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.