A kiss for you Bug

I have so many stories that I have written and a lot more that need written. Then I have to decide which one’s should I write. I keep a list of title’s and notes for each one, and I as remember other one's I scratch a note on something so I will not forget it. I have thought allot about my grandpa Patton lately. He was a true character if there ever was one. He was a big man over six foot and about two hundred and thirty five pounds with big-callused hands and a great sense of humor and a boisterous laugh. He was a war hero who saved a man’s life but I never heard ever talk about the war. I can still see him walking the farm lane with hat on head and whistling or singing “ ruby don’t take your love to town”. He had a nickname for everyone my sister Lisa was crying tom, I have two girl cousins there names where big rump and round rump. My grandma’s nickname was Bug. He called my dad 'Myrtle’s son in law.' My dad always got a big chuckle telling me the story about it. My grandfather was against my mom and dad getting married and in fact never attended the wedding. And when people would ask him about my dad he always told them that he was not his son in law but Myrtle’s {my grandma]. Finally after several years had passed he and dad was a man’s house looking at some coonhounds and my grandpa-introduced dad as his son in law. My dad with his sense humor answered no Robert I am Myrtle’s son in law. It embarrassed grandpa a little as he did know that dad knew about it.
Then there are little things that I remember like my lunch box that I carry. Grandpa gave it to me when I started working, I was seventeen years old. He had used it on his job with the Kentucky highway department. He said Branson here I want you to have this bucket to carry your dinner in from home as it will help save a few coins. I am forty-six years old and I still carry that same lunch bucket. I also use my grandparent’s pressure canner that they bought sometime in the fifties I use it every year to can with.
But there are three sayings that are used around my house by Kenny Ray and Tari as well as myself. They always bring a smile to our faces no matter what the situation, and neither Tari nor Kenny Ray ever met him. The first one is what is said after we tear the house apart looking for something and usually after one of us gets angry. Some one will holler, “ by god it’s in the wardrobe Bug”. That is what always transpired when my grandparents where looking for something. The wardrobe was like a freestanding closet a piece of furniture. So when you cannot find something look in the wardrobe Bug. As it always lightens the mood.
The second was a phrase that he said just one time that I recall. It was in the wintertime and my grandma was always cold and keeps the house fairly warm. This particular day the house was comfortable but grandma cam in and put another piece of coal in the stove. And as she was closing the stove door and opening the dampers. he reached down and grabbed his hat threw it on his head and stormed out
The door hollering “ buzzard sweat, man sweat summer and winter to”. So whenever a room gets to hot at my house you will hear the famous words buzzard sweat.
This last phrase my mother wished I would not write about but I have to. It always brings a smile to my families face. The phrase is “here is a kiss for you Bug”, but you have to say it after you fart big and loud. so goodnight everyone and hears a kiss for you Bug.

The Jester hill panther

When I was a kid I was told about a panther that roamed the hills of Kentucky, now I never seen it or know of anyone that actually did. But nonetheless the stories have been told now I know it was not a panther but it was something, as I know the stories are based on something seen but unexplained. I now have a panther of my own on the farm. It started about three or four weeks ago. Lester was squirrel hunting just below the cabin in some heavy underbrush when he seen it and asked me what I thought it was. He described it as dark in color with a white tail and stomach, and about the size of a medium dog. I guessed it was possibly a bobcat. I did not think much more about it until this past weekend. On Thursday night as Kenny Ray and I pulled on to the lane to the cabin, it was about nine thirty a animal crossed the gravel road in front of us, it happened so fast that I asked Kenny Ray did you see that? What was it? He said I think it was a house cat. I said no although it moved like a cat it was too big for a housecat. Then on Saturday afternoon I was working on my tractor out by the pond. I was bent over adjusting the carburetor when I raised up I got a glimpse of it again. It was black and about the size of a medium dog but very limber in its movement like a cat. It must have been as startled as I was, as it seemed to turn it’s self in midair and went back over the hill. I moved over to the woods trying to see if I could make out what it was, but I was not quick enough. I think it might be the fox Kenny Ray and I seen back in the spring as it was all but its front shoulders, but what Lester seen had a white stomach and tail, so I am not sure. I think I will put up my trail camera and fill up some feeders to see if I can solve my panther mystery before the legend grows into the panther of Jester hill.

Wonderful Firewood

Firewood, to Kenny Ray and some others the word brings picture of sledge hammers and wedges, sweaty hard work in cutting splitting and stacking; to me it has never been that.
Now do not get me wrong I have spent plenty of days with sore muscles and the need for some Advil and Tari’s heating pad on my back. And sometimes in March it easier to turn on the furnace than to drag more wood into the house. But I love to sit by the heating stove in the early morning with cup of coffee or a cold snowy day with a book and curled up on the couch while old man winter is howling outside. Whenever I am hunting or in the woods I am always looking for dead or blown over trees that will make good wood.
However my favorite part has always been spending time with Uncle Ken, Dad, Lester and now the Little Boy. Just this past Friday I had planned and spent the better part of the day with Uncle Ken and the Little Boy on the mountain dragging out and cutting two big loads of Ash, White oak and Sassafras wood. We would work a while then take a break and tell stories of days past of rabbit hunting and of other days in the woods with each other and the fun we have had.
I got back to the cabin with a load of White Oak and stacked on it on the porch. I then got me a cup of coffee and sat out on the porch next to stack of wood and the Little Boy got on the four wheeler and went riding. As I sat there sipping coffee and enjoying the smell of the White Oak I thought about different times spent cutting firewood, there was the time Uncle Ken was hauling firewood out of the woods with four wheeler and wagon and he rolled them up on the mountain and he had to walk out. He called me that evening to tell me about it and to bring some tools to get it out of the woods. Then there was the time the steering column broke on his old truck up on the mountain and I had to come fix.
I had a little Ranger pickup a few years ago and I put it over the hill to load with wood and I could not get out and Uncle Ken had to hook his Chevy up to me with a chain and pull me out of the woods I still hear about it to this day and it has been twenty years , not just a few I do not know where the time has gone.
I have been burning firewood for over twenty years and my Uncle over forty years now.He cuts by himself just about all the time now that Dad is gone and I worry about him being up on the mountain by himself. But he will not stop cutting firewood and I realize now that he can not as it is a part of him. The saw the maul and the trees and Uncle Ken

Sharing my October on the farm

A tree house view of October

Not enough October's in a man's life

October is my most favorite time of year. I read somewhere one time that there are not enough October’s in a mans life, and I adamantly agree. My father’s favorite time of year was the spring; he liked it because everything was fresh with life and green. Now I like the spring as I like all the different seasons. But I am like my mother as fall is best and October is great. The cool nights and the warm days, the first fire of the season and the smell of wood smoke on a cool day. Picking apples and a cup of warm cider. The changing of the leaves from green to yellow and red, I love to be up at my farm when the leaves have changed for their last dance before winter. To me there is no better time to be in the woods than October, to sit in a tree stand in the warm sunshine with a bow and a book, the wonderful smell of the woods that I cannot describe and no sciencetist has been ever to duplicate. I love to watch the squirrels hide their winter supply. The fallen leaves being blown about as they tumble end over end, all my senses are heightened at this time of year. I find it very difficult to keep my mind on work at this time of year, as all I want to do is be in the woods with bow or gun. Even today as I am writing I am sitting under a big red maple at carriage hill farms soaking up the sun and enjoying the sound of the wind thru the trees, the ballet that the fallen leaves are performing is grand, and the smell from the barn and hog lot are wonderful. October to me is a once in a lifetime event and it comes once each year and each year it is different, and each year it could be my last. I hope heaven is twelve moths of Octobers as they are not enough in one mans life.