Well another wall has gone up, so the weathering area is almost finished and now onto the main mews, This shouldn't take to long as i only have 2.5 ( the .5 is the side of the house) walls and a roof to put on it, I've sealed everything with Thompson's water seal.

I have to thank my sponsor Steve Armstrong for coming over and helping its amazing how heavy a few 2x4's get and two sheets of 8x4 get when it all comes together.

I've been promising a picture of the new dog, well meet Emma, we think she is some sort of Jack Russel and is probably 6months to a year old. We have been slowly training her to come and sit. I've also been teaching her to chase the local rabbits (whilst on a leash) and she seems to pick things up very quickly. Shes a very nice dog with a very nice temperament , A little timid which might be case of abuse from her previous owner, but her confidence is growing day by day.

Oklahoma Wildlife department called today to confirm my Exam, so around 2pm on Friday the 7th august i should be just starting my exam.

Not had time to post much as the wife has been in hospital for an operation. She is home now and doing as well as can be expected when she dont over do it.

Before she went into hospital i did get a chance to shoot my first rifle and hand gun. Both .22 the rifle was a ruger 10/20 with a 25 shot magazine. I had alot of fun shooting both, We had two versions of the rifle an open site and a scoped version. I found shooting with the scope difficult as everything got magnified inculding my movements. Deffinatly something i want to do again !

Exam

Oh S@#$ti just booked my exam for the 7th of August.



I saw this on youtube and was impressed...

Afternnoon Update

Well this afternoon i pulled up and there is no bearding but what there is is allot of bee's foraging and the temperature has just topped 97F with a heat index of 108F. Hopefully raising the hive tops this has done the trick, I'll check back in a few days and see what the difference is. If this has made the difference i can see me making some new lids with top entrances built in and better ventilation

Still studying

Well I'm still studying , I've taken to taking the CHC Study guide into work and trying to put 30 minutes study in. I've spoken to a few people and the general consensus is apprentices these days get a bum deal. The main reason for this is that the main book that all the Falconry Exams are based on is out of print and now looks like it will never come out. So whats the alternative, to be honest there isn't one. I'm lucky my sponsor has lent me his copy of North American falconry and hunting hawks. It's being treated like gold dust, hands cleaned before picking it up. I know how expensive this book is now and would be a weeks salary to replace it if something happened.

I've read the Redtail Hawk, Buteos and Bushy Tails, a falconry manual (which is really not a manual just a rant about other falconry things).

I've also been to two websites Apprentice Falconry and Nafex, Whist these forums are helpful they seem to be mainly about who has caught the most game that week

The Modern Apprentice website is good for a guideline but then things get hard as trying to get to the right information because a hunt of google and Bing for the right search phrase is hard.

There no longer seems to be one place to get all the information you need in order to pass this exam. Daniel Murry ( from Oklahoma and Ryan's apprentice ) recently took his test and then got married and went on honeymoon (i guess he needed the rest from taking the falconry test) sent me some questions that he got wrong with the answers ( he got 7 wrong) . Only one of these Questions appear in the CHC and the answer is Bent (so work the Question out)

Believe me my sponsor is brilliant, patient and has in the last year become a very good friend. If i have a question and need pointing in the right direction he's there in an instant. But one has to wonder that if the powers that be don't do something soon what will happen in 2-3 years when this current generation of apprentices become generals and take on apprentices. I know myself i could in no way justify buying a book for $400-$1000 and then lend it to someone (I'm very grateful my sponsor has ) for one i couldn't imagine the tongue lashing my wife would give me for buying the book in the first place however the book in question was allot cheaper when my sponsor got it and available. There are enough recognised experts in the field of each area and some have even crossed over to other areas but one has to wonder what will happen in the future as books go out of print and information becomes harder to find what chance has future apprentices have for gaining the information they need in order for one to just pass the test because the real learning happens after the test.

OK enough of the rant back to studying and trying to get this down !

Inspection

This year seems to be going very slow, I checked the bee's last night to see what's been going on this years packages have only drawn out 2 frames of honey, last years have not produced any. The weather here has been funny for the last 2 months either raining heavily or so hot nothing wants to fly. The two swarms i have picked up have only filled about 5 frames of mostly brood. I decided i have a ventilation issue and need to try and cool the insides of the hive down, for now i have raised the lids and drilled a 5/8th whole in one honey super to see how we do. I've also changed two solid bottom boards for screened bottom boards. I think the reason there not building comb is because they are bearding on the front of the hive each day.

The hive that's hot has also produced a Queen cell, I couldn't find the queen when i looked so I'm hoping she'll stay and mate with drones from my other hives and calm down a bit. I think i might re queen in the Autumn all my hives and get a bee that can build up fast in the spring for the main honey season.

I've really controlled the urge to go into the hives every few weeks this year but that doesn't seem to be helping either this season. With all hives behaving the same way i can only assume it is all down the weather and that this season is going to be very slow

News Items

I've been looking for news items on falconry in the state of Oklahoma. I found two so far

New OK Have an article regarding Rob Rainey who is an Edmond attorney that was published in Feb of 2009

Tahlequah Daily Press have an article featuring Rob Aanonsen from July 2007

Both articles though not very long are interesting as they give a small in site into the sport of falconry.

Online Guides

I was checking out BirdChicks blog and came across a reference to an online field guide, David Sibley has converted his to an electronic version check it out