Fishin/Huntin Stories

Well, here's #2 son Josh with one of his catches. He and my dad went to Dad's favorite honey hole in the 101 degree heat to fish yesterday afternoon. They caught a good mess of big-mouth bass that I'm sure we'll enjoy in the very near future. As we speak, those lovely filets are sitting in a bowl of salted water in the fridge ( draws out the fishy taste) and will be frying in the outside cooker in no time!

I was raised on fish, venison, quail, dove, squirrel, rabbit, occasional moose, turkey, duck, froglegs - you name it, I've eaten it. My daddy was the biggest hunter/fisher you ever saw. Every Saturday, you could find him at any one of a number of lakes or river bottoms, or if it was hunting season, any number of backwoods places sittin in a tree or a deerstand or stalking some varmint or bird with his dogs. I know there are alot of you folks out there who are aghast at such things, but I'm sorry, that's the way it is in much of the South, especially Texas. I'm a country girl and such things don't bother me. In fact, I'm pretty proud of it - "...and a country boy can survive..." - Hank Williams Jr.

My boys are proudly carrying on this tradition, and even somewhat, my princess. She's certainly spent some of her time sitting in deer stands in her camo jumpsuit & boots and sitting patiently in the boat or on the pier with a fishing rod. We have deer heads and antlers and ducks hanging majestically on the walls of our sons' bedrooms. I'm sorry, I don't especially think they are good decor in the living room - I will draw the line there.

This is gross, but I just thought of something - when dad would bring a big cooler full of fish home and he was in the back yard fileting them, my little sister and I would get us a stick and poke the eyeballs of the fish (they were dead, don't worry). They don't have eyelids ya know, so it was great fun to poke those marble sized eyeballs and watch them roll around - they wouldn't pop tho no matter how much we tried - they'd just roll around. Our 20 lb Siamese cat, Bandit, would sit patiently by, waiting for dad to throw him a fish head or some guts.

I don't poke fish eyeballs anymore - kinda grew outa that...

I used to tease my daddy that I didn't know what beef was until I was allowed to date and my boyfriends would take me out for a steak! Of course, we had other things besides wild game, but it's part of my heritage. I love wild game. Daddy brings me a deer nearly every fall (if one of the boys don't shoot one), quartered, and I go to it on the granite island in my kitchen - cutting up the backstrap, the steaks & good cuts of meat. Then the rest is trimmed off to take to the meat market where they'll grind it up into ground meat and some mixed with pork & seasonings added to make sausage. A very lean sausage I might add. Venison is so lean - must be good for ya.

I used to love to go hunting with daddy before I married. Quail hunting was my favorite. I love to watch the bird dogs run around, sniffing, and then when they find birds, they freeze into whatever position the birds are first smelt. Dad would creep up quietly and the dogs would wait until dad gave the order to flush. Then there'd be a frantic whooshing of wings in several different directions and bang! bang! Then the dogs would fetch the birds and come drop them in front of dad. They get so excited- this is what they absolutely live for. Demon, my dad's best dog, would run through cactus, stickers, briars, but would NEVER stop. He's come home with his feet all cut up to where he couldn't walk and with skint places and cuts all over him. Daddy would baby him and soak his feet in epsom salts and play nursemaid to him and then they'd go back out and do it again the next time. Old Demon loved to hunt and he loved my dad. Daddy even made him some little leather booties to wear. That dog would come back from a 2-3 day hunt having lost several pounds and be all boney!

When we'd hunt dove, Dad would shoot them and me & my little sis would be the bird dogs, careful to watch where they fell. (can't use dogs on dove - at least around here) It was fun to see who could find theirs first. I'm surprised we didn't find a snake or two in all that brush!

A funny story about my brother - one time Dad took my brother, Dan, who was 12 at the time, deer hunting. In the dark they got up and went out to their places to hunt. It was sleeting off and on, bitter cold (but that's good deer hunting weather) and Dad told my brother to sit on an old tree stump where he had good cover and could see the clearing where the deer passed through. Well, he stayed there until dad came back to get him a few hours later. He hadn't moved the entire time - and lo, and behold, he was stuck to the stump! His coveralls had completely frozen in the sleet to the stump! Wish I could have seen that! Daddy had to pull him off!

Well, guess that's all for today. SorryI haven't posted in awhile. I've been busy spending time with my Nashville boy. It was great having him home for a week. I miss him so much! Take care - happy hunting! Vickie

Thursday & Friday Sales

Good morning all- I'm at work now - it's Friday, ya know - garage sale day. Ran into Margo at a nice estate sale yesterday morning. 'Round here, the Estate sales usually start on Thursday, 25% off on Friday and 50% off on Saturday. By Saturday, there's not much of anything that you'd want left. Anyway, I usually see Margo somewhere. You'd think we planned it. Guess we both have a good nose for which sales to go to cuz we see each other alot. We're looking for different things usually, so there's no competition. It's good to see her - she's become a good friend, got a big hug from her, and she always has on some of her beautiful vintage T2T jewelry. She is so talented - she can take trash and make into something beautiful. If you've not visited her site you should! I love her new project with the door. I saved a couple of doors from our farmhouse, so maybe I can do something along those lines someday!

I have to go buy another memory card for my camera. That's why there's been no pictures lately. My lovely Princess lost my card for me.

I did get a few goodies from the sales. Hope to post some photos for you this weekend maybe. One of the estate sales I went to was the home of Mrs. Gaiser - she was a Sunday School teacher of mine when I was young and I went to church with her for part of my life - she is in a nursing home now. She had a party for our GA's class at her home, and when I went in there yesterday, it brought back fun memories. Her home seemed not to have changed at all. In fact, she had alot of the same items there from 40 years ago. It's fun to go into people's homes and see their lives - where they've traveled, the mementos that they've collected, what was important to them. I bought a pretty green vintage cracker tin with a crystal knob, an old hankie, some wooden spools of thread, some OLD TV trays, & an old enamel-ware foot-bath style pan. Today I found a birdcage with pink roses already in it for Princess' room and a nice swag wreath that only needs the ribbon changed out. I did pretty good. And everything was fairly cheap.

What am I going to do? My husband thinks the farmhouse should be completely decorated by now? He wants to know why I'm still buying stuff. Can you imagine? How can I stop going to sales now? It's in my blood. Is there a place where you can just say, OK that's all? Can you ever be finished? I don't think so! This has become a habit now. It's too late - it's terminal. Thursday and Friday mornings just wouldn't be the same if I couldn't go to some sales before work. My boss is getting used to me being 15-30 minute late. Besides that, I'm used to seeing Margo around. What would she do without me! :^) Hubby's just gonna have to get over it!

By the way, I appreciate your sympathetic comments about me whining about "empty-nest syndrome". I'm sure I'll be alright. You know, when you have a little "discussion" with your child that's about to leave, you just want to pull your hair out and give 'em an extra boot on the backside on the way out the door. Then you wanna pull 'em back in and hold on tight. I'm so happy right now cuz my Nashville boy is here for about 10 days! Does a mother's heart good!!!!!!!

Have a great weekend everybody - stay cool! Love you all - Vickie

Musings on Kids leaving home...

What a fun gizmo! Thanks, Vee for sending me to The Little Red House! I was wondering what I was going to post about today, and here it is! This looked fun altho I really didn't know what lines of type to put on it. May not be intriguing enough to make you want to turn the pages, but I thought it was fun to see what my pic would look like! Kinda neat!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been working alot, and sometimes I guess things get so routine I don't think I have much to say that would be interesting to anybody else. I am feeling somewhat better so that's good. My son from Nashville is coming home this week for about 10 days and I'm trying to get the house cleaned up. It's funny that when your grown kids come home you want everything to be just perfect - maybe to make them miss being there? Don't know. What do I want then - for him to move back home? No, it's as it should be for them to move on with their lives.

Here's my little tangent I'll go off on today. I guess I'm feeling a little empty nest syndrome. Never thought I would. My husband and I thought we were ready for all the little chicks to leave the nest - we couldn't wait to have no responsibilities at home and take off at will and do what we wanted- but now my baby girl is fixing to leave in a couple of weeks. We've been getting her apartment junk ready and gathering all her things together to make the big move to college. We went to Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters and IKEA Saturday in the Dallas area and bought all the necessary bedspread, pillows, cutsie girl things that she feels she needs to make her room look cool. Her dad sat outside the stores and waited while we shopped and became the necessary beast of burden to carry all our purchases - which turned out to be quite alot. We also bought a cool black iron bed for her apartment which I wouldn't mind having for myself actually, and I'll post a picture of her apartment sometime for your approval. The re-furbishing bug has bitten her, too, after re-doing the farmhouse. We bought an antique chest of drawers and desk & chair that she's going to re-do herself! You go, Princess!

(An aside here -These are the moments that we've raised them for, isn't it? It's scary - to me, scarier for my daughter than my two sons. I hope we've done right by them, that we've helped them to become independent and responsible. I hope that we've instilled a love for others as well as God and a desire to serve him. I know they are still young and have to find their own way. I know I did. It took me awhile to become mature enough as a Christian to learn to put God and all things spiritual first in my life. I assume it will take a little time for them to do that too. I hope that their Dad and I have been good role models. I hope I live long enough to see them all married to Christian mates and striving to instill the Christian ideals and heritage into their own kids that have run in our families for generations. That is my ultimate prayer - after that prayer that the Lord will come back quickly.)

Princess will be 20 on the 20th of this month. I got to have her at home a couple of extra years while she was trying to decide what she wanted to do and went to the local jr. college. She NEEDS to get out on her own and learn to appreciate Mom and Dad. She'll look over at me now and smile, and say "mom, you're gonna miss me", and I'll say, "baby, you're gonna miss me, too, more than you know". I know it's true, but she doesn't realize it yet. I've been trying to back off from doing so much for her as she's grown older, but I know I still do too much. She and I have been buddies, cohorts in shopping and crime, sparring partners, cat fighters, but best friends in the end. She doesn't have a sister, unfortunately. I hope that I haven't been so close that she doesn't have good friends her own age. She's had best friends in her life to come and go, but I want her to make some best buddies that she can depend on and have fun with FOR LIFE. I have some - but I have a dear sister who is my BEST FRIEND in the whole world. I want my daughter to have someone she can call her best friend, that'll be there through thick and thin. I won't always be around ya know. I think she and her cousin Erin are actually becoming closer. Erin is my sister's daughter who lives in the metroplex. The girls are still a couple of years apart, but Erin doesn't have a sister either and we are hoping that they will become closer. Now that they can drive and travel alone they have been spending more time together.

We will still have our middle son at home for awhile (he's been in and out a couple of times) and he's the one that's the most difficult to live with. You see - he's the slob in the family. He leaves a trail wherever he goes. Doesn't seem to bother him in the least. He's impeccable in his style and dress and grooming habits, but the things around him he could care less about - his room, the bathroom, the kitchen (he likes to cook), wherever he goes. I've taken to just closing his door as I've been fighting with him about it for 22 years and nothing has changed. I feel sorry for his future wife... He's still in college, too, and I'm about ready for him to get done and find his own place to live. Sounds terrible, but I've about had it with his slobbiness. :^)

Well, I did find something to post about. We had a good day yesterday at church and celebrated my best girlfriend's 50th birthday last night at a surprise party for her. (my best non-sister friend) It was good to be with friends and laugh and joke (at her expense of course) with the "over the hill" cake and all that goes along with that. It's a blessing that we're all still here and still celebrating birthdays! Thank you Lord! Ya'll have a great week!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Sorry I'm just now getting to the 4th post! I've been at the farm this weekend and we enjoyed all the traditional going's on. We had a patriotic service at church Wednesday that swelled my heart with love and pride not only for my country but with thankfulness to God above.

God Bless America

Land that I Love.
Stand Beside Her
and Guide Her
Through the Night
With the Light From Above.
From the Mountains
to the Prairies
to the Oceans
White with Foam.
God Bless America,

MY HOME, SWEET HOME.

I love this song. I love America. I'm very proud of her, and I'm extremely patriotic. We live in the best country in all the world, despite her problems. I would rather live here than anywhere else on earth. I'm proud of our ancestors who came to this great land, I'm proud of our soldiers who still fight for freedom - for us and for others around the world. I'm proud of our technology nowadays and all the advances we've made in medicine and industry.

Most of all I'm proud that STILL in this great land, there are people who love the Lord, who remember why people came to this country in the first place - for religious freedom to worship a Living God. And that those people will continue on in the challenge to love and not let worldliness and terrorism bring us down. I'm proud of God-fearing policitians and public officials that are not afraid to take a stand for right - no matter whether they are Republican or Democrat. I'm proud of all Americans, no matter the color, when they can come together for a common cause for good and not let party divide.

Most of all, I'm extremely blessed and thankful to have freedom in Christ Jesus. Freedom from the penalty of sin, freedom from law, free to love and to serve and the free gift of salvation that comes through Christ. I'm proud of being a Christian and that my family members are Christians, also. I am free to worship my Lord how I see fit according to His divine will. I am truly blessed beyond measure, and so I celebrate the 4th of July with all my heart. I will sing the patriotic songs, I will say the pledge of allegiance again, I will pray for God's blessings on my nation & forgiveness for our sins, and I will remember all those who've gone before me to bring me to where I am today.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!!!! Vickie

******************************HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!*******************************