will cook and make gravy on them tomorrow. After we ate he wanted to go home and get a shower and stretch out on the couch. I went back up to my little farm as I had work to do and the whole time Uncle Ken was on my mind, of all the hunts I been on in my life this has been the most special, as it may have been my last with my Uncle, and my best friend.
I got back to my little farm that afternoon, which is only about a mile the way the crow flies from Uncle Ken's and went to work. I had climb on tractor and start bush hogging the field's around the place. I only do this once a year and it seems it always is the hottest day in which I choose to do this.
it took me about five and a half hours to get just over half of it done. I quit about six and took a cool shower and went to Town for supper. After supper I got back to the farm , took a very nice Kristoff cigar of my desk , and a pint of Moonshine out of the fridge and walked out my my pond , sat down at the picnic table and lit my cigar , and sipped my Moonshine from a mason jar while looking over the fresh mowed fields. What a sight for a Applachian American a orange sky hanging over a woods. green fields and a pond with a ripple in the water a Bass just gulped down his supper.
I got up Sunday morning just after five am made a pot of coffee and sat on the porch waiting on the sun to paint the sky once again. It was a lot cooler this morning than it was yesterday and I decided at about six thirty am to check out my woods, to see what the squirrels were eating. It did noy take long I was in the woods about five minutes and found a slick bark hickory with four squirrel's riding the top out of it. I managed to get two of the four and thought to myself son you are getting old you should of had all four. I thought man this is going to be a good day I never seen another squirrel that morning.
As I neared the end of my property I noticed a lot more sunlight coming thru the woods canopy, and thought ut oh something's wrong, and I was right it seems my nieghbor sold some of his timber and in the process got on my land with the skidder and made me a nice road with three  foot deep trenches and six maybe seven Oak trees about three foot in diamator cut and gone. I hope I am wrong, I will get Unlce Ken up to look at next weekend has he knows the property line better than I. I hope I am wrong I hate to think that the timber cutter would risk so much for a couple of trees. Tree's that I have so many squirrel's out of thru the years.