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.