Charred Buns and Wild Pigs

Well guys...sorry for the long absence! These last few months have been anything but fun or interesting. Im soaking up the last few days of Spring Break and not really looking forward to going back. But there is some good news in there, only 6 more weeks of school and then I'll be on summer break!!

Hunter has hit the rodeo trail again this week and will rope at Austin tomorrow and Monday and then on to Huntsville from there. He made it out this morning before all the really heavy snow hit, but Houston and I are stuck here in the house. H has been begging to go out and play in it but I'm just not big on snow blowing sideways from all directions. I'm ready for summer!!!

Anyway...We've had a little action these last few days that make some pretty decent stories. I'll start with Hunter and I....Hunter finally decided to let me tag along with him, Blake and Deacon when they went pig hunting the other night. Now keep in mind that I've been hunting my whole life so I'm pretty used to the things that come with it, but I can honestly say I may be permanently scarred!! Houston was staying the night with his Grandma and Grandpa so off we go about 10 pm. Blake has 4 dogs that he takes that do most of the work. Once we got out close to the slick hills he put three dogs on the hood of the truck. They sit and just sniff at the wind until they catch a pigs scent and then bail off to track them. Well as we take off one of the dogs decides to prop her butt up against those vents on the hood and take a big dump that literally gased us out. It was so bad that the next time we stopped Deacon got a stick and scraped it off. Pretty gross but I was definitly thankful. Off we go again...I think we stopped a total of 3 times because the dogs caught a whiff of something only for it to turn out to be nothing. I think it was safe to say I was bored out of my mind, I'm pretty sure I even layed my head down to rest my eyes for a minute. Finally about 12 am the dogs jump off and have something "bayed" (that's where they get the animal cornered where they won't go anywhere, most of the time) right in the middle of the road. We are thinking heck yea, how lucky is this...we won't even have to chase it down. We get out only to find that the dogs have a raccoon bayed. Just Great. After we get them off the coon they take off through a wheat field, hot on another trail. Thank goodness Blake has a tracking collar on one of his dogs. We just follow the GPS and it leads us right to them. So off they went and we hopped back in the truck to drive around the mile section to a gate right in the middle. It took us within 200 yards of where the dogs were and At this point I tell Hunter "Remember...I Am Afraid of the Dark so DO NOT LEAVE me in the middle of nowhere by myself!!" He assures me he would never do that and we take off running. Blake has the GPS and Hunter has hold of Meaty the pitbull. We are running through pretty thick brush and can hear the other dogs chasing a pretty large pig. I mean it sounds like elephants crashing through the jungle. The whole time I'm telling myself "don't slow down, don't slow down", but the farther we went the farther back I was falling. Now I know exactly how a lost kid in the park feels, only I was in a park full of wild pigs and who knows what else. I honestly just stood there and about cried. I could still hear the guys though, and figured out that the dogs had a pig bayed up against the side of a big pond. We were on the opposite side and couldn't figure out how we were going to get around. After I finally caught up everyone decides to go 50 different directions to try and find away around. Hunter hops a fence and takes off and I quickly decided that plan was out for me so I turn to Deacon and tell him I'm with him. He says okay let's go, just run and I wont leave you. YEA RIGHT. Once again I'm bringing up the rear tripping over sticks, logs, holes and wading through a creek. He keeps telling me to hurry up but I know that I had to stop about 3 different times to hock a lung up. Blake came from somewhere behind and passed me so I try to get it in gear and start running again. Pretty soon I can hear Hunter coming up fast so I'm thinking "okay now I'm not so alone" but here he goes again trying to run right by me as if I've got things under control. After I yelled a few things at him, he slowed down a little but just in time for Blake to yell...."LOOK OUT, PIG!!" We both jump for the nearest tree to get out of the way. A pig came from out of the brush and ran right between Blake's legs and around Deacon. After that scare we all gathered together to get another plan because the dogs are on the move again. Well the guys were planning, but I was bent over thinking I was coughing up blood from a detatched lung. Meanwhile the dogs ran over 800 yards in another direction chasing pigs and have gotten them bayed up again. Blake tells me and Hunter to go back and get the truck and meet them over on the other side of the mile section and hopefully they will have caught the pig by then and be waiting on us. Blake points us in the right direction and we took off. This time I made sure Hunter had my hand. We crossed the creek and could hear something hot on our trail, Hunter ran to a tree and got in it...leaving me to fend for myself. He said his plan was to pull me up, but I think he was just as scared as me. It ended up being one of Blake's dogs Talley. We got out of the tree and started walking again but I guess we got turned around in the middle of all that and started going the wrong direction. We didn't realize it until we walked about 400 yards and still hadn't come to the truck yet. Hunter thought we were still right so we kept going until we hit the fence. Well turns out it was definitly the wrong fence and we didn't recognize anything. We stood around for about 10 minutes trying to figure things out and finally decided that we needed to go to our left, cut behinde a house and head to the other fence. This walk felt like it took forever, especially since I had a nice little blister popping up on my heel and a semi sprained ankle. We finally made it to the other fence but once again, it was the wrong one. We took a break and thought things over. I had my cell phone with me, which was almost dead but I didn't have Blake's new number and Deacon didn't have his phone because it was dead. So that was pretty much a dead end. My phone did however have a compass on it. We got it out and figured out which direction we were headed but that really didn't help since we didn't know which way to go. I told Hunter we should just set by the road because surely Blake would figure out we were lost and just drive around until he found us. But right about that time a pack of coyotes started howling like they were right on our trail and we both decided we didn't really want to stick around that spot. We started walking the fence line and about 3 minutes later my cell phone rang making me jump about 2 feet into the air. It was Blake, Thank God!! He told Hunter what directions we needed to go and we took off. I was pretty nervous about crossing the creek again, because I just knew a pig was going to come charging at me and tusk me. But Hunter drug me along and we finally found Blake and Deacon. And what do you know, the truck was right there where we left it. I'm pretty sure we walked about 2 miles out of the way. By this time it's about 2:30 am. We are cold, tired, sore and have no pig to show for it. But what great memories, I just don't think I want to make any more like that anytime soon.

So anyway, after than adventure we've just been hanging around the house until Friday morning. We had to make an ER trip. Houston had just gotten out of the bath and ran into the back room to stand in front of the wall heater to warm up. He accidently got to close and touched the metal wires around it. At first it didn't look like it was all that bad just red but we thought we'd head over to my parents house and put some silvadeen on it just to be safe. By the time we got over there it started to look a little worse and about 30 minutes later it was aweful, and I think the pain started to kick in beacuse H started screaming and wouldn't stop. So then we all got a little scared and decided to take him in. The ER was pretty full and the Dr. came over to take a look and he said "it does look like he burned it" I thought well thanks for the late breaking news man. I definitly don't think it was worth a hundred bucks but oh well better safe than sorry.

Hopefully it wont be 2 months before I post again, but I'm not making any promises. Only 6 weeks of school left then it'll be rodeo time!!! Catch Hunter online at Rodeo Austin today and tomorrow. www.RodeoAustin.com Hope all is well with everyone, much love from the Herrin's!!