The Nebraska Sandhills

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Charles, Charity and the dogs started opening day at the usual opening day spot, which is a half-mile wide, flat valley with a set of high dunes to the north, running east to west, and a set of shorter dunes to the south, also running east to west. Charles was assigned the higher northern dune set and Charity the southern set. This is the first year that they split up in 13 years of hunting together and will probably continue to hunt this way. Charity’s pace is about half that of Charles’s, so the ability to determine their own speeds was the first reason. The second reason is that running four dogs puts too much pressure on these skittish birds at once. So, Charity took the older females, Mae and Sue, and Charles worked four year old male, Sam, and eighteen month old female, BB.

There are various ways to pattern a dunefield when hunting grouse, but Charity selected a straight up an ambling criss-cross pattern for opening day, starting on the southern, low dunes walking west to east, then turning back, walking a bit higher going east to west, then back again in the high chop going west to east. It was in the high chop an hour after starting out that she flushed her first single sharptail just barely out of range, firing shots that didn’t connect. A few steps later, a group of four got up at seventy five yards, flying off of the highest dune in the southern set, disappearing out of view to who knows where. Despite being a bit ragged from each having a litter of pups this summer, Sue and Mae sprang into action once bird activity began. They covered the highest dune to check for stragglers with no success and the descent down the eastern slope began at a frantic pace. So frantic that both dogs and hunter marched right past the sharptail that cackled up behind Charity, so that she had to take the 200 degree shotgun swing for the double-barrel attempt. She saw it wobble and descend, sending the dogs after a retrieve. Sue happily retrieved the first grouse of the season for team Versatile Hunter and it was captured on her new head-mounted video camera. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBoTg3pINGk

Meanwhile, Charles was working the taller northern dunefield, also starting from the west and working his way east in a meandering zig-zag pattern, making sure that either he or the dogs were covering any possible grouse territory in the complex. As he ascended into the target area, a random group of doves flushed off of a high dune and he couldn’t help himself but to harvest one. Not long after he heard the reports of Charity’s missed shot and her success following shortly thereafter, he descended from a dune peak and looked down onto a small flat amongst the choppy hills. Three grouse busted at seventy-five yards, as if they sensed something, but not necessarily imminent danger as they merely popped up and over the next slope. As soon as he entered the marked zone of potential landing, one got up and he shot it at close range straight on, with BB nearby for a quick retrieve.

After Charity and the older females watched the cattle hustle off of the pond on the eastern end of the dunefield and head for the windmill a couple of miles to the northwest, they stopped for a water break before continuing their criss-cross pattern, back to the west on some of the lower dunes, then finally crossing back eastward on the flat right next to the dunes. Charity has taken prairie chickens out of there in years past, but there was nothing to be seen this year. Once she finishing fully covering her assigned area, she and the dogs crossed the valley to meet up with Charles to get the update of his one grouse and one dove in the bag, but he had more ground to cover and an idea where birds were in the high chop. Charity followed the low dunes towards the west and stopped again at a windmill for a break, noting the lack of doves at the spot.

Charles headed northwest from the windmill into an extension of the same northern dunefield that he had been working all morning. He marched his way to the extreme northwest corner and worked his way back and not soon after he reached the endpoint and began hiking back, the dogs got birdy and three grouse flushed within fifty yards, which is in range for Charles even with a twenty gauge. He took one out of that group and while BB was on retrieve, another flushed even closer. His shot merely clipped the wing and the bird began to run. Luckily, catching running wounded birds is one of Sam’s specialties, so while BB was delivering the first bird, Sam put the lockdown on the attempted escapee to round out Charles’s limit for the day.

The sun was arcing higher into the azure sky and getting uncomfortably warm to continue trekking. It was time to return to the truck, which Charity couldn’t see from the windmill but knew it was to the south. She wandered a bit off track, farther east into the valley than she needed to go, but eventually caught sight of the vehicle and made it back just in time to meet up there with Charles.

At first they had it in their mind to sit for doves, but after scoping their two best spots and seeing nothing, they opted to sit out doves this trip and wait until their return to the Missouri River Valley, where they are plentiful this year.

Charles shows off his opening day limit back in town, with BB and Sam, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons

Charity is back in town with her first sharptail grouse of the year, assisted by Sue and Mae, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons

SEO – search engine optimization plays a vital role in any online business. In fact, it serves as the key to the room of success in the digital world. A person who owns a website wishes to receive huge traffic in as much as possible. However, how is it possible for a website to receive visitors if no one knows it exists?

Think about the millions of websites existing on the World Wide Web? Each of this website competes with one another to gain the top most spot in search engine results. But in every competition, one should always have something in his sleeves. In this case, it’s the best search engine optimization and nothing else.

Why SEO?

In any kind of business, marketing plays an important role. So why learn SEO if website owners can market their website in many ways?

Marketing is not enough. There will always be a time when a website owner should rely on exposure than personally distributing leaflets to people passing by. Every business would like to get their company names on the lists of directories and business listings. When it comes to the internet, the real exposure is when the website took the first result of search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The best thing about this is that online business owners don’t need to spend anymore. SEO search engine optimization is free. They should only master the art and spend their time optimizing their website until it beats all its competitors in search engine results page. Imagine the potential traffic a website can get if it will always be in the top results when someone looked for a related-keyword in search engines.

How Is It Possible?

As what was stated above, SEO is an art that every website owner must learn. It refers to the website’s ability to be recognized as the most reliable source for what is being searched. When someone searched the words “pet food”, the search engine will look for all existing websites if they contain the keywords being searched. The more relevant the website looks like, the higher it gets on search engine results. The art of SEO search engine optimization will do the trick.

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SEO includes the perfect choice of a domain name or the amount of keywords used in every page. It also includes the strategic use of keywords to beat competitors. In other words, it doesn’t mean that website owners should only use as many keywords as possible; rather, it refers to how efficient the keywords used. It is important for website owners to use the different tools to look for an efficient keyword. These tools will show a website owner about certain keywords and how many searches were made for those keywords.

By getting access to these tools, people can easily plan what keywords to use in their upcoming content. However, always remember that a keyword with thousand of searches is the most efficient. One must always consider the size of competition on that keyword. In this way, people will never find it difficult to make the best search engine optimization for their websites.

 

Truck Accidents can be Catastrophic

A collision with a commercial truck can result in catastrophic injuries and in many cases, death for the occupants of a passenger vehicle. Commercial trucks, such as big-rigs, 18-wheelers, semis, box trucks, garbage trucks and tractor-trailers can weigh tons and create a tremendous impact when colliding into a smaller, lighter vehicle. The occupants of a smaller vehicle may require extensive hospital stays, multiple surgeries and years of rehabilitation for serious injuries sustained in a truck accident.

If you or someone you know has been seriously injured in a trucking accident, compensation may be sought from the at-fault party for medical bills, physical therapy, disfigurement, lost wages, lost benefits, and pain and suffering. The
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Causes of Texas Trucking Accidents

Statistics have shown that the majority of truck crashes are the result of some form of truck driver negligence or recklessness. The most common forms of truck driver negligence, include:

• Driver fatigue
  Driving over the speed limit
  Failing to yield the right of way
  Driving aggressively
  Driver inattention
  Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol
  Overloading truck cargo
  Failing to make required maintenance stops.

Additional causes of a collision with a commercial truck include bad weather conditions, cargo spills, poor road conditions, poor trucker training, malfunctioning truck parts and trucking company negligence or carelessness.

Trucking Accident Statistics

Some interesting U.S. truck accident statistics include:

Nationwide, more than 500,000 truck collisions occur each year.
Truck accidents are responsible for approximately 4,000 fatalities and more than 90,000 injuries every year across the nation.
Almost 68 percent of fatal truck crashes took place in a rural area.
More than 66 percent of fatal truck accidents happened during the day.
Approximately 50 percent of fatal and non-fatal truck crashes were head-on collisions.
More than 16 percent of truck collision victims were between the ages of 36-45.
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