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.