#my public lands

[kugisakiss]

pulled this out of my wips to celebrate me finally reading the last chapter

original↓

[sumbluespruce]

Good morning from Canyon Lodge YNP, home for several days. 10/23/24

[rh0mbus0fruin]

"Quick" comic I drew from a dream I had. It's structured weirdly cause I didn't finish it & this is all I could remember from it.

Under read more for more context

Specifically it was a exam where I had to make a comic where each panel corresponded to the question above it and the story had to vaguely make sense.

It was about all the cogs being invited to a competition, Buck was explaining why they were there and that they drove to the competition in a tractor or truck. Dana was apparently super jealous of Winston and that was why he joined.

[colliholly]

You know what’s better? The ever so underrated Taskline Managers. They need drops so badly. Draw Winston and William for me please?

THEY REALLY DO... I actually drew some hypothetical sticker designs for them a few months ago

[howl-clan]

moon 4

[squidslugs-art]

🎵 I'll remember someday

🎵 All the chances we took...

(please do not tag as ship. thank you for watching!)

[p1tchspork-hunter]

some gifs to celebrate finishing the main taskline :)

[wildsaltair]

no thoughts head empty just 👀👀👀👀

[materia1gor1]

I’ve never been more mad about anything in my whole life than the irony of my having taken a gap semester, falling in love with dimension 20, it carrying me through my anxiety, and THE WEEK. I move back into college. The very first week:

Dimension 20 live show on the coast where I live that I could reasonably afford to travel to go see.

(Salt in the wound some of the last tickets to be released this week were so insanely inexpensive for an event of this scale.)

If you got to go, I’m so excited for you but also insanely jealous and mad and how could you do this to me???

[foxbirdy]

I am truly the master of dispersed camping at this point. never pay to camp on public lands my friends sleep in insane locations for free

[mimilllion]

[abirddogmoment]

We're learning about grouse hunting together!

I was really undecided on whether I wanted to hunt with Rory for realsies because I don't have a shotgun and I don't really care to get a shotgun (I have a gun license from my time up north). I have a small air rifle and a tactical slingshot (both legal for hunting small game in my area) so I've been taking those for walks in hunting areas, along with all my permits and stuff, just to see what we see.

This grouse woods is in the same corner as my swamp, just a different part of the rec area. You can legally hunt small game during the open season with dogs with some restrictions (certain distance from the parking, some trails close for hunting on a rotational basis for maintenance, etc.) but it's not terribly popular so it's a really good area to learn. We are looking for ruffed grouse and rabbit, both of which are super common out here.

With pointing dogs like britts, you generally don't want to shoot any game unless they're pointing steady (*except when doing gun conditioning, but that's a specific training set up) - it makes sense because a shot bird is the ultimate reward and you want to make sure you're reinforcing the behaviour you want, which is usually a safe steady point. Rory isn't pointing steady yet so there's really not much for me to do on these walks besides reinforce good manners (recall, how far she ranges, etc.).

There's a really well known saying in pointing dogs, which is wild birds make bird dogs. Wild birds flush (fly away) much more reliably than farmed birds so the chances of a dog catching a wild bird is really minimal compared to farmed birds. It's super important to get young bird dogs on wild birds as much as possible so they learn all the important skills: how to navigate terrain, what habitat holds birds, what each bird species smells like, how far they can range, and most importantly, that they need a person to actually get a bird.

(Most of these skills can be taught with planted birds in training, but planted birds may be more habituated to people and dogs so they might not flush reliably. Once pointing dogs learn that they can catch birds themselves, it's much harder to foster a strong stop and point. You might see people using these tip ups, which protect the training bird from the dog. You'll often see training dogs on long lines (called check cords) or with a flank collar to reinforce not getting too close to the bird, but you have to phase those out quickly so the dog doesn't become dependent on them. You also have to be really careful with scent trails when setting up planted birds or you might end up with a dog that follows your scent instead of looking for birds organically. And of course, you have to train without birds sometimes so the dog doesn't get discouraged about not finding birds quickly because sometimes there just aren't birds out there. Lots to consider when setting up training!)

Anyway I've been trying to get Rory out on wild birds as much as possible (with the caveat that we don't run wild birds during nesting season) so we're wandering the grouse woods lately. My early recall training is really paying off because she's been super reliable in terms of good manners, it's wonderful to see!

We've been out four times (1-2 hours each) so far since the season opened. The first two times we're mostly just a pleasant walk in the woods, Rory didn't really know what we were doing so she was just vibing (THIS IS TOTALLY FINE, SHE'S NEW TO THIS). We had a couple chance grouse encounters and I could see the wheels turning, I encouraged her to sniff around where the grouse were sitting before they flew off and I watched her start to connect the dots.

(It's important to remember that dogs don't know what they're looking for until you show them. Most bird dogs are naturally birdy, but they don't know which birds are good and which birds are boring! You have to show them which birds you care about - this is easiest if you can run with an experienced hunting dog, but you can do it alone like I am by making a big deal about any interest in the "correct" birds.)

The last time we went out to the grouse woods, she did a couple of really nice whip-arounds when she caught scent she liked and followed scent off the trail I was walking! This is the behaviour I want to see so it was awesome to watch it start to click! She trailed a moose (don't want that, she found some moose pee to roll in so whatever), a pileated woodpecker (again, don't want that but it was cool to see), and two separate grouse. The first was on the wrong side of the fence so I couldn't do anything about it but she held a really nice point (the photo) and I gave her a ton of chicken and praise for it. The second was a quick point but it flushed really far away so there was no finding it again. Both birds weren't visible when she found them, they were true scent points and she was strategically looking for them so that was super cool!

She's still in heat and super sensitive right now so I wouldn't shoot over her anyway, but I'm getting pretty accurate with my slingshot so I'm hoping we can connect on something this fall - both for her pointing steady and me aiming properly. She gets more steady and more sure of herself every time we go out so it's only a matter of time!

[sumbluespruce]

A mid days rest

Mule Deer doe

[janamensch]

Aerois did not have enough Spellclash and Sky jousting, so I need Altheya to make up for that with lots of knights and tournaments. Therefore I present to you Altheya knight AU!

[fisheito]

"Eiden and his companions accidentally run their carriage into two yokai wearing "maid costumes". To take responsibility and make amends, they set off to check out a maid café located in the forest—"

Girl that's just kuya and yakumo on their way back from the island

Wait ,no. Forest...

Girl that's just kuya and garu out for a walk

[letswonderspirit]

An oc art dump! Her name is galentine (gale for short?) she’s based off of 50s ad posters