Red Rock Rioteer Newsletter December 2001 Closing 2001: the year things changed Northern Nevada experienced a sudden and severe drought this year. With some notable exceptions, early fall hunting was disappointing: we watched coyotes watching hounds as they searched in vain for scent, heads dutifully down, sterns determinedly waving, until everyone lost interest. The coyote, disgusted, would trot off, huntsman would lift the hounds and doggedly move to a new cover, and hounds would try again, somehow giving us the impression that the poor scenting was our responsibility, not theirs. Leaving John Schafer to hunt the hounds in the dust, Lynn went on an amazing photograph safari in Kenya and Tanzania in September. While she was there, the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon were attacked. She found out about the events of September 11 the following day, watching CNN on a wide screen TV in the compound of an African American U.S. exile, Pete O'Neil. Pete was a Black Panther in the 60's, and has lived in Kenya since fleeing the U.S. Lynn visited him to learn about his experiences as a militant.

Lynn returned home, and we moved through October and November, as the drought persisted and blank days abounded. Whipping-In, I found myself without much to do, as hounds spent most of their time dutifully trying to please Lynn, but rarely finding reason to test my organizational skills. As a result, I frequently found myself sitting quietly in a remote location in the company of my horse, watching hounds below me, with September 11 events resonating in the enormous high desert air. In these moments I would frequently remember the bizarre juxtaposition of Lynn's experience in Africa, watching the World Trade Towers crumble on a wide screen TV in the home of an exiled ex-black panther, and begin to wonder how we ever would reconcile the absolute impossibility of it all? Then the hounds would move off, and I would follow, focusing on the task at hand while realizing that I was inexplicably suffused with a sense of strength and certainty. In November it started to rain, with December came snow, and by Christmas the Sierra is covered with more than a full season's snow pack. Hunting is ferocious, and those opportunities to sit and contemplate the significance of world events are gone. I do believe that the moisture that has fallen on Northern Nevada, bringing scent to our hounds' noses and promising brilliant wild flowers come spring, is reminding us all that life is an ever-renewing and wild adventure, and that we must gallop out to meet its promise. On that note, let's get to the Newsletter and what's going on with the RED ROCK HOUNDS! Chrysann, your whipper-in/editor