A Riverview Christmas story

At my age, you never wish for another week to go by, but this is one that I will not mind seeing in my rear view mirror. Now that I have finally gotten my brain cells down to a manageable level, I don't have any excess cells floating around to call into action. We have been completely full all week long with guests. In addition to being full, we have had several large groups request to spend an extra night. Now I do not handle the cottage assignments, guides, hunting course assignments,etc. any more. However, I certainly got sucked into a situation this week that was not of my making.
 As I was sitting at my desk reading on Monday, I heard Cader IV mumbling and groaning, and then I heard those fateful words," Uh, Dad , we have a little problem, and I need you to walk in to my office for a minute". Well, the "little problem" was that we had nine groups spending Thursday night here, but we only have eight guest cottages. Cader discovered this on Monday. Normally we pray for no cancellations here. This time we prayed to lose two guests between Monday and Thursday night. Any other time that we would hope not to lose a guest or two, we would inevitably do so. Not this time!
 So, now we get to the Christmas story part that everyone is familiar with. Thursday night approached, and there was " no room in the Inn". I had a solution, but it required selecting the right two guests, and negotiating a tough deal with my son whose butt was in a sling.
 I knew that Martha was going to a play in Albany on Thursday night. I also knew that Martha had just remodeled her utility room. I told Cader IV that I would pick one of our parties of two, and turn our home over to them for one night if he would pick up the remodeling costs on our utility room. I have learned that is always more fun to negotiate with someone when you have them bent over a barrel. Oh, did I mention that Cader's daughter, Caroline has the flu, and my home was the only game in town. I also knew that our house guests would be in bed before Martha and the ladies returned from the play around midnight. I also knew that we would have a cottage ready for them the next morning when one of my overnight groups departed after breakfast. It seemed like a slam dunk to me, and it was.
 One of our twosomes was two real nice brothers from Oklahoma, Mike and Mark. I took them to my house after dinner at the lodge, opened them a bottle of wine, and bid them goodnight as I retired to my bedroom. They were most gracious at being asked to sacrifice and  stay in our home for one night, and everything worked like a charm. Cader IV is not too happy since he just paid for a utility room renovation at my home, but I bet he will not make that mistake again. As I shared with him, I did the same think once during my time at the head of the company.
 We have one more week before we close for our Christmas break here. We always like to give the guides,dogs, and kitchen staff a solid week's break at Christmas since that is almost the midpoint of our season. I will enjoy Christmas because I get to spend more time with my children and grandchildren. There was a period of time after my mother passed away in 1985 that Christmas was more sad than fun for me. But then grandchildren came along, and made it very real and special to me again. I have had to grow mature enough to accept that sometimes, no matter how much faith we have, we lose people we love.But we never forget those loved ones, and sometimes, it's those memories that give us the faith to go on. I see my parents in my children and grandchildren, and rejoice that God is in heaven, and He has a plan for my life and my family. Merry Christmas to all of you!

Holidays

Years ago when I was first beginning my career here as a " social director for the over-privileged", an old Oklahoma oilman said to me." Son, I love the holidays and all of the holiday lights, but the prettiest lights that I ever see during the holidays are the tail lights on the cars of my children and grandchildren as they are leaving my house". I have finally lived long enough to understand what he meant. I am a firm believer in the old adage that it is the time spent with children rather than the money spent on them that counts the most. Martha and I spent three full days with our family running a full court press over the Thanksgiving holiday period, and we were worn slam out when everyone left.Grandchildren are such a blessing, but they do not have an "off" button.
 Much to my chagrin, I just realized that Christmas is just around the corner, and we will have to "lock and load" all over again shortly. Whose bright idea was it to schedule Christmas and Thanksgiving so close together in the first place ?
 Now that football season is over I can really concentrate on the important business of quail hunting. For the few of you who may not have caught the score, my beloved Georgia Bulldogs lost to our arch rivals, the Insects from the North Avenue Trade School, also known as Georgia Tech. So, for me, the football season is over. Some of you may still have teams in the running, and I wish you well if that is the case.
 We are running wide open at Riverview now. Most of the fall has been abnormally cold, but we have hit a week this week that is running about 10 degrees above average. According to the weatherman, next week drops back to below average temps. As a matter of fact we have been so busy that I have had very little time to observe the circus known as Washington politics, and that's a good thing because I have rested better that way.
 Our English Cockers continue to impress everyone with their performance this season, and we remain very excited about this program. We just need to bring more of them on-line as we have decided that each guide using these little fellows needs two, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. We simply do not want to work them to death. As any of you who have hunted with us know, there are quite a few birds to retrieve here on any given hunt. If you have not visited Riverview, I would encourage you to give us a call. We have precious few openings remaining for this season.

Thanksgiving

As we enter the Thanksgiving season here at Riverview, we have so many blessings to be thankful for. I would be hesitant to thank God for all of them by name for fear of leaving one out. I am very grateful to see the sunshine after three days of rain which included 5+ inches of rain since Saturday evening. I am also very blessed to live in South Georgia rather than the Mideast or the Midwest of our own great nation following what I have been seeing in Ferguson, Mo. Watching this mess made me think of the following lines from one of Willie Nelson's old songs, "Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses". The opening lines to that song has the following words: " Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day,son, a man had to answer for the wicked he done. Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree, round up all them bad boys. Hang them high in the street for all the people to see".
 Our country has lost its way, and justice is not being handed out swiftly and surely. Until the lawless learn that there are severe consequences for their crimes, they will just get bolder and more destructive. I am not saying that I would personally enjoy seeing them dead, but I sure would enjoy reading their obituaries.
 OK, that's it for my political diatribes, but I am very grateful to live in a small rural community where people look after one another regardless of race or economic status. I believe that the world can really be divided into two categories, rural and urban. By and large, I have traveled the world in the past five years. Country folks are the same the world over. They try to help you even when they do not speak the same language that you do. I have experienced that personally. So I am going to close my short Thanksgiving message with this comment, "Thank God, I'm a country boy"!

Cold weather

I once heard someone say, "Don't knock the weather. Without weather, most folks would have nothing to talk about at all". In our part of the world, we would add football, pickup trucks, quail hunting, and dogs to that list. The weatherman said yesterday that parts of all 50 states were registering temperatures below freezing, and that included Hawaii. Then this morning the weather lady was standing in Buffalo, NY where they had already received SEVEN FEET of snow. Just as an aside, have any of you ever seen an ugly weather lady? I sure as heck have not.
 Down here in the sunny south, Riverview has been no exception to the cold weather. Yesterday we set a record low for this date at 21 degrees. Now I must admit that I am normally jealous when I see a bunch of excited hunters climbing on the jeeps in the morning to enjoy a glorious day in one of God's most beautiful creations--the big piney woods of south Georgia. We had 16 jeeps pull out from the main lodge yesterday morning, and each of them had two guests going to their very own, private 250-300 acre hunting course. I did not experience the first pang of envy toward a single one of them. And the strangest thing of all to me was that they all seemed eager to get out there.
 It made me think of the line from "The Great Gatsby" that said,"the rich are not like you and me". I have come to the conclusion that Yankees are not like southerners either. I think that folks who live north of the "Smith&Wesson Line" have thicker blood and skin than we folks down here have. However, it was a great day for hunting yesterday, and today is a carbon copy, although just a shade warmer.
 One other good thing about this cold weather is that we have now experienced back to back hard, killing frosts. That will make the scenting conditions a lot better for the bird dogs. One of my guides said that one of his dogs was so good that he was going to have to tape one of his nostrils closed next week. He figures that's the only way that he can stop him from pointing two different coveys at the same time after this frost.
 I hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving. The Cox family is looking forward to having everyone home for that occasion!

An early fall in the South

I now know at least two segments of the economy that are pleased with the cold weather; the energy sector and the southern hunting plantations. Those old energy boys who are visiting us at the moment are grinning like a bunch of mules eating briars, and we are happier than dead pigs in the sunshine also. Now I do not wish misery on anyone, but then again, I have to question the sanity of anyone living in the far northern climates of this great nation who are already experiencing blizzard like conditions. We have already had two light frosts here which really improves the scenting conditions for the bird dogs, and the weather man is calling for very cold weather for this time of the year over the next ten days.
 Our fall hunting has been outstanding, and only promises to continue getting better with this type of weather. Our fall reservation calendar is the strongest that we have seen since the great recession of 2008-2010. We do have some open dates available between now and our March closing, but there are not many of them. if God continues to bless us with a safe season, I can already say that it will be a successful one!
 Our English Cocker flushing/retreiving dogs continue to be very popular with our guests. We entered them in a little field trial event a few weeks ago, and the Riverview Cockers very nearly swept the field in every age bracket. That just confirms what we already knew, and that is the fact that Chuck and Jerry are doing an outstanding job with both the bloodline and training of these puppy dogs. I wish that my Georgia Bulldogs could perform on the field as well as our hunting dogs are doing.
 Now that the elections are over, I can actually answer my telephone again, and watch a little television in peace. I still think that term limits may be the only answer for this great nation, but for some reason no one seems to listen to me in Washington when I make the suggestion.I would love to think that we might see a change after the midterms, but my real concern is , " can my clowns perform any better than their clowns"?
 Oh well, life goes on, and right now it's going good at Riverview. I hope everyone reading this has a great fall and a happy Thanksgiving!

Fall quail hunting

Very rarely in south Georgia does the calendar arrival of fall and the actual arrival of fall occur simultaneously, but it certainly has this year! We are back in the hunting business, and could not ask for more perfect hunting conditions. We got a big rain of 3+ inches last week to aid in the scenting conditions for the dogs. Our low temps are now in the mid 40's and our highs are in the mid 70's. If I promised someone a pretty day and they would not accept today, I would just be inclined to whip their butts.
 We continue to be excited about our English Cocker flushing/retrieving dogs for this season. All of the guests who have hunted with them so far have really enjoyed the experience. While we are still training and finishing 2-3 more, I believe that we are actively using them with 6 or 7 of our 15 hunting guides. Training the guides was more difficult than training the dogs. Eventually, we hope to have one of these little dogs on each jeep, but that will probably take another year.
 One of the things that we train our guides on is subjects to avoid when talking to guests. One of those subjects is politics. I'm about to make a statement that is a reflection on neither party. Rather, I am commenting on everyone in Washington these days, and how they are handling the many complex issues we are facing such as ISIS, Ebola, the IRS, the VA, etc. I think that I have a solution to the problem. Since it is illegal to kill all of the stupid people running our country, why don't we just remove the warning labels from all products, and let natural selection wean them out. Since our leaders are dumber than a box of rocks, we should be rid of them by Christmas utilizing my plan.
 If you have not booked a hunt for this season, give us a call. Open slots are disappearing fast!

Senior citizen status

Well, today I officially enter the ranks of senior citizens although some of these fast food twerps have been trying to place me in that category for years. At least I know how to make change in my head, and I know that a half-dozen and six are the same number. That's more than I can say for most of the Einsteins I encounter in such establishments.
 Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, I became Medicare eligible.Since I was up and reading at 3:15 this morning, I celebrated my 50+15th birthday alone. I could have awakened my wife, but my chances of seeing 66 would have been slim and none had I chosen to do so. I have always had difficulties sleeping on a full moon, and this one is a doozy. It will peak with a "Blood Moon" on Wednesday of this week between 6:25-7:15 in the morning. I plan to sit on the banks of the Flint and watch the eclipse. I am either: 1) very light sensitive, 2) a werewolf, or 3) a lunatic. I am going with "light sensitive" rather than options two and three.
 Before I started reading very early this morning, I decided to watch a little television. The advertisements were all about Lifelock or Lifeline for the folks who have fallen and can't get up. The others dealt with devices for foot pain and/or back pain which leads me to believe that the advertisers know their target market during the middle of the night. Only us old, crazy folks are awake during these hours, and if we are awake, we are hurting somewhere.
 I have decided to adopt my Dad's philosophy. He always felt that old age was someone at least 20 years older than he was. He believed that even in his early 80's, and I'm beginning to adopt the same attitude. I have already been promoted to my last Sunday School class at our little country church. There is no older men's group than the one I'm in. My next promotion is across the road to the cemetery. While heaven is my home, I ain't homesick at the moment.
 As Garth Brooks said in one of his earlier country music songs, I'm too dang young to be this dang old" ! I feel good and have a lot of things left to teach my grandchildren. We are excited about opening the 2014-2015 hunting season at Riverview next week, and hope to visit with you here!

Random thoughts from a mature mind

Well, our weather man called for 3-6 inches of rain yesterday while we received just a shade less than one-tenth of an inch. These folks predict the weather about as good as I predict the stock market. In actuality, the light drizzle worked in our favor since we have just finished planting all of our winter rye grass on the lodge grounds. A deluge would have just washed the seed up into piles, and we would have been forced to replant. Additionally, all of our fertilizer would have leached out, and we would have needed to re-fertilize all of the property. The aforementioned weatherman is also calling for lows in the 50's this weekend; so I think that I will make certain to have my shorts and T-shirts ready for a heat wave.
 This is the time of the year that the gnats start declining in favor of the love bugs. I think that I like love bugs better. As I was sitting on the patio overlooking the beautiful Flint River yesterday, I noticed something interesting. There was an old lady on the other side of the river who was throwing her bait as far out in the river as she could cast. Meanwhile there was a man fishing from a boat in the middle of the river who was casting his plug as close to the shore as he could possibly get it. Don't you think that is as good of a definition of "the grass always being greener on the other side" as one can observe.
 It kind of reminds me of the banking industry. I once thought that that bankers had such an easy life. They worked from 9:00-5:00 just raking in money, and having a good time. How I wished that I could be a banker, and not have to work so hard for a living! Well, my wish came true in 1994 at least from a bank director's stand point. Having just served 20 years in that capacity, I have decided that my day job is much better than a career in banking.
 My Dad got in this business in 1957 after attending a seminar on how to make money and have fun in the hunting business. I have been attending those same seminars for years. I'm waiting on one that is titled" how to get out of the hunting business once you are in it". Since I never found that seminar, I did the next best thing. I stuck Cader IV with the headaches, and am enjoying being an adviser and grandparent.
 I'm going to jump back to my patio for a final rambling thought. As Martha and I were sitting out on the patio, I watched about 12 turkeys amble through the yard. I was actually watching for our little albino deer that is living somewhere in my back yard when the turkeys strolled through. As I was reflecting on this beautiful creation of God's, Martha casually asked me which vacation I had enjoyed the most this summer. Now I have not stayed married for 44 years to the same woman by being stupid, but I do sometimes speak before placing my brain in gear. I said,"Honey, I am enjoying this time on the patio more than any vacation destination we had this year because I have not had to visit the first cathedral or museum." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the fight started!

Fall

Fall officially arrives in south Georgia at 10:36 pm this evening, and, right on cue, Mother Nature is pushing us a cold front through here tonight. We should have very fall-like conditions here for the balance of the week. One thing is certain--we are flat ready for fall at Riverview. The woods are beautiful, and the dogs are playing themselves into hunting season shape with dog running occurring two hours each morning now.
 We have also brought in all of our kitchen and housekeeping staff to begin cleaning and going through all of our cottages. Greg says that we will plant our winter grass on all of the lodge grounds later in the week. When that grass starts coming up, I know that the arrival of guests is just around the corner.
 This past Saturday, I took my triplet nine year old grandchildren on a dove hunt. I had already tried the two boys with a shotgun earlier, and neither of them have quite enough upper body strength to handle a shotgun yet other than at a gun range. Nate and Keaton did kill hundreds of doves(according to them) with their BB guns while Eva picked every dove I killed up without losing a single bird. She is the best pick-up person I have ever had, at least of the two-footed version. I would tell you how many she picked up, but let's just say that she picked up the limit.
 I did have one minor problem with my little pick-up lady. During the best 40 minutes of the hunt, she looked at me with those big beautiful eyes and said, "Papa, I need to go to the bathroom, and I can't do that out here. You need to take me to Mimi's house". So, away we went. When I shared this story with my son, Cader IV, he looked at me and stated,"Who is this old person in my dad's body"? Then he proceeded to remind me of the time that he got stung by 4 bees on a dove hunt, and I would not take him to the house. He then recounted the time he cut himself with his pocket knife on another shoot, and I suggested that he pee on it and rub some turpentine on the cut because I was not leaving the field.
 Grandchildren are different, and that is all i have to say on that subject!

Of Boys,puppies, and shotguns

I've always believed that if a parent can teach his children to love the outdoors, that parent is leaving his children a legacy much more important than any monetary wealth he might leave them.Those children will always enjoy life, and be a lot less likely to get in trouble. One of the most interesting correlations that I ever read concerning prisons is that very few prisoners have ever owned a hunting or fishing license.
 The first time I ever shot a shotgun is a memory that I will hold and treasure forever. Looking back, I can readily admit that I was much too young and small to pull the trigger, but I begged my Dad so hard that he pulled the dogs in close just in case I could not hold the muzzle up. I never knew for certain whether Pop loved me or his bird dogs the most. At any rate, he handed me his 12 gauge, LC Smith double barrel and double triggered shotgun, and advised me to step on up. A covey of quail burst out from under my feet. I managed to get that heavy gun up to my shoulders, and promptly pulled both triggers at the same time. By some stroke of fate, a bird fell. As the bird was falling, so was I--minus my two front teeth that the shock of the recoil knocked out of my mouth. Pop always said that he had never seen anyone laugh and cry at the same time until then.
 My favorite Christmas was the Christmas that Santa brought me a 20 gauge single shot, shotgun, a hatchet, and a non-folding knife. I already had been well-schooled in gun safety, but Pop went through the importance of gun safety again before turning me loose with this one piece of advice, " do not shoot anything that you do not plan to eat unless it's a varmint." The only problem with that advice is that he failed to give me a definition of a "varmint". I promptly went out in the yard and shot a squirrel out of a pecan tree. We always called them "tree rats"; so I figured that squirrels were varmints. According to Pop, a squirrel was an edible animal. Since I had killed him, I had to clean and skin him, and Mom would cook him for me to eat. In my later years, I cleaned an entire deer quicker than it took me to handle my first outdoor butchering process of my trophy squirrel with my brand new knife that would hardly cut hot butter.
 My favorite memory involving teaching Cader IV to shoot was the year that I was training him and a new lab puppy at the same time. The day that I finally decided that both were ready, we took my boat to a little island on the river to try to bushwhack some doves flying in to water and pick up a little sand grit from the river. I had Cader standing in front of me, and had Josie on a leash. The action would go like this-- a dove would come drifting in, Cader IV would shoot falling back on me. I would catch him with one hand, and grab Josie's leash with the other hand while yelling,"Stay, Josie, and no, Cader, you did not hit that bird". At the end of the afternoon, I was completely sweated down. If memory serves me correctly, Cader IV killed four doves, and Josie retrieved all four of them. Those are precious memories !
 Both of my daughters can shoot also, but they kind of lost interest in it when they started wearing make-up, but they both still enjoy fishing. Thanks to the outdoors and the good Lord, none of my children, who are now parents themselves, ever got in trouble while growing up.
 Hunting season is just around the corner. The weatherman says that we should feel our first hint of fall next week, and we are ready for it!

Random thoughts

Of all the many gifts that God has graced us with, the gift of sight may be one of the most precious. To be able to see the moon beams sparkling off the flowing waters of the Flint River at 4:00 am in the morning is an awesome sight to behold. Why you may ask am I out at that time of the morning? What you should really ask yourself is why is this lunatic walking around in his yard in his underdrawers, toting a 12 gauge shotgun, and wearing a miner's helmet with a light on the top of it? I'm doing that because the dadblame armadillos are about to destroy my yard. I have killed five so far, but there appears to be at least that many more still out there since my grass and yard looks like a herd of hogs have rooted in it. Armadillos seem to have no natural enemies around here other than me. They use their long claws to dig up the grass in search of grubs and worms. Interestingly, the Tall Timbers Quail Research program has added them to the class of nest predators that destroy quail eggs along with other critters such as skunks, coons, and possums. So now I have yet another reason to have a "license to kill" these aggravating pests. I certainly would have preferred them to stay in Mexico and Texas. When I was growing up, we did not have coyotes or armadillos in this area. We do a really good job of trapping our coyotes on Riverview, but I have never found an armadillo trap that works. If any of you know of one that works, please e-mail me at: cader@riverviewplantation.com
 Another blessing of sight is the ability to read. I have always enjoyed reading, and I seem to enjoy it even more as I grow older. For one thing, it doesn't require nearly as much exertion as most of my other hobbies that I still enjoy. Yesterday I read this quote from Aldo Leopold that really resonated with me. He said," We shall never achieve harmony with the land,anymore than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these aspirations the important thing is not to achieve but to strive." Now that is very profound. I firmly believe that God granted us the stewardship of the land and waters of His creation. It is my job to leave it better than I found it for the next generation. I do not own it, but am just renting it for my time here on earth.
 I believe that perfect harmony is impossible, but we try very hard here at Riverview to manage this beautiful piece of property to the best of our ability. We have already had to fight off our federal government who wanted to make the eastern diamondback rattlesnake an endangered species which would have required us to manage our habitat for rattlesnakes rather than quail. A large number of plantations had to kick in money to hire the legal staff to fight an environmental law firm which is 100% funded by the federal government; so we were fighting a group who was being paid by our own tax dollars. Only in the USA ! If these folks try to add the armadillo to that group, they are going to make a grievous error. They don't want a bunch of mad, old women marching on Washington with their broomsticks in their hands. Perhaps I forgot to mention that the reason I am getting no sleep and hunting armadillos at night is that Martha Cox told me that these little 'expletive deleteds' were not going to destroy her yard any longer, and that I WAS going to handle it.
 I need to go take a nap now. More to come later!

That time of the year

Well, we are definitely in the dog days of summer in more ways than one. To an old Southerner like me, the Dog Days of summer meant that the temperature and humidity was going to be almost unbearable each day. According to my mother, it also meant that any cut or scratch would not heal during this miserable period of time, and she was correct as always!
 However, at Riverview, Dog Days have another meaning also. This is the time of the year that Moss begins to solidify his pointing dog strings. By now, we have determined which dogs are gamers and which ones are just trying to collect a meal ticket. We have trained, traded, and drafted new dogs into the rotation. Moss told Cader IV last week that he is still in the market for about 15 more good hunting dogs, and that he has good leads to fill out his quota. In my early years at Riverview, dog buying was one of my many jobs. I don't remember the names of any of the dogs I purchased, but I still remember the tightest pair of hunting britches I ever saw on a female dog trainer who sold me a dog. I couldn't recall the dog's name when I got home with him, and Pop was none too pleased with me. He reminded me about the simple operation we performed on trouble making male dogs, and he had no more problems with my attention to details after that.
 As I have mentioned several times, we are very excited about our introduction of the English Cocker flushing and retrieving dogs into our program at Riverview. Chuck and Jerry have worked real hard on this program, and we are thrilled with their progress. These little dogs are amazing. I intend to own one myself one day if I am still able to shoot anything for them to retrieve. My beloved old Lab will  just be too old to subject to field work any longer.
 I just spoke to Jerry, and he is confident that we will have seven of these dogs ready to go by the beginning of the season, and hopes to integrate another three or four into the hunting rotation before the end of the season. The problem will not be these bright little dogs. The bigger problem may be training the guides and pointing dogs that will have to all work together as a team. Since dogs are much easier to train than people, I would dare say the guides who have never worked with these sensitive little souls may be the biggest challenge of all. Speaking on this subject reminds me of a quote by Robert Ruark that my good friend, Herb Haughton shared with me recently.Ruark said," If a man is really intelligent, there's practically nothing a good dog can't teach him. But a dumb man can't learn anything from a smart dog, while a dumb dog can occasionally learn something from a smart man."
 These Dog Days of summer will eventually give way to the scent of autumn, cooler nights, football season, AND hunting season. I can't wait !

travels

Martha and I just returned from two weeks in France on vacation with another couple we travel somewhere in the world with each year. I will not divulge their names to protect the innocent, but we always have fun together,and share a lot of laughs and memories together. Since couple "X" is almost as country as the Cox's, we generally fare well when we get out into the country side while struggling in the big cities.
 We spent three days in Paris before escaping to the Normandy region for the balance of the trip. Our first observation of Paris is that there has to be something wrong with a place that will charge more for a coke than a glass of wine. Our next "eureka moment" was that the Eiffel Tower was a much more impressive structure than we had envisioned from photos. It was a sight to see, and was right outside of our hotel room door. Speaking of hotels, I assume that our hotel really enjoyed having me there since they decided to trap me on an elevator for 30 minutes. Have I ever mentioned that I am extremely claustrophobic? Well, I am, and that is no joke. Maybe it comes from spending my life in open spaces. At any rate, the elevator was jam packed,had no ventilation, and had four heat lamps for lights. there was no "call box" or emergency button on the elevator. What saved us was having an employee of the hotel stuck with us. She was able to use her cell phone to call for help who took their own sweet time about arriving. I should have taken that as a sign from the Lord to go home, but I failed to listen.
 On the next day, we visited Versailles where I was trapped in a restroom the size of a shoe box. The handle on the outside worked, but there was no handle on the inside of the door. I did not panic this time because I had sized the door up, and had determined that I could kick the sucker off the hinges. I gave one loud shout for help, and was going to wait one minute before busting the door down. Luckily, my friend heard me, and opened the door. Of course he was laughing so hard that he could hardly turn the knob. It was at this point in time that I realized that the French folks loved me so much that they were determined to keep me in their country.
 A third observation is that all churches in France have the same name, Notre Dame, not to be confused with the football team. I did not see a single First Baptist Church in any town. This Notre Dame lady has the market cornered on churches there. Their churches also appear to be more museums than places of worship. I was disheartened to talk to many young French people who seem to think that religion is a thing of the past, and is only practiced by old folks. Almost all of the young French folks that I was able to talk to had formed their entire opinions of the U.S. by one visit to New York City. Now I have been to NYC many times and know many folks who live there, but folks that ain't typical of the USA that I know and live in.
 We spent most of our time in the Normandy region and absolutely loved it. We visited farms, apple orchards, and cheese production spots. That was where my buddy and I excelled with our small travel group because we knew what the folks were talking about at these locations. We visited one goat farm where they make cheese. The old stud Billy goat services the nannies 24 times a day for two months. One of our Yankee ladies on the tour asked why they called him a "Billy goat". Before the guide could respond, I said,"Hell, lady,he doesn't care what they call him with a job like that". I'm still nursing my bruised ribs from where Martha elbowed me.
 By far and away, the most memorable part of the trip was our visit to the site of the American forces landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day and the American Cemetery there. Martha and I found the cross of a Georgia boy and placed a flower at the base of his cross. I am not at all ashamed to say that I wept!
 For me my most favorite part of any trip is seeing my house and sleeping in my bed when I get home. I could live without these dang gnats, but I sure do love south Georgia. Since hunting season is fast approaching, my next blog will be more about what's going on here.

Of dogs and human relationships

While I have many character flaws, as my family has pointed out to me on occasions, I consider myself a fairly keen student of human nature as well as dog behavior. This past Friday night Martha and I celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary, and my oldest daughter, Holly, celebrated her 40th birthday the next day. When Holly was a little girl, she would tell everyone," Mommy and Daddy got married on July 25th, and I was born on July 26th". Now that probably would not be a big deal today, but it used to just horrify Martha to hear her say those words. I must say that I was somewhat shocked to hear Martha explaining to an acquaintance the other day how she had a 40 year old daughter. She casually mentioned that we got married when we were 11, and Holly was born when Martha was 12. Now I did not stay married to the same woman for 44 years by being stupid; so I pilled a "Bre'r Rabbit, he lay low" like the proverbial tar baby. We were both young and right out of college when we got married, but we were not that young. However, we grew up together, and it has certainly worked for us.
 I got to thinking about the women( in my case only one), jobs(again only one), and dogs in my life the other day. I quickly surmised that my resume would look fairly boring, but I am quite happy with it. I do know that there are quite a few differences in training a good dog and training a good woman! As I have watched Chuck work with our English Cockers this summer, it amazes me how he uses gentle reinforcement and repetition to make them want to please him. Repetition and reinforcement with a wife will land you a frying pan upside the head, but these little Cockers are really responding.
 I inherited my love for dogs from my late Dad. In his younger days, Pop was quite a rounder. He once told me that his dog was the only thing that really loved him whether he had been a good or bad person. Of course Pop was also the person who told me to lock both my dog and my wife up in the trunk of the car for 30 minutes, and see which one was happy to see me when I opened the trunk. Wisely, I never followed all of his advice. However, I do strive to be the kind of person my dog THINKS I am. If I can even come close to that goal, I will be living very close to the standards in The Good Book.
 We are beginning to point towards hunting season now, and I will be filling y'all in on things as the late summer progresses on in to fall. Tempus is fugiting on along!

Summer time

Well, we have finally managed to pick and ship our last sweet corn. I know that you have all heard the old expression, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch". The season started very good on both yields and prices. We managed to maintain our high yields,averaging 510 crates per acre, but the market pricing collapsed right during what should have been our best pricing period, the July 4th marketing period.. When you are selling a perishable item, you have to sell it at some price or dump it. That perishable item bit got me to thinking the other day. We, too, are perishable items; so we need to live accordingly. I plan to enjoy being out of the heat and the gnats for a while, and just count my blessings! I have also discovered that, if you laugh a lot, your wrinkles will be in the right place when you get my age.
 Activities on Riverview are now settling in to our normal summer pattern. We are going through all of our jeeps repairing,servicing, and in some cases repainting them. The training of our English Cocker flushing dogs continues at a brisk pace. The woods and the feed patches are looking good, but we need to keep getting these summer time showers. It is hard to believe that only a few short weeks ago we were suffering from too much rain. However, 110 temp/humidity indexes can suck the moisture out in a hurry.
 Martha and I began a tradition a few years ago of trying to be gone from here as much as possible during the month of August. If we have a slow month here, it is August. It also is the most miserable month of the year here. I believe that the temperatures and gnats both peak during the month of August. In closing this short post, I have determined that the world would be a better place if we had a few more lakes,rivers,fishing poles, and lightning bugs!

Heat

Whoever wrote the lines to the song that goes,"summertime and the living is easy" never lived in south Georgia. Cader IV and I just got back from spending an hour or two in the sweet corn field. In addition to ingesting about a billion gnats, the temperature/humidity index was hovering at a pleasant 112 degrees. It got so hot that the sweet corn started popping, and the harvesting crews thought it was snowing and they froze to death in the field. Well, maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but I think that you can get the gist of the picture. The good news is that harvest is going smoothly, and prices are decent,especially compared to last year.
 We did face a dilemma last night. We had a very small but powerful thunderstorm blow up about sunset. It knocked down a couple of trees across the power lines and splintered a utility pole. It just so happened that I found the spot where this occurred on the lodge road, and called our local EMC. Almost this entire area was out of power including our sweet corn plant that was in the process of chilling and loading about $200,000 worth of sweet corn yesterday. Since I keep the EMC head man's cell phone in my contacts on my cell phone, I gave him a quick call to inform him of the emergency and where the down lines were. He said, " Cader, I can isolate your house and Cader IV's house, and back feed your corn operation. I can have it running in 20 minutes, but this will cause y'all to be out of power for three to four hours". Martha was standing right beside me and asked me what he said. I replied, "hold on, honey, we have a bad connection. Let me walk out in the yard". Once out of her hearing, I said, "OJ, get my corn operation going as fast as you can". Did I mention that Martha and I were both hot and sweaty when the power went out? Oh well, sometimes you have to take one for the home team.
 On the hunting front, the feed patches are coming up nicely with the abundant moisture, and our natural cover looks great! We have also eradicated a bunch of briars with some concentrated spraying of Garlon on many of our hunting courses. Finally, we continue to be very excited about our training program with our English Cockers for flushing and retrieving.We will not have one on each jeep by fall, but we should have them ready to go on at least 60% of our jeeps by fall.

Aging

I have always been a big believer in a cash flow budget. While income statements and balance sheets are important, a small company like Riverview lives and dies on its cash flow. Because of that fact, I have always prepared at least a twelve month cash flow statement. Back in my younger years, I always added about $5,000 to my cash flow budget for car repairs on Pop's vehicle on an annual basis. It would make him furious, but I had the history and facts to back it up as a line item. Have you ever heard the old expression," what goes around ,comes around"? I have become my father, and am now catching hell from Cader IV, Greg, and Jerry.
 But, here's my story, and I'm sticking to it. About three months ago, as I was driving to work from the house on a frosty morning with windshield impaired visibility, a pine tree in my yard suddenly lurched into the side of my Expedition. Then yesterday as I was backing up to turn around, another pine tree suddenly crashed into the rear of this same poor Expedition. Cader asked me, " Dad, doesn't your car have one of those sonar systems that starts beeping if you are about to back into an object"?  I told him that it most certainly does. However, mine must be defective because it never goes beep,beep,beep. Instead, mine goes beep, BAM, at which point it is way too late to stop.Now the smart butts are threatening to bring the dozer down to my house and push down all of the pine trees within a 300 yard radius.
 There was a time in my life when  badly wanted to have a BMW. Now I am willing to drop the "W", and maybe settle for a Sherman Tank.While we do not have HOV lanes down here in the country on these dirt roads, I doubt that I would be able to use them were we to have them. I am noticing a reluctance for anyone to ride around in the woods with me. Rather, they are all volunteering for me to ride with them.
 We will start picking sweet corn on Monday; so y'all start visiting the grocery store next week and buy lots of fresh sweet corn! I will have more to report on the hunting operations later, but everyone on our mailing list should be receiving our summer newsletter by the first of next week at the latest.

Gnats

I read once that the industrialization of the south would never have occurred without the invention of air conditioning. I can believe and accept that fact. As much as I hate to admit it, I grew up in the south before that wonderful invention. All of our homes had high ceilings and attic fans. You can't miss something that you never knew existed; so I was completely comfortable without having a thermostat to turn back on a hot day,Now that I know about the joys of climate control, I am somewhat like the father of a good friend of mine who once said," Lord,please don't give it to me if you are going to take it away". Now folks a hot day down here is a day with the temperature in the mid to upper 90's and a relative humidity in the 60-70 range. It's not the heat that kills you, but that humidity will bring you to your knees. The only bad thing about those conditions I just mentioned is the absolute knowledge that it will get hotter in July and August. July and August in south Georgia can only be endured by a native.Some of us more mature natives try to make ourselves scarce during those months.
 Now if the invention of air conditioning allowed the industrialization of the south, the creation of gnats by the good Lord absolutely assures me that we will never be over populated in south Georgia. I give you Atlanta as an example. Atlanta is above the gnat line in Georgia. If it were below the gnat line, Atlanta would be a city of about 100,000 idiots rather than the several million who live there without having to contend with gnats. Unlike the gnats on the coast of Georgia, our little critters do not bite. If they did bite, there would be a zero population in my part of the world. However, they exist by the billions, and they all have one aim in life--to find the one orifice on your body and get in that opening. We are talking about eyes,ears, noses, and mouths in the case of homo sapiens. Since I now wear hearing aids, a gnat inside my ear sounds very similar to an F-16.
 I guess what really bothers me the most is wondering where the gnat in my mouth just came from. I am around dogs a lot, and tend to notice gnats congregating around dogs' derrieres. That same gnat sees me and heads straight for my mouth. Seeing as how I have observed that gnats tend to prefer butts over mouths, I think that I have come up with a solution all southerners should embrace. Let's slice a hole in our pants rear ends and quit wearing underpants!

Thanks to the geniuses in Washington we are being forced to buy a computer system and software that will track every crate of our sweet corn by the color,the grower,the crate,the field, and the particular planting all the way to your grocery store in your home town. This falls under the federal Food Security Act that evidently was passed by some non-farm politicians. The theory behind this is to protect the American consumer from having their food sources contaminated by a bunch of terrorists. Now think about this folks. We live in a little podunk community where everyone not only knows one another, we also know what model pick-up truck you drive,your family, and a ton of gossip on each individual who lives here. Don't you think that a terrorist would stick out like a fish out of water.

 At any rate, Cader IV and I left Tuesday morning for a 7 hour drive to south Florida to view the system that we have purchased and installed at our operation which is already in operation at Hugh Branch Inc. in South Bay, Fl. Cader IV said to me as we left," Pop,if you will drive from here to Valdosta which is about an hour and a half away, I will drive the rest of the way". Now that sounded like a plan to me since I had my IPad and needed to study for a board meeting. Little did I realize that Cader had evidently always harbored a fantasy of being a race car driver. I'm not certain whether I will be prepared for my board meeting tomorrow or not, but I am certain about two things. I am certainly glad that my Mom taught me to always pack extra underwear for a trip, and I am certain that I will never travel with him driving again without a Xanax in my pocket. Since I abhor my wife's backseat driving and loud breath intakes when I am driving, I never uttered a word. Of course, it is difficult to talk and pray at the same time anyway.

 we made it to south Florida and back safely, praise the Lord ! It was a productive and informative trip. I did want to share one observation with y'all about our trip. After driving through Pahokie, Belle Glade, Canal Point, etc., I have reached the firm conclusion that south Georgia does not have the red-neck market cornered! There are some "Bubba's" in that part of the world that could hold their own with the best I've ever seen.

For the two or three folks other than family who might read my occasional ramblings, I apologize for the lack of writing lately. I have a good reason for that which I will share with you shortly. I have often been asked why I have never written a book. I love to read, and always have a book or two going on my Kindle. It amazes me how great writers are able to string a long story together while keeping me wanting to read every word of it. My mind simply does not work that way. I think that I could be a decent short story writer, but I could never hold out to write an entire novel. Therein lies my reason for failing to post anything lately. This is the time of the year that I begin gathering information and thoughts for our summer newsletter, Summer Scene. I fear that I do not have enough good information to write both it and a blog at the same time without using some or most of the same material.
 However, I am almost finished with my first draft of the newsletter; so I should be able to come up with some new material shortly. One thing that I might do at some point in time is write my memoirs of the years of working here at Riverview as a "social director for the over-privileged", but I need for just a few more folks to pass away first. I do have some stories to tell! Before writing those stories, I keep reminding myself that life is like a jar of jalapeno papers. What I do today might bite me on my butt tomorrow!

We are experiencing the coldest and definitely the wettest April in my memory. Our Albany weatherman said that it is already the fourth wettest April on record, and we have another strong weather system moving in here the middle of next week. I am telling you that it is wet enough on Riverview right now to bog a buzzard's shadow.
 The rain has been great for our spring woods burning program. It definitely lessened the stress on the trees, and the new growth on the ground is sprouting green cover much sooner than normal. However, it has not been so sporty for the sweet corn farming operations. Unless we are growing hydroponic sweet corn due to the fact that a fair amount of our corn is under water at the moment, I have to assume that our yields will be off a good bit. Since all of the farmers in our area are in the same boat,literally and figuratively, maybe we will receive higher prices due to lower yields.
 Our trapping program is in high gear now, and we are having great success now as the trappers have finally gotten smarter than the trapees. We are breaking in a new bookkeeper at the moment, and I thought that she was going to have stroke this morning when she opened an invoice for a gallon of bobcat and a gallon of coyote urine. She had no idea how to code the bill, but was more concerned with what kind of place she worked at that purchased urine. Hopefully, she will stick around. If she does, I can guarantee you that she will see stranger things here. I once had an IRS auditor who did not like me very much for some strange reason. He also did not like or understand what we do here; so he classified us as a circus in his code book. Back in the old days, you could be ugly to those folks. Regretfully, I now fear my government more that I do Russia or terrorists.
 Speaking of terrorism, when we renewed all of our insurance policies, our agent tried to get us to buy terrorism insurance. I just have to tell you that I would consider us a very low value, but well-armed target for an attack. I declined that one, but I sure am glad that we renewed our flood policies. For those of you who visit us annually, you would have a difficult time imagining how high the Flint River is at the moment. We are not ready to break camp and move furniture yet, but we are definitely keeping a wary eye on the Flint. I can still recall my Dad saying to me," Son, dry weather will scare you, but wet weather will kill you". As usual, Pop was right.
 Well, I'm going to put my rubber boots on and mosey on out to the corn field to see how many tractors are stuck at the moment. I will chat with y'all later.

I spent a little time with Chuck this week observing his training program on these little English Cockers that we are integrating into our program as flushing and retrieving dogs. We are very excited about this program, and the few dogs we had ready to go last season were very well received. As a matter of fact, we had several guests who called and requested to hunt with certain dogs rather than guides. That somewhat offended the guides, but they took it with good nature.
 At any rate, the methods being employed by Chuck were so impressive, I asked him if I could send my wife, Martha, up to his facility for a day to see if he could train her to obey commands that good. Chuck, being smarter than he looks responded," Boss, this program has not worked on my wife, and I know that it would not work on Miss Martha. Besides that, I have young children, and need to stay alive for a while longer".
 I then checked in with Andy and Casey to see how our trapping program was going. After they informed me that "something" had drug one of their leg hold traps,chain, and log out of the ground and off into the woods near my house, I am reexamining my daily jogging route.We have caught some coons,possums, and skunks, but we are really after the coyotes. They are wily critters, and we will entice them into the fold in the next few days.
 The last thing that I want to mention is turkeys. I do not know why you turkey hunters get so all fired excited about the thrill of turkey hunting. For the past two weeks, I could have killed all of them I wanted to from my patio with a gun in one hand and a cup of coffee in another. But,like the males of all species, they will get stupid when they get females on their brains. One of my mentors when I was a young man just back at Riverview was a fine old gentleman named Lemuel Boulware. Mr. Lem once told me that he had reached the stage in life where the" Wall Street Journal" excited him more than the Playboy centerfold. I thought to myself," You poor old fellow". Humn, I'm getting closer to understanding that now although these turkeys have not figured it out yet.

spring burning season

This is definitely my favorite time of the year. To me, the control woods burning feels like the beginning of a new year. We rid ourselves of the residue of the prior year, and prepare to watch the new growth burst forth from beneath the majestic oaks and stately Longleaf pines. We have had two excellent days of burning with one very minor exception.
 Late yesterday, as I was enjoying the soothing sounds of the fire crackling through the underbrush blending with the sighs from the big pines as the winds stirred through them, my reverie was interrupted by the sound of a voice on the radio from one of the burning crews saying, "oh S---, the wind is shifting from the west to the south".Our trusty weather forecaster who predicts the weather like I do the stock market was wrong again. Thank goodness at the time we were burning some of our oldest timber that had only light cover underneath, and no damage was done other than to our professional pyromania pride. With just a bit of luck, we will finish up burning this week, and can begin preparing our habitat for another excellent quail hatch in another month or so when the ground cover will be perfect. In the meantime, we will be getting ready to trap our worst  predators that prey on nesting birds.

Spring

Our 2013-2014 hunting season officially ended on March 22nd, and it was a terrific season! We had a big catfish cookout for all of the guides, and then gave them a couple of days off. I have taken my phone off the hook at the house because I do not want to post bail for any of this crowd who feels compelled to blow off too much steam on their pressure release valves. I have always stated that if I did not look forward to the beginning of a hunting season, then it was time for me to get out of the business. I have also always firmly believed that if I did not look forward to the end of a hunting season, then it was time for me to be committed to a mental institution!
 Somewhere in the Bible there is a verse that states, and I am paraphrasing here, every man is born with the innate understanding that there is a God just by observing the awesomeness of nature and the perfect cycles of creation, the rhythm of the seasons, and the ordered movement of the sun, the moon, and the stars. These things could not happen by accident. Personally, spring is my favorite season of the year. Down here in south Georgia, the Azaleas and Dogwoods are in full bloom. All of the native fruit trees are blooming along with the other species that shed their leaves in the winter. We are about to begin our controlled woods burning program this coming Monday.
 I always equate woods burning with new birth. We rid the woods of all of the leftover fuel and undesirable species sprouting up on the hunting courses. We almost always burn late in the evening, and try to get a consistent wind from any direction. We then set backfires against the wind, and the fires just meander through the big pines at about a knee high level in very long strings of even lines of fire. Once it gets completely dark, it is a beautiful sight to behold. Of course, we also have burning crews trying to sneak up on other burning crews in the dark woods to scare the living Beejesus out of one another. Along with the crackling and popping of burning underbrush, you will occasionally hear a horrible scream, and you will know that some unsuspecting soul has been scared out of his life. Had General Sherman been as good at burning as Jerry and his crews are, we might not have lost so many fine Georgia mansions during the War of Northern Aggression.
 My goal for this spring and summer is to try to be as good of a person as my dog thinks I am. In closing and speaking of dogs, someone sent me this cute thought that states that every puppy is born with the notion that his master is God. It is the master's responsibility to never do anything to make that puppy change his opinion!

As Noah might have said,"It came up a cloud here on Sunday".It started raining Sunday around noon, and before it was over, we had received over four inches of rain. I have always heard that the two things a man can want the most and catch up on the quickest are sex and rain. I can assure you that we caught up on the rain on Sunday. Even though the forecast called for another 70% of rain on Monday, we actually hunted all day with no rain fall to speak of at all. Yesterday was cold and overcast all day, but once again, we had no rain. We have high hopes of seeing the sun shine today.
 The best news of all is that we will be very busy during this last week of our hunting season with almost a full house of hunters, and the weather man said no more rain until at least Monday. We may start burning our woods next week using boats rather than jeeps, but I would much prefer the wet stuff to hold off until at least next week. Then , as Miss Scarlett said, " I will worry about that tomorrow"!

I heard a man say one day," If I promised a man a pretty weekend and he would not accept this one, I would be inclined to whip his butt". Well, it has been an absolutely beautiful mid-March weekend at Riverview. We had a light frost both mornings with crisp,cool hunting conditions. We have a bunch of folks in here this weekend from Michigan who are having a difficult time shooting quail because they are spending so much time looking at the grass. It seems that they have seen nothing but snow on the ground for quite a while now. I'm not certain, but I believe snow is that white stuff that we read about down here in the south.
 We have had a great hunting season, and have only one more week to go after today.The cover has been exceptional this season, sometimes a bit too exceptional as I think that the advantage has gone to the quail on several hunts. We are very excited about our addition of the little English Cocker flushing and retrieving dogs this season. We introduced them with five of our guides this year, and they have been wildly popular. As a matter of fact, they are so popular that some guests are requesting certain flushing dogs next year rather than requesting guides. We plan to expand this program next season to include at least four more of these special dogs in our program.
 As soon as we finish up next week, we will begin our spring burning program, and I will tell you more about that in our next blog. It is my very favorite time of the year!

bird dogs

A friend of mine, Herb Haughton sent me this quote by Ben Ames Williams a few weeks ago. It touched my heart so much that I wanted to share it." A bird dog does not live as long as a man and this natural law is the font of many tears. If a boy and and a puppy might grow to manhood and doghood together,and together grow old,and so in due course die, full many a heartache might be avoided. But the world is not so ordered,and dogs will die and men will weep for them as long as there are dogs and men".
 I still remember my first dog, Bimbo. I don't know whether I trained him to hunt or he trained me. I do know that he met me every day when I got off the school bus, and was rip raring and ready to go bird hunting in the fall and winter as soon as i could drop my book bag. He got run over by a car which is hard to believe because so few cars traveled down what was then a dirt road in front of our home. The accident broke his leg, and Pop took him to the vet. I slept with him out on the porch that night, and told him that he was going to be OK, and he was. That was the first of many answered prayers in my life.
 I remember every single dog I have ever owned, or maybe they owned me. I truly feel sorry for anyone who has never experienced the love of a good dog. As my Dad once told me,"Lock your wife and your dog up in the trunk for an hour. When you open it, see which one is happy just to see you". I have a 12 year old chocolate Lab now who is beginning to turn gray around her muzzle, and has definitely lost a step. I could care less if she ever retrieves another bird for me, but I am already beginning to fear that day that Mr. Williams referred to in his quote above.
 On a lighter note, the ice age and glaciers have receded from the south, and our hunting is great. We never missed a day of hunting with the snow and ice storm of last week as the weather did not quite make it into deep south Georgia, but we did have about half of our hunters in the midweek cycle fail to get here thanks to the Atlanta airport shutting down.

Cold weather--Again

Do you remember years ago when the Bush/Gore election results were hanging in the balance by Florida's inability to count the votes? I had a friend from Florida call me at that time and tell me that they would release the results of the election when all of the folks in the other states came and picked up their old parents from Florida. I now find myself in a similar position. If I promise my Yankee friends not to speak ill of them any more, will y'all please come pick up your dadblame weather and take it back home where it belongs!
 I know that folks who live in cold weather climates must be amused at the total chaos in the south at the moment due to a few inches of snow and ice. I have friends in Atlanta who spent 8-9 hours in cars yesterday afternoon on what should have been a 30 minute commute. As of just an hour ago, there are still cars stranded all over the Atlanta area with passengers who never made it home.
 Before you giggle too much at us for making mountains out of mole hills, you should try spending a couple of days in south Georgia during August. Our temperature is going to be over 100 degrees and our relative humidity is generally in the 70% range.There is never a dry thread on your body, and the gnats ,by the billions,stick to your sweaty body. I have concluded that one must be a native to this  area to survive the summers. Evidently, the same can be said for cold weather because we are struggling with it.
 Riverview got lucky on the predicted ice storm. We had rented a three phase generator to keep the main lodge going in the event of the predicted two-three day power outage. We also bought every lantern and flashlight in south Georgia, and double stacked firewood at all of the cottages.Of course in another five years when we have another event like this, we will not have a clue where any of this equipment is.But, praise the Lord, we didn't need any of it. We got a little sleet for about 15 minutes around 5:45 this morning, and then it was over.The hunters who managed to survive the cancelled flights are all out hunting, and it has warmed all the way up to a balmy 30 degrees at almost 11:00.

Texans

I know that those of you who read my occasional posts have noticed that I poke gentle fun from time to time at our northern guests. But, I really do love Yankees. We would probably still be picking cotton and starving to death were it not for those wonderful northern guests of ours. As a matter of fact, Yankees are much like cotton, but they are a lot more fun plucking.
 Today I want to talk about folks from another part of this great nation. As F. Scott Fitzgerald opined in his book, The Great Gatsby," The rich are not like you and I".Well, here's a newsflash for you,"Neither are Texans"!There was a time that I classed Texans as southerners, but I have decided that they are a subspecies all to themselves. The first time I observed this was in my early years here. As any of you who have ever hunted with us know that we have a strict " no alcohol policy" during the hunting day. Once as I was walking around the lodge grounds during the noon hour, I noticed one of our Texas guests guzzling a cold beer. I walked up to him and asked him if he remembered our conversation about no alcohol during the day. He calmly looked at me and replied,"yes". I pointed at his beer and asked him about what he was drinking. He said,'Son, this ain't alcohol. It's a beer". The scary thing is that he was as serious as a heart attack when he said it.
 Well, last night we had a late arrival in Tallahassee who happened to be one of Tyler,Texas's finest citizens, I am sure. He insisted on renting a car and driving in late at night by himself. Texans are a rather independent lot. We took every precaution to see that he got here since we would all be sound asleep if and when he drove in. We gave him good directions to Riverview and good directions to his cottage. As a stop gap measure, we also printed directions to his cottage and told him that they were taped to the rocking chair on the porch of the main lodge. Allow me to interject here that our cottage directions have been left that way for late arrivals for decades, and we have never had a guest fail to find his cottage---until last night.
 Do you remember my comment about us all being sound asleep when Tyler's finest citizen arrived. Well, we were, but the guests in the other six cottages that were not a part of his group did not fare as well.This morning after a considerable amount of teasing, our guest looked at me much like my beer drinking Texan of old and said," I can't believe y'all sneaked around this morning and placed signs on all of the cottages after I got in".
 Oh, the life of an Inn Keeper!

cold weather quail hunting in south Georgia

I have no clue what a polar vortex is, but I would just as soon not see this bad boy again. It needs to head on back up to the polar region where the inhabitants are bred to survive such weather. I realize that most of you are going to have very little sympathy for me when I begin whining about how cold it was down here. Once in my early years after a particularly grueling day, my Dad asked me if I needed a little sympathy. When I responded to him that I could sure use a bit, he replied by telling me to look in the dictionary and I would find it listed between s- -t and syphilis. Pop was a hard man! At any rate, I have learned not to expect much sympathy, but I want to share the following observations about our recent cold snap:
1) Dogs lose interest in fussing and fighting, and only want to snuggle up together.
2)Guides become mutinous if you ask them to get on their jeeps even one minute before 9:00 am.
3)The quail fly faster probably trying to generate some body heat.
4)I do not feel the need to stand outside and chat with my guests as they climb on the jeeps.
5) I am not envious of my guests opportunity to hunt quail as they ride out to the courses on the convertible jeeps.
6) If you septic tank overflows(and ours did),frozen poop doesn't have much smell.
7) If your pipes freeze at your house and you can't shower, you will not smell too badly either.
 Allow me to add that if the South had won the War Of Northern Aggression, I would have ceded the North lands back to them because I certainly would not have wanted to occupy the conquered territory! Our blood is just too thin for this type of cold. Perhaps folks in the northern climates keep more antifreeze in their bodies than we do.
 The quail hunting is going great this season. We have VERY few open dates available between now and the end of the season with the exception of Valentine's Day weekend. I fear that male America has been hijacked by the card,candy,and flower industry.
 I will close with this funny quote that I saw on the Internet this morning concerning the recent cold snap--It is so cold that I saw a Democrat with his hands in his own pocket.