Gods almighty hand

Just one of the reasons I enjoy my little cabin in the woods this beautiful sunrise out my front windows and a cup of black coffee. Thought I would share some Appalachia with everyone.

Kenny Ray the trapper

Kenny Ray has learned a new skill trapping, and I hope he loves it as much as I do. Of all of my outdoor pursuits this is the one I have enjoyed the most even though it seems I have never had enough time to pursue it . I hope to spend a lot more time on the trap line  for the remainder of this season and over the next few years. We set his first trap this past Saturday afternoon and his first catch was a feral house cat we were using a fish base bait. When Kenny Ray released the cat it shot out of the trap like it was a rocket. We then reset the trap on Sunday and had no catch. On Monday evening we reset the trap after supper only this time with marshmallow creme, success. In the picture above he is wearing my first trapped Raccoon which became my winter hat. Kenny Ray's first Raccoon, after I showed him how to skin will be off for the taxidermist in the morning to be tanned. He wants to mount the skin himself either on a limb or some other base as we are still discussing how it will be displayed. As he is showing some interest in learning taxidermy. I love to see his big smile as enjoys himself  in the great outdoors whether it be fishing, hunting or trapping or farming as these are things that bring me great pleasure as these things we do together. I have only one problem now as he wants to target catching a Skunk it seems he wants his own fur hat a black and white one.

The Little boy and his seven point buck

Kenny Ray and his first deer

Kenny Ray and I were joined this past weekend by his grandpa Richard Boninsegna {Tari's father},
and her brother Tony Boninsegna and his two boys Hunter and Dillion for the youth deer gun season.
On Saturday morning we all divide up for the morning hunt, Tony and Dillion to the tree stand below the cabin , and Richard and Hunter to the tree house, and Kenny Ray and I out the point. Kenny Ray and I got settled in some down trees in a bench, a flat area out on the point about ten after seven a.m.
At twenty after seven a.m. three deer ran past us at about fifty yards and quarting away, I nudged Kenny Ray and son look deer watch they might turn and come this way as they have a trail right out in front of us.However they did not they dropped of the edge of the point. Just as I settling back down and getting comfortable for what might be a long morning I caught some movement to my left about twenty yards to my left , I turned my head slowly and picked out a deer moving slowly threw the thicket and angling toward us a perfect broadside shot. I tapped Kenny Ray on the shoulder and whispered "a buck son, to my left" he slowly turned his body and brought up his gun and whispered I see him dad. I was slowly leaning back to give him a good shot , he finally pulled the trigger and those few seconds seem like an hour. I turned my head back to the deer and seen him turn and of half trot away in the same direction that he came in. I thought maybe he had missed again but I thought know you seen him hold steady. I said son let us sit here about ten or fifteen minutes and we will go track him. I looked at my watch twenty five after seven a.m. I waited what I thought was fifteen minutes and looked at my watch again twenty seven minutes after seven a.m. I could  not stand it any longer.
Come on son lets have a look,  I went over to where  I first seen the deer and where Kenny Ray shot at it, no blood just a small chunk of deer hair. I said son I think you just gave him a hair cut, no dad he said I know I hit that deer. So we followed the the trail behind him about ten yards and Kenny Ray said look some blood I went to him and son you did hit him , we followed a small blood trail about twenty yards and the trail stopped, and again doubt and disappointment set in my mind and I know his. I went out another ten yards looking for sign and nothing. I said son we may not find this deer, he was so disappointed, i swung out another ten yards in a semi circle looking for any possible sign and just as I was about to give up , I looked up the hill and there layed Kenny Ray's first deer, about fifty yards away from where he had shot him. I said son there is your deer he asked what as if he did not hear me, I again said son there is your deer just up above me. I reached the deer first and as Kenny Ray approached he said 'dad I got my deer,dad I got my deer" he was so happy , smiling and hugging me me I thought he was going to cry he was happy. I said son we have got to field dress him and drag him up the hill save some of that energy. Once we got the deer loaded into the truck we had to check him in Hirns gas station there in town and they took his picture with his first deer a seven point buck and posted on the bulletin board. I said son I never made the bulletin board but you did and smile got even bigger. As we started back to the cabin, Kenny Ray said dad let's go show Uncle Ken and dad will you take me to the cemetery and let me show grandpa. So we stoped and showed dad and then Uncle Ken. Where Uncle Ken congratulated him and asked Kenny Ray for a roast. Kenny Ray told him just as soon as the butcher finished he would get his roast.
    When we arrived back at the cabin, his grandpa Richard, Uncle Tony and the boys were there at the cabin taking a break and they came out to see his deer. they congratulated him on his first deer and he told them the story of you he got it. He then asked his grandpa Richard to take a photo of him with the deer on his shoulders. Tony and I picked up the deer and set it on his shoulders and his grandpa took
the above photo. Kenny Ray said he wanted a photo like that because I had my first deer on my shoulders in a photo. Kenny Ray then called his mother and his grandma Brewer , and cousin Lester and told his story to them. After the story telling was over we took the deer to the butcher, who had it finished in time for supper where I grilled fresh deer steaks for supper.
I found myself several times during this day thanking God not just for the animal but for my son and the family that I got to share this very special day in my sons life, and I hope that somehow my dad got to share it also. Every man wants his son to be better than himself, mine already is, thank you Lord.

Almost like going home

My mother retired back on the first of September, and decide she wanted to spend some time down at the cabin about three weeks of October. Last week was her first , on the her first day she called me around dinner time to gloat a little as she was sitting on the front porch eating some homemade vegetable soup, in the warm fall breeze and looking out over the hills and the woods and telling how beautiful everything was in fall coat of many colors. She then proceeded to call me every afternoon to tell me about her walk in the woods or how she set out the picnic table by the pond and drank her coffee and how peaceful and serene it was. I was very jealous of her, as I have stated in the past October in the mountains is my favorite time of year.
            Well on Thursday night Tari , Kenny Ray,my nephew Danny, and I went down to farm as it was the festival of the leaves weekend in Bainbridge. When we arrived at the about nine pm, mom greeted us at the door in her nightgown and as we entered the door she hugged each of us as if she had not seen us in months. As she was doing this my mind went back in time as this was so very familiar to me,  a time not so long ago of my youth when as a child we would journey back to Baptist Kentucky, arriving sometime after midnight on Friday nights and either my Grandma Brewer or Grandpa and Grandma Patton would greet us at the door with a hug and always the same question, " are you' all hungry, can I fix you something to eat". It was has if the clocked turned back forty years and I was almost home again if only for a few seconds in my mind.
We spent Friday and Saturday taking in the festival, Kenny Ray and Danny riding the ride until Kenny Ray got sick, Mom , Tari and I checking all the booths and garage sales in town. On Sunday we drove down to Adams county to see the Serpent mound , a ancient Indian burial ground. We then stopped in a little town of Locust Grove at a dairy bar and had chili dogs and a malt, sitting at some picnic tables by a little stream. When we got back to the farm Kenny Ray climbed on his four wheeler, mom, Tari and Danny took a nap. I fired up my old tractor to do what I like best, work on my little mountain farm. I had some bush hog work to do as I will only mow the hill in front of the cabin if there is some one with me in case I was to roll the tractor and get hurt, as I have rolled the riding mower in the past and been by myself, and lucky that I was not hurt. After I finished my work I walked back toward the cabin looking over my land and making plans for some more work next weekend. I stopped at the edge of the woods, I looked up at the sun through the leaves and enjoyed the warm sunshine on my face and bald head. I then layed down in the fallen leaves in the sun looking up at the blue sky and clouds moving by. I then began to thank God for the glorious day for my family and for this little piece of ground

Logan Elm Lonesome and JJ Little Girl

When I first starting hunting with Uncle Ken, he had retired from GM and moved to Bainbridge, he was 48 years old. I had not seen him in years as after my parents divorced when I was a teenager and he and Aunt Trula did not come to see us. It was weird because we had seen them a lot up until then I even went on vacation with them a few times. Well it had been years and at a funeral he and my cousin Lester started talking about hunting and as deer season was coming up in about 2 weeks Uncle Ken asked us to come and stay and hunt with him, so we agreed but I could only hunt Saturday as I had to work. I arrived early that Saturday morning and as we made our way to the woods Uncle told Lester where to hunt and as he started that way Uncle Ken said “Beach why don’t you and me hunt together “ and I said ok. Well we found us a spot and sat down.  Beach he said if you do not mind let’s just talk a while? We sat down and talked for the better part of the day. Two weeks later Uncle Ken seen an ad in the paper Beagle’s for sale. He called me on the phone and asked me if I would be interested in being partner’s in the dogs if they were any good. Since that day for the better part of 20 years Uncle Ken and I hunted together almost every Saturday. We have hunted squirrel, rabbit and deer together but some of the most fun we had were with 2 beagle’s named Logan Elm Lonesome and JJ Little Girl the dogs in the paper.  My dad and cousin and friends had joined us at time’s and  made it more memorable as we shared laughter in both good days with rabbits as well as days with no rabbits.

Lonesome and JJ had been field trial dogs and were getting up in years when the previous owner sold them to us. Now they may not have won many trophies but were top shelf gun dogs.    I have seen those dogs run a rabbit an hour or longer before we got it, as they never quit. And at time’s we had to catch them and pull them off the track if the rabbit would go in a hole as they would try and dig it out. One day my uncle wounded one and it went in under a junk pile and ole JJ crawled under it on her belly caught it and brought it to him. I was hunting one Saturday with a friend Tommy and he had 2 rabbits and I had not even got a shot, when one jumped and started away from me it was too far but I shot anyway. The dogs ran it for an hour and a half after that and I kept telling Tommy I crippled the rabbit. He just kept laughing and rubbing it in. The rabbit went in a hole in a fence line now the hole was big as the dogs could go in the hole far enough that I could not get a hold of them to move on. Lonesome finally came out and I grabbed him and started over into the brush. I told Tommy that it was the only way to get JJ to come out was to get Lonesome on another rabbit. Well we jumped one and got Lonesome running but JJ still was not coming, I kept watching the fence and row and about 15 minutes passed and I started laughing and hollering at Tommy, I told you I wounded that rabbit look . JJ was trotting toward me the rabbit in her mouth she came up to me and put her front paws on my knee and gave me the rabbit just like a retriever. Tommy wanted to see the rabbit, to see if there was any shot in it but I refused.

Tommy attend several hunt’s with us and we always had a few jokes on him on one hunt he was close to my uncle when a rabbit jumped and when it did Tommy swung his gun and shot at it. My uncle quickly got on him and said man we do not shoot at the rabbits when they jump, we get the dogs on them and let them run, Tommy apologized and they moved on. Well about 3 hours later on Uncle Ken and Tommy were standing together smoking and shooting the breeze when a rabbit jumped and my uncle swung shot and killed it. Now Tommy started on him hey man you said not to shoot on the jump, and my uncle quickly said oh hell man you can’t believe a word I say and started laughing. On another hunt with him he had not got used to hunting with dogs yet. Now Lonesome and JJ were medium slow dogs on the track so sometimes the rabbit would be 75 or eighty yards in front of the dogs. So when the dogs started back towards us you had better be ready because the rabbit was already coming back and probably Already close to you as was the case this day. Tommy was probably 50 yards in front of me. I seen the rabbit and killed it. Now Tommy said that there was no way that rabbit got past him and I said it did. Just watch the track the dogs take as they come to us .The dogs came within 6 feet of where Tommy was standing he could not believe it.  

Uncle Ken was known as the luckiest hunter it seems that most of his shots were what we called stoppy  ever got was shots were with their ears pinned back and they looked like they were four feet long they were moving so fast. At times we would stop and take a break and as we sat under a tree JJ would almost always come and make a bed in the leaves next to me and rest.  But the minute Lonesome would strike a track or we stood up she was off to hunt again. She would be so wore out at the end of the day that I had to carry her in my arms back to the truck.

Those were grand days we would hunt one farm in the morning, then get us a sandwich a cake and a pop for dinner and eat in the cab of the truck and hunt another farm that evening. In the time we had them before they died there was not a day that we hunted that we did not have a race, one winter between my uncle, dad and I we killed 123 rabbits and we counted only 5 that got away. I have owned other dogs since Lonesome and JJ but none have ever been close to those two dogs, either in quality of hunt or in memories with family or friends. We only paid $250.00 for the pair but I would not have taken a million dollars for those dogs. We lost Lonesome to coyotes I believe as Uncle Ken turned him loose one evening in the spring to let him run a little , has he had done a hundred times, but he never came home. And one of the saddest days of my life was the day I buried JJ Little Girl at the edge of my Uncle’s garden. Not only did those two dogs provide with memories but they also restored a family. My Uncle Ken is now seventy one years old and no longer is able to hunt and my dad has passed away. But Ken and I still sit by the heating stove drinking coffee and telling tales of Logan Elm Lonesome and JJ Little Girl. I may  never own a dog has good ever again.

Uncle Ken, squirrel hunting, Moonshine and stolen timber

I got home from my cabin this afternoon after being there since Friday night.
I had been looking foward to this holiday weekend as it was the first since squirrel season cam in this past Thursday. My family has always hunted on Labor day weekend as far back as I can remember. And at one time when I was a kid , several Uncles and cousins, my grandpa Patton and my dad, it was like a family reunion. But this year it was Uncle Ken and I only. Uncle Ken is seventy two years old and he does not see well or is able to do much walking. So Saturday he and I jumped in my old pickup put it in four wheel drive and rode to the top of the Ridge and parked within  about thitrty yards of the Hickory grove. The Hickory grove was silent as a cemetary we found no sign of  squirrel's. We had gone about twenty yards into the grove and Uncle Ken had to rest so we sat down on a blown over Hickory tree. As we sat resting and talking a gray blundered upon us and I shot and strung him on my belt. We sat there talking about hunts from years past and the good times. After about twenty minutes he was rested and wanted to walk out on the point and check out some Walnut trees where we have always bagged some in years gone by.Just as we were nearing the point I heard a squirrel cutting on a nut, Uncle Ken said go ahead Beach I am going to sit and rest. I worked my way thru the underbrush and found my quarry there was four squirrel's in a slick bark Hickory eating what we Appalachian Americans call pig nuts. I killed one as it came down the tree, but that was all I managed as the other three never permitted me a good shot, and I wanted to get back to Uncle Ken. When I did he was sitting resting and aked me what they were eating , as he said I never heard them or seen anything. His shirt was soaked with sweat and I could tell he was very tired, I said Uncle Ken let us get out of here and I will buy us some breakfast, OK Beach he said. We got back to the truck and I helped him in, and drove back down the mountain, cleaned our squirrel's and I gave them to him. he said I will cook and make gravy on them tomorrow. After we ate he wanted to go home and get a shower and stretch out on the couch. I went back up to my little farm as I had work to do and the whole time Uncle Ken was on my mind, of all the hunts I been on in my life this has been the most special, as it may have been my last with my Uncle, and my best friend.
I got back to my little farm that afternoon, which is only about a mile the way the crow flies from Uncle Ken's and went to work. I had climb on tractor and start bush hogging the field's around the place. I only do this once a year and it seems it always is the hottest day in which I choose to do this.
it took me about five and a half hours to get just over half of it done. I quit about six and took a cool shower and went to Town for supper. After supper I got back to the farm , took a very nice Kristoff cigar of my desk , and a pint of Moonshine out of the fridge and walked out my my pond , sat down at the picnic table and lit my cigar , and sipped my Moonshine from a mason jar while looking over the fresh mowed fields. What a sight for a Applachian American a orange sky hanging over a woods. green fields and a pond with a ripple in the water a Bass just gulped down his supper.
I got up Sunday morning just after five am made a pot of coffee and sat on the porch waiting on the sun to paint the sky once again. It was a lot cooler this morning than it was yesterday and I decided at about six thirty am to check out my woods, to see what the squirrels were eating. It did noy take long I was in the woods about five minutes and found a slick bark hickory with four squirrel's riding the top out of it. I managed to get two of the four and thought to myself son you are getting old you should of had all four. I thought man this is going to be a good day I never seen another squirrel that morning.
As I neared the end of my property I noticed a lot more sunlight coming thru the woods canopy, and thought ut oh something's wrong, and I was right it seems my nieghbor sold some of his timber and in the process got on my land with the skidder and made me a nice road with three  foot deep trenches and six maybe seven Oak trees about three foot in diamator cut and gone. I hope I am wrong, I will get Unlce Ken up to look at next weekend has he knows the property line better than I. I hope I am wrong I hate to think that the timber cutter would risk so much for a couple of trees. Tree's that I have so many squirrel's out of thru the years.

Goodbye Tommy old friend

I have been away trying to to take care of some health problems,I have lost fifty pounds and my blood pressure is a lot better I have been able to cut the medicine in half. My diabetes is under control and I hope to be off the medicine for that by my next birthday, I am walking five miles a day and have removed all sugar from diet although I was bad tonight and had a chocolate chip cookie. Sugar, I do not miss all that much but I do miss my fried chicken and cornbread. But anyway I got some bad news yesterday a friend of mine was killed in a car wreck and during my walk tonight
he was on my mind. Tommy came to work with me at Loxley Brothers body shop when he was eighteen years old, I was twenty three. We became friends instantly. He and his wife became regulars at my house on the weekends playing cards.Tommy even took up hunting with uncle Ken,Dad and me. Even when Tommy moved on to anther shop we remained on the same bowling team and worked firework's shows around the fourth of July for several years after. Then him and his wife split and he disappeared for a while.
One of my favorite memories of Tommy was his first rabbit hunting trip with Ken, dad and me. Tommy was near Uncle Ken when he jumped a rabbit and pulled up his gun and fired at the rabbit, a clean miss. Uncle Ken quickly ceased the moment and said Tommy we do not shot at the rabbit on the jump we call the dogs over and get them started on the track and let them run the rabbit around. Tommy apologized and we moved on. A couple of hours later Ken and Tommy stopped for a cigarette break and while standing together a rabbit jumped next to them and Ken quickly swung his gun and killed the rabbit. Tommy said hey man you were suppose to call the dogs and let them run, that what you said. Ken looked at him and said hell Tommy you believe a word I said and started laughing loudly. Tommy shaking his head and I see that how it is.
On another hunt in January muzzle loading season for deer we were hunting together on my farm and I ran six or seven deer toward Tommy, they just about ran over him. I asked him why he did not take a shot? He said he did but his gun did not go off.
Later at dinner with uncle Ken, Tommy was telling the story to him . Uncle Ken said Tommy I know what you should have done, and Tommy asked him what? Uncle Ken said son you should have just throwed the gun over in the creek if it won't shoot. Tommy shaking his head and laughing with us.
I have not seen Tommy in over twelve years, the last time being the Friday afternoon he quit working for me I gave him his paycheck and he never returned from dinner. He did call me on the phone about nine years ago and apologized for walking out on me. Tommy said he was in rehab and was in the process of trying to get his life back together and wanted to talk to me we talked for over an hour. A day or two later I found out that Tommy had been arrested and had been living in a trash dumpster about three blocks from my house.
I have remained in contact with his ex wife thru the years and seen his two sons.
And the week he was released from prison his ex wife called me to let me know when he would get out and that I would probably be one of the first people that he contacted, but he never did. He was just forty two years old. I have often thought of friends that pass thru our lives. Friends that are apart of our lives for just a short time, and we may not see or hear from them for years at a time. But remain in our hearts and memories for all time.

The Garden of Eden

My grandparents Curt and Sarah Belle Brewer had an arranged marriage by the plantation owner, in Breathitt county Kentucky. Sarah had just graduated the 8th grade on a Saturday and he came in and told her and her grandmother that next Saturday she would marry Curt Brewer, they had never met.They married and had 11 children. Curt was a farmer and a logger he was a buyer of timber for the plantation owner. As he moved around he always had to rent a place with at least two house’s one for his growing family and one for his elderly father Esau and his step mother Elizabeth. Everywhere the moved the land owner always had rules on what livestock they could keep and what they could grow. This was during the great depression and times were hard.
My aunt Carmie has told me many stories thru the years as of today she is 89 years old and still remembers them like it was yesterday. She told me one night a beggar came knocking at the door It was way up in the night , they had been some killings at that time in Breathitt county also known as Bloody Breathitt. My grandfather asked him what he wanted and he asked for some bread crumbs for his children and wife but wanted nothing for himself .He asked my grandmother if they any they could give them she said she a little they could spare as back then they saved every scrap. They gave them what they had and told them they could stay overnight in the barn and they did.
In the summer of 1939 they moved to Baptist fork of the Stillwater creek in Wolfe County to a farm that Curt brother Willis Brewer had bought for the back taxes. It was 226 acres and a paradise to my grandmother. As my aunt Carmie tells me the only way to get to the farm was up the creek as there was no road, probably about a mile maybe mile and half. My uncle Ken was a baby at the time and when my grandmother got to the farm with him in her arms she thanked God for their home. You see this was the Garden of Eden to her. She was able to keep her chickens and ducks and grow whatever she needed for her family. But for some reason my grandfather hated it he also hated the ducks. you see the ducks get in the creek and they leave the water dirty with their feathers and oil and the work mules are fussy when it comes to drinking water I am told. One night my grandfather came in mad and told Belle pack up we are going back to Breathitt County. Now according to my aunt my grandmother was sitting at the dinner table sipping coffee from a tea cup with a broken handle she never looked up and no Curt my children and me are staying here I will write Willis in the morning he let us stay you can leave if you want to. Now this is the first and only time my aunt said that grandma had ever spoken up to him about anything. Well not another word was ever said about going back to Breathitt County. They purchased the farm with their second season profits 2700.00 dollars. They were not rich, by any means but they were able to produce everything the family needed with canning vegetables raising hogs and chickens and ducks for their feathers for beds and pillows and their eggs and meat.
I am not sure what year the road was put in but it was no longer after the war. The state told the people living up in the holler that if they would build the road the state would maintain it. So my grandfather Brewer Nathan Hatton and my grandfather Robert Lee Patton went together and hired a man with a dozer to build the road. Now the years after the war times were good my grandfather Curt had made a little money selling tobacco and sourghrom molasses as during the war sugar was rationed and hard to come by. And now they had a road he went into the timber business. Now it was my understanding that everyone wanted to work for him not only did he pay every Saturday but they got fed as back then it was customary they ate dinner {lunch for you city people} and they loved eating my grandmothers cooking. Things were very good until his death in 1956. The business just folded and my aunt and uncles were in the process of moving away to Dayton for factory jobs and now that Garden of Eden is now going back to the forest and the wild turkeys. Land that at one time had 3 houses and supported as many families; my grandmother lived there until the farm house burned down. My mother lived there with her when she was pregnant with me and after I was born we moved to Dayton. In later years she moved back to the farm in a mobile home that my uncle Ken purchased for her this was the early 70’s. I spent one glorious summer with her. She never owned a T.V. never listened to the radio. I can still see and hear her in my mind every morning she would sit in her rocking chair and comb out her long hair and put in a bun on top of her head, she would whistle and would rub my back and tell me how much I reminded her of my grandpa. My uncle ken and aunt Carmie tell me that I am more like him than anyone in the family. That summer I have some of my best memories of her she told me that when she first married my grandfather that she would walk into the woods with him in the evenings with him and sit while the waited on a squirrel to come into range for supper. One evening she was fixing supper and I walked by the stove and I asked her Grandma what are you fixing here for supper she said I am heating up some corn for supper for the leftover chicken from dinner, I said grandma these are peaches on the stove, she ahhhhhh. She was just about blind by this time but still stayed by herself must of the time she kept everything organized she knew where everything was. A day or two after that I killed my first rabbit, I was so thrilled and went running to show grandma, once I got there I said grandma I am going to go up to Uncle Arnold’s and see if he will show me how to clean him. She you do not need Arnold, come over and give me you knife and I will show you, you just have to be my eye’s, well she went to work and I want to tell you to this day that old blind woman to this day I cannot clean a rabbit as fats and clean as she did that day, all she asked was did she get all of its guts out, and said yes grandma. As I got older I found out that when any of the family went hunting and brought back any game that they did not clean it , they brought back to the house and she did all the cleaning. My aunt Carmie also tells me about when her first child was born my cousin Cindy that her milk did not come in and she asked the doctor what to do? The doctor told her to take the girl to Belle as she had just give birth to my father Porter just a couple of weeks later, it always struck me as funny that my dad and his older niece where breast fed at the same time.
The year my mother Pearlie Lived with her they became close friends. My sisters still say my grandmother was right when she said, right after my mother came upon a copperhead snake in the garden and she believed I would be retarded because the snake had scared her so.Even after my parents divorced she came of every year and would stay a couple of weeks with us. She once told my little dog that she was going to pinch off his nose if he did not stop barking as he did at night when she was going to bed as she would put on her night scarf overhead. My dad was dating another woman and was going to marry her and he was telling my grandmother about it one day when I was thought to be asleep and my grandmother told him now son you do what you think you have to do but I am telling you no one will take the place of Pearlie and those kids in there.
The last time I seen her it was about 3 weeks before she passed away she had moved back in with my uncle EC. In Campton Kentucky. Mom stopped and let us kids see her and she was telling mom about these headaches and little explosions in her head mom told her she needed to see a doctor and she said she would . she gave my baby sister a doll that she had, and was rubbing my back telling me how much I reminded her of Curt and that she would not be around much longer, I said grandma you will be here to see my son, she hugged me and said she loved me. She was gone just 3 weeks later she had been having a series of small strokes. I have in later years discussed her life with my uncles and aunts everyone always said how hard my grandfather worked and he did but she worked much harder you see my grandfather never worked on Sunday or If the weather was bad but she had 3 meals to prepare everyday she grew the vegetable garden and preserved all the food laundry on a wash board carrying water, not to mention raising 11 children. She once told my mom that sometimes she got so lonely in the holler by herself that she would wind an old clock for company to just hear it tick.

Baptist Fork of the Stillwater creek

This spring has been tough on this old Appalachian American. First Tari found out that she is a diabetic. And in the last month the doctor put me on high blood pressure medicine and then this past Thursday they put me on Diabetes medicine also. It has been a blow to my superman mentality.
But I had a remedy of my already planned, a hunting trip to the garden of Eden, Baptist Fork of the Stillwater creek in Wolfe county Kentucky. There I spent three days hunting for wild turkey and visiting with my family.On Saturday night my Uncle played the guitar's and we sang all the bluegrass gospel favorites.We ate good country food and talked and caught up with each other's lives's. I felt more at home and ease this trip than any other since my grandparents passed away. I want to thank Uncle Bob and Aunt Evelyn for that it really meant a lot to me. On Sunday Uncle Bob came in with a big Gobbler, I did not kill one but I seen eighteen turkey's in three days, just could not get one in gun range. But I had more fun hunting this spring than I have in a long time. Saturday morning five big gobblers came in the bottom I was hunting but just out of my vision until I stepped out of my blind. I drooped down to my belly and spent the next forty minutes crawling over briar's and thru thickets and in the mud in a monsoon rain trying to get in range. I managed to get within about eighty yards before they seen me and hit the woods. I had a blast!!!
I have always enjoyed hunting the Brewer family farm two hundred and twenty six acres
of Appalachian paradise.
I started my recovery Friday morning not just the diabetes medicine but a dose of peace and continment by returning to where my parents and I were born, our roots are deep in the Garden of Eden which is Baptist fork of the Stillwater Creek.
I think I need another dose Of Baptist already, Turkey season is still in for three more weeks.

Coffee, Catfish,and a strawberry smelling hound

Out on the porch with a cup of coffee about six thirty a.m. waiting on the sun to come up as well as listening for a big ole gobbler to give his position away. As the night fades to daylight I decide to go for a walk threw the woods and around the ridge. I was looking for some turkey sign or where some were roosting or possible a shed antler or two, but all I found was spring showing up as the woods where turning green again. Which was a very welcome greeting after such a long cold winter. As I made my way out of the woods I came out by my pond and noticed that some fish were hitting some around the edges. It surprised me a little as I thought the water was still a little cold. So I thought lets find out and I walked back to the cabin and got a mason jar full of fish food and another cup of coffee. I returned to the pond and cast out a hand full of food and sat down on a block of wood and waited for the show to begin. The Bluegills hit the food first, which rang the dinner bell for the big Channel Cats. The water begin to boil from, the feeding, I spent the next thirty minutes feeding the Piranha like catfish. Then my stomach told me I had better get some Breakfast too. I started back to cabin and got The Little Boy and drove down to Uncle Ken’s house to pick him up and take to breakfast with us. After dropping of Uncle Ken and shooting the breeze awhile Kenny Ray and I had to get back to the cabin we had some work to do. My apple trees came in the mail this past week and had to go in the ground, as well as a brush pile had to be burned and just some general clean up. We got the trees planted and half way through the brush burning it began to rain. Kenny Ray made his way to the truck and I tended the fire. When it got down small enough I hollered at the Little Boy to come on and bring his ole stinking dog as we had to go over in the woods and take my deer tree stand down and I wanted to put a trail camera. It was about two o’clock when we returned to the cabin for dinner and just as we walked onto the porch it began to down pour rain, like a tall cow pissing on a flat rock. I then fired up the grill and fixed hotdogs and brats for dinner. After dinner I told Kenny Ray he was going to have to give ole Jack a bath as he was beginning to smell like an outdoor shithouse. So he gave the dog a bath and I went and took a nap while it continued to storm. After I got up the dog was dry and I sat out on the porch with a cup of coffee Kenny Ray said Dad let’s go fishing this evening, which we did. But the Little Boy regretted that as the old man beat him like a drum, four hand size Bluegill to two puny five inch Largemouth bass. We fished to almost dark till we could no longer see our bobber’s. We returned to the cabin, where Kenny Ray laid on the couch and read a book, and I returned to the porch with a fine cigar, a glass of bourbon, some Bluegrass music and a Beagle Hound that smells like strawberries.

Goodnight from the front porch of paradise

There is nothing I enjoy more than sitting on the front porch of my cabin. And tonight has been special, as I have been sitting here since about nine thirty p.m. With a fine cigar and a glass of Wild Turkey Rare Breed, straight Kentucky Bourbon and Kenny Ray’s Beagle hound, Jack at my feet, and he his snoring a little. Kenny Ray is in bed asleep. There is a quarter moon and the sky is full of stars and to the south I can see a storm moving in, as there are flashes of lightening across the every few minutes. I have some bluegrass music playing a mix that I made some of my favorites. At this moment in time the world is perfect. It is past my bedtime as it is now twelve twenty a.m. and the fog has started to roll in and I must say goodnight to the frogs that have been singing along with Sweet Appalachia. I hate to go as I enjoy it so. But I look forward to the morning sunrise, as I will be on the porch with a cup of strong black coffee to greet the beginning of a new day just as I said goodnight to this one.

My woods overlooking three generations of Brewer's

I just came in from walking my woods and looking it over. I put a piece of Sassafras on the fire and hung my wet clothes on a chair next to the wood stove and my boots and socks up next to it to dry, I hate wet cold feet. I got me my supper a can of Potted meat and crackers and a cup of black coffee and sat at my desk to write. As I write the sound of the pop and cracking of the sassafras in the heat stove and the rain pounding the metal roof is very relaxing.
As I walked this evening thru my woods I reflected back threw the twenty-five or so seasons.
That I have hunted critters, dry land fish {morel mushrooms}, shed antlers, and Poke salad greens and myself. I have rode four wheelers, cut firewood and shared jokes with friends and family.
Each season in the woods something special is revealed. In spring they come alive they turn green as leaf buds burst open as if a rose, and the creek is once again a babbling brook almost deafening at times. The woods are full of life. The birds are singing, the occasional gobble or yelps from the turkey’s, or the squaking of a squirrel in the distance. My favorite parts are the symphony that the crickets and tree frogs put on every evening. The warm southern is breeze is fresh and time to begin anew.
The summer time the woods come alive at sunrise with the birds singing but as the heat increases the woods become quiet. All the rustling leaves in the warm breeze high overhead. This is the time that the Black Raspberries and Black berries turn ripe and ready to pick. The babbling brook is no more it has dried up as I lay there on its banks and look up at the passing clouds and wonder has anyone ever laid there before, to nap and dream of the past and things to come.
The fall my favorite time to be in the woods, I feel sorry for anyone who has not seen the sun rise from a tree stand in October they have missed life itself. To be there in that moment just before sunrise when it’s the darkest and the coolest. It ‘s like the temp drops a couple degrees and some how the black of night gets a shade blacker and the stars get just a bit brighter. The feel of the sunshine never felt better on your face and shoulders. To see the sunlight reflect on multi colored leaves as peeks thru the tree tops. The woods have such a wonderful smell somewhat like freshly plowed ground. And just then the wind brings in a hint of wood smoke from a nearby farm, and the scent stirs my soul. Then to watch the woods come alive, to watch a squirrel jump on a stump and eat hickory nut or hear one in distance. And then you hear a crunch in the leaves behind you and you become all ears and eyes is that a deer. No just another chipmunk they sound like elephants at times. The October woods like no other bring my senses alive it is a great time to be woodsman.
And then the winter with a white coat of snow on the ground and the complete silence.
It can be so quiet, that at time your ears hurt. The thrill of placing of a trap at the special place at the creek and the anticipation of what might be the next day And the lonely sound of the wind that ever blowing, never-ending wind out of the north,
My woods are a part of me they have give me food in every season from maple syrup and Poke salad to Paw paws and Persimmons. Fried squirrel, deer back straps to a thanks-giving turkey. They have watched me in my youth and now my middle age. They have looked over my son since he was eighteen months old and our first hunting, picnic trip together. They provided him snakes and toads as well as an occasional tarpin to catch and all the big game a four year old with a bb gun and a black lab puppy could invent. And they watched over my father in his twilight of his life with just him just sitting and listening to a beagle hound run a rabbit. I hope they will someday watch over my grandson and teach him the way of the woods just maybe he will nap and dream beside a creek in my woods in the warm summer breeze or sit in my favorite tree stand and find himself as I did. Even now as I draw to close here at my desk in the half-light of dusk the woods are peering thru the windows as the lonely wind blows. And trees are waving goodnight and goodbye to an old dear friend.

Happy birthday you lucky man

Well another birthday come and gone. Forty six down and only God knows how many left, I hope another thirty anyway.I do not know how it will end but I found out tonight how it started . My mother came over tonight to wish me happy birthday and was telling Kenny Ray about the morning I was born. I was born in Campton Kentucky
in Dr. Maddix clinic about six thirty a.m. and that evening mom went home with me and my grandma Brewer. In those days there was no central heat in that old two story farm house and the only heat was a stone fireplace with grate, and it was the front room as well as my grandma,s bedroom. Mom told Kenny Ray how that night she and I shared the big old feather bed with my Grandma.I think Maybe that is why my mother and grandma Brewer mean so much to me. I was the last of the grandma Brewers grandchildren to spend their first night in that old house. In a handmade feather bed and under a handmade quilt and kept warm with love.
I am a very lucky man my life started with the love of my mother and my grandma,
and as I go to bed tonight I am am still kept warm from the love of my wife and son, and still the love of my mother. And my grandma who I know watches from Heaven.
Life is like an alarm clock, you can only wind one time and you do know when it will quit. so tell that some one you love them. you may not get another chance.

Breakfast with Uncle Ken

I went down to the farm yesterday morning to work on one of the four wheelers that Uncle Ken uses to haul firewood with. As well as my ole tractor it is about time to get potatoes in the ground. I got there about nine a.m. and Uncle Ken and I went to breakfast together. After breakfast we went over to A friend of ours house , Joel
he is a Mennonite I have hunted Joel's farm for over twenty years now and I have watched his children grow up. Two of his sons Jesse and James used to tag along with me in the fields hunting when they were only seven or eight years old. I used to take them my old hunting and trapping magazines when I finished them and now they are men. Uncle Ken and I visited with them a little while and I hired Joel to do some roof work for me this week on the cabin.
We got back to Uncle Kens house and we sat outside and talked the better part of the day. There was nothing wrong with the four wheeler,He just did not let it warm up enough before turning the choke off. He has to go the heart doctor Monday as he has a leaky valve that might require surgery and I think he is scared a little and so am I.I love to talk to Uncle about the old days and Kentucky which is what we always talk about that and hunting and firewood. We talked about his older brother Arnold yesterday.
Arnold was a jack of all trades and did little of everything. He farmed, raised bees
cut timber, coal mined, he could make tobacco sticks, he could shoe horse's and mules
and he even cut and split White oak stave's for barrels. Ken said he sold the tobacco sticks for seventy five dollars a thousand. But the main thing about Uncle Arnold was he would eat just about any kind of meat. Ken told me about a time when he caught possum and had his wife Anna may cook it. they had to throw pot and all away as Arnold said it must of wintered with a skunk because as it started cooking it stunk so bad that he could not eat it. Arnold even tried to eat a chicken hawk one time and said it was a real blue meat and not fit to eat. Ken then told me about a time when Arnold was sitting on the front porch of his house when a big snapping turtle walked out of the creek right into Arnold's yard, mistake Arnold leaped from the porch and had supper. Ken said that turtle could have walked out anywhere on Baptist fork and been safe but he committed suicide and walked in front of Arnold.
Uncle Ken said he remembered a big turtle fry one year when was a kid Arnold and Anna-may and two of her brothers caught seventeen big turtles. Anna may and her sister in law had two big pans going frying turtle and she made about five gallons of Kool aide in a big milk can. Ken said they all had a great time. Uncle Arnold passed away in 1997 the same year Kenny Ray was born. One of the last times Uncle Ken seen Arnold, he was cooking a mess of pig ears and feet.
My whole family and the people of Baptist fork used to live there lives as my friend Joel and his family live today. They depended on no one but themselves and helped those in need.
I finished the day sitting on the porch of the cabin enjoying the sunshine, making a list of things that I forgot to bring with me to fix the tractor next weekend. After I meet with Uncle Ken for breakfast.

Uncle Grover and Trig handme down 22 rifle

Uncle Grover visited my mother and other family members for coffee every Sunday morning; he made his rounds on a regular basis. He and my father were coon-hunting partners; he had a nickname for my dad of Trig. He love to rabbit and coon hunt and he loved his biscuits and gravy. My Aunt Hazel cooked them just about everyday so she was very good at it, as I believe she fixed them everyday that they were married.
One morning my dad and Grover and a friend of theirs Virgil came in from coon hunting, and Aunt Hazel made a large bowl of Gravy and about 2 dozen biscuits for the 3 of them. Virgil made the comment to dad that she must have thought there was an army coming for breakfast. Dad chuckled and though to himself that Virgil was in for a surprise to watch Uncle Grover eat biscuits and gravy, when they finished there was not even a scrape left, Virgil could not believe what he had just watched, and talked about it for years. Dad and Grover hunted together for years and they bought a 22 rifle a Remington model 514 some time in the 1960’s. At some point the arm on the bolt got broke and they had someone weld back on. The gun is beat up but shots great, Kenny Ray won first place last year with the gun. I was a little embarrassed as some of the kids were shooting all these new fancy rifle’s with scope’s and some even looked like these Olympic target rifles. Then here was my boy with a well-worn 40 plus year old rifle with open sights and score 95 out of a 100 possible points. And Kenny Ray would not trade or sell for anything, as he is very proud to carry a gun with so much history. I have often thought if the gun could talk what tells it would tell.
Dad and Grover owned dogs together as well, one was a walker hound by the name of Gypsy, and they won several trophies and raised several good pups out of her. I recall not long after dad moved back to Kentucky, Aunt Hazel was mad as hell as Grover bought a dog for a thousand dollars, that was a lot of money for a dog at that time.
When Uncle Grover passed away of a heart attack It was the biggest funeral that I have attended I believe his son Steve said there was a 101 cars in the funeral procession.
Uncle Grover was loved by many, as I cannot recall a time that he was not smiling and joking.In the picture above Trig is on left and Grover on the right.

Goodbye to Ole man winter

What a beautiful day here on the farm, the porch reads fifty-two degrees and I am in my favorite T-shirt enjoying the warm sunshine. I am being serenaded by a some crows calling in the distance as well as a couple of squirrels squaking about thirty yards from my seat here on the porch. I am not sure if the are squeaking at each other, or me but I hope they are squaking at Old man winter, telling him to be on his way. As I am sure they are as tired of him as I am.
My cabin faces due south toward the homeland of Kentucky, and most of the snow and ice are melted in front of the cabin and on the sides. But as I look onto the woods on the northeast side there is still a light covering of snow, it looks like a checkerboard.
I do believe that the worst of winter is behind us now, that the back of the old man is broke. As I seen something today that I have never noticed before, Kenny Ray and I was sitting in the front room of the cabin talking and I noticed some birds in the side yard. It looked funny to me because on a second look it was Robins. I am always looking for the return of the Robins as usually spring is not far behind them. This always makes me happy when I see the first of the year. And I was really happy today and not just because I seen one but I counted twenty five Robins in the yard scratching in the leaf litter for something to eat, twenty five Robins now that has to be a sign.
I had a little fun today out of Kenny Ray as he and I went for a walk this afternoon out to the pond. He wanted to throw rocks out on the frozen pond. We discovered a couple of years ago that when you throw rocks out on the frozen water it make a noise. The noise changes pitch as the rock slides across. And depending on the size of rock also change’s
The tone. It is a lot of fun when you throw multiple rocks. But today no tone’s as there was too much snow over the ice. So I told Kenny Ray lets go get that hornet’s nest out by the fence that we seen back in deer season. We walked out there and he held the limb down while I snapped it off. It was still in good shape considering the bad weather. As we started back to the cabin Kenny Ray asked dad is sure that all the hornets were gone? Yes son they are gone. Dad can I touch it? Sure son go ahead and has is hand touched it I made a buzzing sound with my mouth and when I did Kenny Ray jumped about a foot backwards as it scared him to death. I started laughing pretty hard and he said thanks dad very funny as he picked up a snowball and threw it at me. I laughed all the way back to the cabin and I kept making a buzzing sound. The hornets nest will not only make a good conversation piece but will hold a memory of a fine afternoon spent with my son.
We then drove down and spent a couple of hours with Uncle Ken and he shared some more stories with us. Which takes me to where I am now on the front porch in the sunshine saying goodbye with squirrels to old man winter as he has worn out his welcome.

Grandpa a hero to me and the world

Back in October I wrote about my grandpa Patton my moms dad. He served in the army in WWII. He never talked about it much to me and this past summer I started looking for some information about this part of his life. My Uncle Bob had his discharge papers and I asked My Aunt Evelyn for a copy of it, which she did. I then wrote my us congress man for a copy of any records on my grandpa that he could send me. And in return they sent me a bunch of forms to fill out, which I did. Well I had somewhat forgot about it. And then about a week ago I got a letter and a package in the mail. The package contained my grandpa's medal that he had received. I knew that he had a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf clusters and had seen it at one time. But did know nor did my mother know of the other ones. Which included the Bronze Star for bravery. A European , African, Middle Eastern mead with three Bronze stars as well as his combat infantry and good conduct medals. He was if I read it right with the 41st armored infantry and served in the battles at Sicily , Normandy and Northern France. He was wounded on August 22 in France. I was always proud of my grandpa the hunter and the tobacco farmer, the moonshiner and a solider. I will frame and display his medals in my office as a constant reminder of what he and his generation did for the world.