by Gaila Oliver | Nov 28, 2016 | Uncategorized
The big buck seemed to suddenly appear out of the undergrowth, just his chest, neck, head, and antlers visible at the edge of the clearing. The wind was from me to him, so I reckon he scented me as he emerged, causing him to abruptly halt and scan the woods. Whilst he scanned to his left, I eased my Remington 30/06 up and slid the safety off. He obviously caught some of the motion, for he raised his head back to better eye my stand, his horns shining brightly in the sun.
Those antlers were extra white, polished by his activity I had seen on earlier hunts where he had attacked every little cedar tree within a couple hundred yards of where he now stood staring at me. His head went further up, and I knew I’d been made, but the crosshairs of the 2&1/2 power scope had already settled on the white spot where his neck centered his great chest. I pulled the trigger.
At the rifle’s roar, the buck whirled and disappeared into the foliage from whence he had partially emerged seconds before. I didn’t even pump the gun, slinging it over my right shoulder as I evacuated my stand. Out of several hundred deer I have killed, I’ve seldom had to shoot twice at one. Old One-Shot Bob.
Which had worked against me earlier that morning, just as it began to be shooting light. A big buck – he had to be, for me to see horns in the dimness – had stepped into a clearing and walked calmly across, as I raised my rifle, aimed at his front shoulder, and pulled the trigger. He paused briefly, then continued his walk and disappeared into the trees, apparently unhurt. I waited a few minutes for full shooting light, then got down and looked carefully for blood, hair, or any sign that I had hit him, continuing the search for half an hour, first at the spot where I’d shot, then the direction he had gone, then half-circles from where he’d disappeared. Not a sign that I’d hit him, which was unusual.
Then I remembered that, as I was going into the woods in the darkness, the top sling swivel had popped aloose – second time in 25 years – and while I had felt it go, and had managed to catch the rifle by the pistol grip, the barrel still took a nasty whack on a cypress knee. Maybe the scope was affected by that?
Nor was there blood or hair where this buck had been standing, so I followed the direction he had been going as he disappeared into the undergrowth, moving slowly and quietly in case he was wounded and down. That seemed to be the case, sure enough, for 75 yards further along, I suddenly saw antlers stick up, then go back down, only maybe 40 yards ahead. I eased to the side for a clearer view and stepped up on a log, raising my gun to look through the scope. Now I saw the antlers rise again, then go back down. I resolved to try a killing shot at the top of his neck next time he raised his head. He did, and I did. The Remington spoke again, and that part of the woods exploded with deer!
Two more bucks, both smaller than the white-horned deer I had shot at, had been standing in a little swag I’d not known about, with several does in whom they were apparently expressing a carnal interest. I thought I was finishing off a big wounded buck, not firing a warning round over a whitetail orgy! I was not ready for a small herd of deer to flush out of the swag and disappear into the brush.
Had to be the scope, I knew. I unloaded the rifle and left the woods, but when I got home I stepped into the backyard first and fired at a water bottle I set up on the Mammy Grudge ditchbank. Sure enough, at 20 yards, I was shooting 6 inches to the left! I reset and sighted in the scope, convinced I had missed 3 bucks.
And kept my mouth shut about it for a year.
Then I was hunting the same stand last week, and when I came out, followed a scrape line in a different direction than I usually take. That big white-horned buck had 10 points. He had circled, not gone straight, and was 50 yards from where I shot him. His backbone was still intact, a very long spine. Big Buck.
Follow up. Every shot. I didn’t, and wasted a 10-point buck. A sin.
by Gaila Oliver | Nov 15, 2016 | Uncategorized
I noticed a recipe the other day in a cooking section of a paper, and the young lady who was commenting on the chef’s talents had observed that he made his gravy with a lot of pieces of hearts and livers and other less desirable parts, all diced up. The general consensus seemed to be that the chef was trying to put something over on his customers, as well as use up the leftovers from the fowl he was cooking.
I don’t know where the young lady was from, nor where she was going. But I do know that no true Southerner would think of having a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey-and-dressing feast, without serving giblet gravy. My trusty Funk & Wagnalls defines “Giblets (jib-lets)” as “The edible viscera of a fowl.” My Momma would have defined giblets as the liver, heart, and gizzard of the main course, the turkey. When we hunted wild turkey, we were instructed to carry a zip-lock bag in our pocket, and to save those precious parts when we gutted the gobbler, “and get them on ice right away, too!” Seems like she generally simmered the neck, and maybe even the parson’s nose, in a separate pan to add those juices to the giblet gravy, for a little more “sumption” (sump-shun).
The gizzard had to be split and cleaned out, with the rough, skin-like inside pared out, along with, of course, any contents. I have watched turkeys and ducks swallow pecans and pignuts whole (one wood duck hen shoveled down SEVEN wild pecans in a row! She was only a few feet away from where I hid behind a tree, and I counted.) and strut or swim happily along, content to let their gizzards grind the hard nuts to digestible particles. The old saying, “He’s got grit in his craw,” refers to the need for birds to peck up small pebbles or sand grains, to provide the grinding action inside the gizzard muscle.
I have a Cajun friend who claims the best gumbo in the whole world is made from the gizzards of coots. Coots, for those who aren’t outdoors people, are those little black near’bout ducks, that don’t fly real well and generally raft up in flocks that even feed up onto the banks. I once made the mistake of tasting a coot, and it ain’t a mistake I’m likely to make again. Yet their gizzards are the best gumbo ingredients, Teddy swears.
Before we leave the subject of gizzards and wild turkeys, let me deliver one tip for hunters that definitely affects the meat after you have bagged a gobbler. The first thing you need to do, before you even draw (or gut) the bird is to remove the goozle. That’s the holding sack for food headed down into the gizzard, and to get to it, make a simple slit as the base of the turkey’s neck, about two inches long. Reach your finger in and draw out the clear-looking sack, cut it loose at both ends, check it to see what the turkeys are feeding on in that area so you’ll know where to hunt tomorrow, then throw it away. There is no sumption in a goozle (also called a craw).
I was making a talk last week, and made a reference to the water out at Brownspur being better for you, since it had a little sumption to it. Bless her heart, one young lady in the audience not only didn’t know what sumption was, but she admitted that! Of course, she also admitted right out front to being from New York, so you have to respect her for being willing to reveal her ignorance.
The way I always heard it used, sumption means a little extra, but always applied to food and drink, as opposed to lagniappe, which means a little extra in most anything.
When you got to the bottom of a good pot of soup or stew, and the bone – usually a ham hock – was about the only thing left, you were lucky if the cook would let you have the bone to clean, which included sucking the sumption out of the bone!
The lady in question – as well as a couple of others who were in attendance – looked a little jubous at the prospect of sucking the sumption out of the hambone. I’d bet she’s also jubous about sucking crawdad heads, too.
Let me pause here to assure those editors who accuse me of making up words, to say that “Jubous” (ju-bus) is a word I’ve heard all my life, just like sumption, goozle, and giblets. It seems to be a word made by combining “dubious” with “judicious” and means just that: regarding something as less than likely or desirable. It gets the point across.
At any rate, don’t turn your nose up this Holiday Season if the gravy has giblets in it. Matter of fact, if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t trust it – be jubous about cooks who leave out the good parts simply because they ain’t situated on the outside.
If I had my druthers, I’d druther have gravy with a little sumption to it!
by Gaila Oliver | Nov 3, 2016 | Uncategorized
This didn’t happen to me, but it’s too good a story to pass up, and the friend who told it to me gave me permission to write it.
Seems that a young college couple in love got a dog. The boy duck hunts, and knew that the finest dog in the world is a Labrador Retriever, of course, so that’s what they got. The girl of course fell in love with the Lab, who ended up staying with her that fall while her boyfriend was out of the country for several months on his college co-op job.
As an aside, youngsters, be sure and check your college co-op plans beforehand, to insure that they don’t send YOU overseas during hunting season!
The girl and the Lab became even closer; he went with her everywhere, and that included a visit to friends from down around Natchez. It was there that the tragedy occurred: the Lab was hit by a speeding car. It was fatal.
The coed had to return to school, a college in the Starkville area, almost immediately after the accident, but a friend assured her that he’d retrieve the body and make suitable arrangements. However, the grieving young lady waxed remorseful on the four-hour drive that night. There was a Pet Cemetery close by the college, where several dogs that she knew her Lab had been friends with had been interred, and she realized that’s where her own Lab would be happier in his perpetual rest.
Early that next morning, she called Mama — who lived in Greenville, three hours drive from the college, and a little more than that from Natchez, where the recently deceased Lab was now facing imminent interment. The coed cried on the phone as she told her tale of woe.
She belonged to cry. When one’s friend has been taken in such a terrible manner, it is heart-rending. I understand that some people cry when their dogs other than Labs or beagles die. It’s okay, folks, to cry at such times.
Mama listened.
Mama cried, too.
Mama called Daddy.
Daddy, already at work even at that time of the morn, responded with, “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”
Daddy got into his truck, gassed up, and drove more than three hours to Natchez, to the friend’s home where the deceased had been prepared for burial. They retrieved the body of the retriever and placed it gently in the truck. Then Daddy left for Starkville.
He made the four-hour drive ( he may have taken the Natchez Trace, in which case it should have taken him closer to five hours, with the lower speed limit) and arrived while it was still daylight, to pick up his daughter and friends and be directed to the Pet Cemetery. The procession was fitting, as was the service and interment. Knowing about college daughters myownself, it’s my bet that Daddy bought daughter and friends supper, and they held a proper wake for the Lab. He then took daughter back to her apartment and turned toward home, another three-hour drive away.
That’s ten or eleven hours of driving, very little of it on Interstate Highways, if any.
And it was worth every mile of it.
At first blush, you might say, “Boy, that’s a lot of sugar for a nickel!”
No it ain’t. It is Above and Beyond the Call of Duty, but it’s a rare demonstration of love and understanding of a father for his daughter (and wife!). It’s a respect for the love that daughter shared with her Labrador, not to mention the duck-hunter co-oping absentee boyfriend, who perhaps would have done the same if he had been within 5000 miles, but now has a standard to appreciate and adhere to when he does become a husband, and then a father to a daughter, himself.
I have owned many, many wonderful Labradors, not to mention beagles, as well as a few other breeds, like a Black & Tan hound named Jupiter Pluvius, who inspired a book. I have buried nearly all of them in our own Pet Cemetery out here at Brownspur. On still nights, I can sit out on the balcony with a snifter of Frog Juice and conjure up their voices and personalities, revisiting fine times together, with the whole family they were a part of.
Oh, yeah, Daddy: it was worth the drive. Thanks from all us other daddies.
by Gaila Oliver | Oct 28, 2016 | Uncategorized
When I had just become a grandfather (“Grunked” – “Ganddaddy Uncle Bob” was shortened to “GrandUncle” then to “Grunkle”, ending up “Grunk.”) for the second time, I had a lot of congratulations, as well as a lot of well-wishes for the kid. A couple of friends asked a serious question that started me to cogitating, though: “In these days and times, thinking about raising up a pair of grandsons, what would you wish for them to have, to make their lives as good as yours has been?” As one old classmate observed, “We’ve had a pretty good run at Life, haven’t we?”
Little Dave was right, as usual. We were raised in the best place, in the best times, by the best people that kids could ever have been by. And that includes a whole bunch of good friends who are fast getting long in the tooth right along with me.
So that would be about it: Friends, to go along with Faith and Family, which you’d hope and pray for as they grow. There’s a framed calligraphy in my den saying, “The finest gift a father can leave his children is the knowledge that he loves their mother.” That works, but I’d add to that, “and God.” If you have those two things, you almost got it licked. There could be a lot of frills added, but the main one is, I’d wish for Sean and Leiton to grow up with as good a group of non-blood-kin Uncles and Aunts as I did, and as my own kids did.
Big Robert and Uncle Sam, his brother, did well bringing me up, but I killed my first dove under my Godfather Frank Tindall’s tutelage, and in his field. I acquired the desire and the skill of predator calling from Big Dave Bradham, until a great horned owl almost scalped me one night decades later. I also learned from him an appreciation of being willing and able to try to fix anything, though I never had the knack for it.
Big John Dean was there when I killed my first duck, as well as my first deer, from which he liberally smeared blood on my face first thing. He also sent Little John & me to rake sloughs for crawfish, and purge them before boiling to eat. Uncle Shag Shaifer was magnificent on building a stew, but even more proficient in the hospitality of doing so for a houseful of friends and kids. He also instructed me in the art of coon hunting. Mi’ter Mo’ taught me the art of tight-lining for white perch. Mister Jay looked after me not only in teaching hunting, but the basics of conservation and manners in the outdoors, sometimes enforced forcibly. Mountain Willy reinforced the instruction in firearms I got from Big Robert and Uncle Sam. Unca Tullier (“Too-yay”) taught me all I could ever want to know about salt-water fishing.
I grew up being at home in the houses of all those men and their wives, and they loved me just like they did their own kids, as well as – and this is a biggie, folks – disciplining me right along with theirs when I needed it. Many a Sunday when we’d act up on the Kid’s Pew, there would be a regular belt line before we cleared the church. I was never abused, but I sure got at least what I deserved!
My own kids had the same type of Uncle-&-Aunt fraternity as they grew up: older friends who were no blood kin, with names like James, Dye, McElwee, Daly, Bedford, Steen, Street, Neely, Ross, Crockett, Drake – one of my favorite books, Illusions, says, “You will know your friends better in the first minute you meet them than you will ever know some of your family. The bond that links true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.” Of course, that said, I have to acknowledge the value of Br’er Beau and Mountain Willy to my children’s lives.
So that’d be my wish, for those who asked and started this train of thought: For Sir and “Baby Brudder” to have those type Giants in their lives as they grow older; as well as, of course, for The Grunk and Doots to be around for a long time for their GrandBoys.
I’ve been through a lot in this life, and could have given up several times. The one thing that kept me going in the toughest times was knowing that there were friends to whom I could turn when things got too tough; and that they’d be there when I needed them, for whatever I needed. I can only hope and pray that my GrandBoys will have that type upbringing.
Selah.
by Gaila Oliver | Oct 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
SEVEN-DAY GUMBO
We were planning to go elsewhere to watch the 2009 Cotton Bowl Game between Ole Miss and Texas Tech on the day after New Years – which is the day everyone eats themselves to death. Betsy was determined to take something to feed the crowd of Rebel Rousers that they would not have had since Eating Season began last Thanksgiving. She mulled it over, checked the freezer, and it was revealed unto her: “I’m going to make a big pot of Goose Gumbo!” she announced.
“Big Pot” would be the right choice of words. She has one of those what I call, from my Navy days, “K-P Pots” that one can actually crawl into and scrub the bottom of, if one just has to scrub the bottom of the pot. Such a thing is unheard of in the Navy, and at men’s hunting camps, where that pot previously served time. I rescued the Big Pot from outside on The Store (our guest house – the remodeled old plantation commissary Store) porch, where it had last been used possibly for a fish fry, or maybe to boil a deer skull and antlers clean. She did insist that I crawl in and scrub the bottom, which brought to mind a similar pot on one of the Kairos Prison Ministry weekends for ladies, when we men were cooking for 110 women, team and inmates together, for the three-day weekend.
About the middle of the second day when we were cleaning up from lunch in preparation to cook supper, we heard a dank echo from the young man whose designated job, due to his small statue, was Big Pot Bottom Scrubber. Larry croaked loud enough for us to hear, “Cleanliness is ‘WAAAY over-rated!”
However, I even knocked off the dirt dauber nests around the Big Pot, brought it into the kitchen, and mirated over the amount of meat that Betsy had dug out of the freezer, especially since it was the day after Christmas, over a week before the Rebels were due to play. “Hey, those are specklebellies,” I pointed out. We had picked those better-tasting geese, so as to roast them for a dinner. Nay, nay – she dumped those into the pot to thaw, along with the blues, snows, and a Canada goose or two, as well as a few ducks, doves, what I thought was a squirrel or possibly a small coon, a venison loin, and a chicken for the stock.
Mid-day next, I walked into the house to the most wonderful smells. Gumbo was obviously going to be the main course for supper! I salivated throughout the afternoon, but was greeted by fried venison steaks, rice & gravy, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, cornbread, and soggum ‘lasses for dessert on another piece of hot buttered cornbread. Mighty good, but she warned me away from the gumbo.
Too late to make a long story short, but she had decided there was not going to be any discussion like unto: “Wow! This gumbo was really good last night, but tonight it’s absolutely wonderful! How come it’s always better the second (or third or fourth – however long it lasts) day?” Of course, the answer is always, “Because the flavors have more time to blend, if you just give it a few days in the fridge.”
Seven-Day Gumbo! We waited a full week before attacking that Big Pot, and I’m here to tell you that it was the best gumbo anyone anywhere ever put into their mouth. The smell of it all the way over to Dallas inspired the Rebels to play over their heads and soundly defeat a team picked to beat them by two touchdowns even though they started out two touchdowns behind before Betsy actually began to serve the gumbo. Our family Texans, after that first bowl, never cheered whatever it is that Red Raiders cheer, but joined us enthusiastically in “Hotty Toddy” after each worthy Rebel play. The event that Betsy had prepared Seven-Day Gumbo for was worthy of her efforts, and the flavors were perfectly blended.
She might be talked into building you a Seven-Day Gumbo for your next Big Event, if of course you provide the ingredients – that’s her provision. But here’s mine: we ain’t building any more Seven-Day Gumbos around Brownspur. I lost nearly ten pounds just smelling that Big Pot for a week, before she let me put a spoon in it. No doubt the flavors were blended; but I’m gonna at least taste yours!
by Gaila Oliver | Oct 14, 2016 | Uncategorized
SLOB HUNTERS
The Opening Weekend of Dove Season “has came and went,” as Big Robert used to put it, and for many, it was a less than satisfactory opening, being so wet just before. Here at Brownspur, we had ten days of rain before Opening Day, and conditions like that are hard to hunt after even if the birds were flying, which they mostly weren’t.
However, hunters never get to pick the weather anyway. You take your chances, and if the weather doesn’t suit you, then just wait a little while and it will change.
We ran upon a couple of younger hunters who were making the most of the climate, however: they were staying in a dry-on-the-inside, air-conditioned Chevy pickup truck with a Mississippi State license tag. They were getting some birds, too. They were driving along rural roads shooting doves off the power lines!
It was right after lunch, when we suddenly heard shots fairly close to the house – or, rather, fairly close to Lawrence’s house, just down the road. However, we sometimes shoot out in the pasture there, so for a moment we assumed it was just one of the boys shooting doves beyond the Swimming Hole, until two blasts sounded right in front of MY house. “Someone’s shootin’ off the road!” my neighbor exclaimed, and we charged down the driveway, but too late to catch the offender. We watched as the truck stopped a couple more times to shoot doves off the wires, and then it turned around at the Slab Road to start back, doing the same thing!
The two of us ran back down the driveway to get vehicles, and as the truck approached, durned if it didn’t stop again, almost in front of the house, to pick off another dove. But this time, another truck appeared at the end of the driveway, to pull across and block the road. The driver of the shooting truck glanced backwards to check his escape route, but a second truck pulled out of that drive, to block the road. The kid in the back of the truck laid down, thinking he maybe hadn’t been seen, but it was too obvious. He was ordered up and out, and a short discussion was held on the subject of shooting doves off the wires, which is not only illegal, but dangerous.
All of us involved were hunters, but most of us are disgusted at the image some hunters present to the public. “Slob hunters” hurt everyone who loves the sport.
Later, I described the event to our local power company manager, and he nodded sadly. “Every year when dove season opens, we have at least one line shot in two by slob hunters like those two boys,” he declared. “This year is the first time we have not had that happen, I guess because the weather kept hunters out of the field. But we generally have to keep a crew for repairs on Opening weekend, because someone loses power.”
He went on to state that the practice of shooting doves off the wires does a great deal more damage than the times a line is shot slap in two. “Usually what happens is that the shot break some of the aluminum wires which are twisted together to carry the current. Then when it rains next time, the line either shorts out there, or else the current is reduced, because the wires are frayed, so the homes on that line get power surges and low voltage, which can burn out appliances and lights.” Then when rain, winds, and ice come along in the winter, those lines are the first to go out, or to break.
Most shotgunners don’t think about the fact that pellets can break the individual wires, without cutting the line in two, which a rifle bullet would do instantly. However, riflemen are not without guilt in the electric field. The insulators on the poles are favorite targets, for some stupid reason. Why someone would shoot out an insulator on purpose is beyond me, but slob hunters do it. There again, it is illegal and dangerous, but slobs who would do things like that obviously lack brain power.
I once watched a telephone company repairman in a sling-chair-type outfit, in which he gingerly pulled himself along a heavy phone wire swung across a drainage ditch between two poles. When he got almost halfway, he halted and called, “Here it is!” The break was caused a by a rifle bullet, and it took a couple of hours to splice back together. Since my phone was one of the ones that was out, I hung around to thank the guy for fixing it on a Sunday. He shrugged: “This happens during hunting season. Slob hunters. But it really gives me a pucker factor to trust my weight to that line. Who knows if it’s going to be too weak to support me, and may break before I get to the shot place.”
Listen, guys! Shoot doves, not light lines, phones lines, or road signs, like Slobs do.
by Gaila Oliver | Oct 8, 2016 | Uncategorized
Three days in a row last week the dawn broke onto “misty, moisty” weather, as some poet from my childhood put it. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it ain’t gun deer season yet.
I don’t bow hunt, because of a separated shoulder suffered in Ole Miss football a long time ago. While I have plenty of strength to pull the bowstring back, that action somehow puts a strain on the injured joint, and it will lock, which is decidedly inconvenient fifteen feet up in a tree! An old comrade of mine from the football wars has tried to convince me to get a crossbow these past few years, but I’ve put it off. That second misty moisty morning, I wished I’d listened to him.
Because it is a joy to hunt in that kind of weather. I don’t mean when it’s raining hard, or even steady, but more like being in a fog where you have to cut your windshield wipers on intermittent, if you happen to be driving in it. The woods are wet, yet the leaves move a little, though slowly, and you can ease along without making any noise. A misty, moisty morning is not a day for sitting in a stand; it’s a day for still-hunting, the which a better name might be slip-hunting, because you slip along slowly and silently enjoying seeing the game before they see you. For instance, on one morning like that, I spied a coyote slipping toward me carrying something in its jaws, and I froze beside a big tree. The canine slowed and walked behind a big tree himself, but didn’t reappear. I eased my head out just far enough to catch a glimpse of his flank, seeing that he had lain down.
Deer hunting was forgotten for the moment. I was so caught up in the dripping silence of the woods, that I began easing forward, keeping his tree between us, to see how close I could get before the coyote bolted.
Close! I arrived at the other side of his tree, peeked slowly around it, and the wild canine was gnawing a deer shoulder bone, completely unaware of my presence. Okay, he was facing away from me, so I eased my rifle up, because we war against the toothy predators here at Brownspur. They eat our cats (not always bad!) and have been known to pack up against tame dogs. Yet I hated to break the silence of the woods that misty, moisty morning.
But the coyote survived our meeting. When I peered through the scope, I realized that a 2½ power scope was not an effective sight at six feet! All I could see was hair, and as I searched the lens for an eye or ear, the varmint somehow got a premonition. I reckon I’m lucky he didn’t charge!
One of the biggest bucks I ever saw was during this type morning. I was slipping through a canebrake along an old logging road, and glanced down when one foot slipped slightly in the mud. When I looked back up, this huge buck was standing broadside less than fifty yards away – the legendary Still Tank Buck, all 18 points of him! He was looking right at me, so my only chance was to draw, but by the time my rifle was to my shoulder, he was long gone in the canebrake.
I knew he had 18 points because Mr. Jay, the King of the Island, told me. He ran cattle on the island, and used to rope bucks when he’d jump them. His quarter horse, Skyball, was an expert at that sport, and I’ll bet that at least two dozen times I’ve been a witness when a hunter would come into his cabin to report a good kill, like, “I got a 12-point between the dry lake beds today.”
Mr. Jay might reply, “Was one of his tines on the left antler kind of nubbed down?” When the hunter confirmed that, Mr. Jay would say, “Look at his left ear and see if it doesn’t have two notches in it. I roped that buck a month ago.” And the notches would be there. I bagged a big 10-point we called “The Plum Thicket Buck” one year, and when I went in his cabin to brag, sure enough, he had notched the big buck’s ear. He said the first time he’d roped a buck, Skyball had flipped it, like he did a cow, but the buck came up off the ground and charged the horse. After that, Skyball would flip the deer, then turn and run the rope around a tree, so as to snug the buck up to the other side of it. I’m sure the Still Tank Buck was notched, like Mr. Jay said that misty, moisty morning, and that he had 18 points.
by Gaila Oliver | Sep 27, 2016 | Uncategorized
COON SETTING ON THE MICROWAVE
We’ve gotten kidded a lot over the years for being a family that eats a variety of stuff, some of which isn’t considered particularly edible by city folks. A former Game & Fish Commission Chief conned me (through the printed word, which may be a crime of some sort) into eating even grilled beaver tail, though when I accused him of malice aforethought years later, he opined that I’d obviously left out the garlic in his recipe.
The biological father of The Virgin Killer declares that I regularly fed his daughter on roadkill that I picked up on the way back to Brownspur in the evenings. At least he gives me credit for picking up fresh roadkill, and not something that’s laid there all day.
While I’ve not regularly picked up roadkill, I must confess to once picking up a young buck that jumped into the side of a pickup ahead of us, which kept on going without stopping. The buck was still kicking, and why let it go to waste? We swung it into the back of our truck and were home in 15 minutes, where we dressed it out. That sort of thing may be against the law nowadays, I understand.
Several times I’ve picked up rabbits that took a glancing blow from a vehicle in front of me. Of course, if they’d been squushed, I’d not have fooled with them. They tasted fine, and didn’t have a single # 6 shot in them.
When I was a kid, and it snowed out here at Brownspur, we boys would arm ourselves, snag a pocketful of matches, along with a little salt and pepper, and walk the ditchbanks. When lunchtime hit, or even snacktime, we’d build a fire and cook some of whatever we’d bagged. I’ve eaten from a pointed stick grilled over a fire: blackbirds, robins, fieldlarks (which are a lot like dark meat quail), as well as the more palatable doves, quail, snipe, and woodcock. A lot of people don’t know that both hawk and owl are white meat, like chicken. Of course, we’d take home for more civilized preparation the big game: rabbits, squirrels, coons, possums, and ducks.
On excursions into the coastal marshes with Cousin Barrow and Uncle Tullier (“Too-yay”), we’d boil up crabs right on the boat, and the best oysters I ever hope to taste came fresh from Monkey Bayou, swished in the water by the skiff to get the mud off, then pitched up on the fantail for mate Buddy Manual to open with a heavy jackknife. We scooped them right out of the shell, the briny water dripping off our fingers as we gobbled them without any sauce, even catsup. Most we had to bite in two. But you know what? I’d bet that the first guy to eat an oyster was either doggone hungry, or else took a double-dog dare! Same with clams, and boiled okra. Some good stuff doesn’t LOOK good!
We love crawdads, and while Betsy doesn’t care much for it, I go for fried or grilled rattlesnake. Fried beaver tastes a lot like duck, ‘scusing the tail. Stay with the dark meat. Snapping turtle is rich dark meat, and makes great soup, too. Soft-shell turtles, however, are white meat, and taste a lot like froglegs. We used to find turtle eggs and boil them for a while (they never get hard), then pinch the top out of the leathery shell, salt the contents, and squeeze the insides into our mouths. They were good.
I’ve dined on snails, shark, “lamb fries,” mountain oysters, pig’s feet, and chit’lin’s, though if I had my druthers, I’d druther not be within smelling range of the latter when they’re cooking. I’ve had ox tail soup and chicken foot soup, and a lot of stews, purloos, and gumbos that I didn’t EVEN want to know what was mixed in, but it sure tasted good!
Once, when I was real young, and on one of those expeditions, I fried up and ate a buzzard egg – and it would take another double dog dare to make me do that again!
Okay, we’ve established that this family has appetites for varied feasts. Personally, I don’t eat olives or onions, but that goes back to football, and you may not want to hear those stories while your own appetite has just been whetted by the above. Everything else (‘scusing beaver tail, of course) is at least eligible for consideration as table fare.
Okay, now: I want you to imagine that you’ve been a friend of this family for over five years, a regular visitor in the home, and at the table. Imagine that you had courted one of the children of this family, successfully, and have finally married into the family.
So maybe you can understand why son-in-law John glanced behind him the other night, as we were sitting down at the table for supper, and he heard a “Ding.” He remarked, “You know you’re at Brownspur, when your microwave has a Coon Setting!”
No, it doesn’t, really. The “Cook” has a light out on the last letter. Just looks like “Coon.” But it WAS a natural assumption, perhaps! I wonder…. Naw, probably not.
by Gaila Oliver | Sep 23, 2016 | Uncategorized
AUTUMN APPRECIATION
A longtime colleague of mine is fixing to leave the Delta for a city somewhat Up Nawth of here, and we were driving a back road the other day when she took a deep breath and declared, “I’m going to miss the smells of the Delta so much – I love the smoky smell of a Delta Fall!”
There it is: the land where we live, during this time of the year when farmers are burning off rice fields, or someone is burning a pile of leaves, or a county crew is burning off a ditchbank. Of course, she didn’t mean the thick, choking cloud of smoke like when you’re close to the fire, but just the vague smoky smell that’s always in the air this time of year. I had to agree with her, though I amended her version to include a whiff of burnt gunpowder, slightly tinged with gun oil, and threw in a touch of ripe muscadine odor.
She was feeling nostalgic, and allowed my amendments. I shared that one of my favorite autumn smells was the perfume of ripe cotton, when the fields are mostly white, but before they are defoliated. I no longer farm (and praise the Lord that I ain’t got a dog in that hunt this year!) but that smell lingers with me each fall to remind me of the good ole days when farming was still fun.
Driving back home this afternoon, after a couple of cool spells the past two weeks, I could see autumn coming. Autumn and turkey season are the times of the year when I am most sympathetic with son Adam, who is color-blind. He cannot see the early signs of autumn here in the Delta: the bright red of the sumac and poison oak leaves, the dark red rust of the cypresses, the warm orange of the sassafras leaves (which may be ground and used as gumbo file’), the startling yellow of the persimmon leaves as the fruit ripens and drops, nor the purple shades of the sweetgums.
Actually, it’s hard to categorize sweetgum leaves: the majority of them might be purple, but they come in all shades from red and yellow to orange and pink. Trying to blood-trail a wounded buck through a stand of sweetgums is well-nigh impossible – unless it is night and your son is color-blind! Most folks don’t know that color-blind people pick up the sheen of wet blood drops in the dusk better than normal-seeing people. At least, until the dew rises.
Betsy and I sat out on the screen porch after supper with a glass of wine from the aforementioned muscadines. As the dusk darkened to night, the little screech owls cranked up behind the house, calling to each other with their quavering cries. Really hot weather seems to shut them up, but when autumn arrives, they sure love to talk to each other, and we love to hear them. We’ve raised several screech owls to maturity, and they make the finest pets a family could ever hope for. We like to think – and we’re probably correct – that the ones calling out here at Brownspur tonight are the progeny of Hoot, Gordo, Don Quixote, or Monfred, the Red Baron.
Then a bigger owl started hooting at the back of the yard, next to the Mammy Grudge (the canal that runs through Brownspur). It was either a barred owl or a great horned owl, and it was rather low-key about hooting until another answered it from over toward Rick’s Woods. The two owls woke up the family of red wolves that den up somewhere over that direction. We were glad to hear them again; they had been silent for a few months. Come to think of it, we hadn’t heard a pack of coyotes all summer either, but since it got a little cooler, these has been a pack come fairly close every few nights.
Early that next morning, when I went outside to empty yesterday’s coffee grounds, I had to stare in awe at the bright sky. There was a half moon, but it was sure bright, and Orion the Hunter was perched right over the big cottonwood tree on the ditchbank. The stars don’t seem this bright in the summer or winter, for some reason. The moon had a golden ring about it, and I spouted off the verses from “The Wreck Of The Hesperus”: “Then up spake an old sailor, had sailed to the Spanish Main, ‘I prithee, put into yonder port, for I fear a hurricane: last night the moon had a golden ring, and tonight no moon we see!’ The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, and a scornful laugh laughed he.”
I inhaled a deep breath of the vaguely smoky air, squinted at the bright yellow leaves on the persimmon tree shining in the moonlight, and went to make Slung Coffee.
by admin | Sep 18, 2016 | Uncategorized
This did not happen to me, but I was there in the field, and got permission to turn it unto what Betsy calls “Column Fodder” from the landowner, okay?
In all my born days, I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed someone having to be ambulanced out of a dove field. Don’t be asking me about deer hunts or quail shoots or duck blinds, now. But this was in a dove field, Opening Day weekend, when the temperature is around 100, and us old folks recruit a youngster to retrieve our doves that we fail to make fall in our laps. I had one of those, my nephew Will, and I was appreciating the boy with a new eye for his talents, to the point at which I started shooting at the same dove he was, so he could legitimately go get “our” doves on a regular basis. Oh, I went and got some myownself, especially the ones that landed close to the water supply.
Anyhoo, this was a typical large sunflower & soybean field, with enough hunters to keep the birds from alighting in the middle. But just in case, we had a guy who was shooting high brass shells in his 12 gauge shotgun stationed to occasionally rake the field and scare up any feeding doves. Necessarily, these shots were low, but he was careful not to get close to anyone.
However, just the concussion of a high brass 12 gauge shotgun going off in one’s direction will often make your eardrums pop a little, and there’s a little “Oomph” in the sound that makes one take an extra breath.
Now, one of our hunters had recently had heart surgery, and the surgeons had implanted something that is called a Defibrillator and I ain’t atall sure of the spelling there. It apparently makes one’s heart beat on a regular rhythm instead of jumping around like in a wild turkey blind when two different gobblers are answering you. Our Well Man, Billy Schultz, obviously has something similar, but he claims “They gave my wife the remote control, doggonnit!”
But our Labor Day Hero had a worse experience: he had moved a little closer to the edge of the sunflowers, and when our dove-runner-upper turned aloose a couple of rounds from that high brass twelve, he suddenly clutched his chest and bellowed, “Hey, that guy (okay, family content, right?) shot me!’ He sat on his stool and began to pull out his shirttail to see how many pellets had actually penetrated his chest. With all the 1) chest hair to search through, and 2) the doves flying, his sons judged him to be fine, just peppered a little, and turned their attention back to the important stuff – shooting.
But a little while later when it slowed down, the high brass shooter turned another volley aloose to make some birds move. “Arrrgghhh! He shot me again,” cried our Hero, and almost fell off his stool. This time, revenge rather than actual injury was the focus of our Labor Day Hero. “I’m gonna shoot him back!” he roared to his sons, who were once again searching through the bushes on the supposedly wounded chest to check for penetration and blood. None showed, and the doves began flying again, so the boys went back to shooting, the younger one responding to his father’s threats with, “Aw, Daddy, you ain’t got nothin’ but low brass shells, so you might as well forget about shootin’ back at ‘im!”
Yet the third time was the charm, and knocked our Hero slap off his stool, collapsing him into the sunflowers, gasping for breath. That got everyone’s attention, and the sons left to hustle their Daddy to the hospital 12 miles away, calling Momma on the way, to meet them.
Listen: this is important, especially if they decide to insert one of those Defibrillators in YOUR chest. They apparently warn you about standing next to microwaves, or drums at a concert, or your wife’s hair dryer. One of the things often NOT listed is that some shotguns, shooting high brass shells, can produce a concussion that will ignite a charge in your chest, even if the shooter isn’t close enough to hit you! Another argument for using low brass shells in a dove field!
(Blogged by Robert Hitt Neill)
