Friday, December 18, 2015

Christmas

Well, we are just about to come to the mid-point of our hunting season, and will close down for a week this Saturday night. We always have a big guide dinner at our shop, and discuss the first half of the season, and take a week's rest to get recharged for the last half of season.

When Mom and Dad were building this business, we only closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As occupancy increased over the years, I decided that it was very important to rest the guides, dogs, and staff for a week so that the guests in the last half of the season got to see the same enthusiasm as those who visit in the fall, and it has worked well. I remember an old guest from years ago who once told me," Son, we were so poor when we were growing up that if I had not had a brother, I wouldn't have had anything to play with on Christmas morning". Well, we were not quite in that bad a shape, but my parents could not afford to turn down any business in the early years.

I'm certain that each of us has one Christmas that stands out in our minds as our " best Christmas ever". Mine was the year that Santa bought me a cock-action, single shot 20 gauge shotgun, a hatchet, a sheath knife, and a coonskin cap. Since we lived in a pecan orchard, I took my brand new shotgun out in the yard, hunted me down a squirrel, and shot him. I ran straight to the squirrel to pick him up. However, I made one major mistake--I did not make certain that my quarry was completely dead before picking him up. Do you know that squirrels have teeth like hypodermic needles? He bit me all the way through my thumb. Since Pop had already taught me not to kill anything that I did not want to eat, unless it was a varmint, I had to get Pop to show me how to clean my squirrel. I think that I was bleeding as much as the squirrel. When finished, he looked almost too much like a rat to eat, but I had to eat him.

In my later years, I received a waiver from Pop that I could kill something that I did not eat as long as I gave it to someone who would eat it. That practice has worked well since I no longer have to clean many birds or animals. I still love to hunt, but my eyes certainly do betray me a good bit these days. As my grandchildren often say," Papa, when you can see the bird, you can still shoot good. But, Papa, you can't see a lot of the birds that are flying". As if I was not acutely aware of this fact already.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas, and a healthy, happy New Year !

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Of dogs and men

I read this quote the other day by James Thurber which really tugged at my heart strings. Mr. Thurber said,,"In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe, peering into the rueful morrow of manhood". I remember every precious dog that I have ever loved and buried. Many of you who have read my past blogs know that I lost my beloved chocolate lab of 13 years, Sugar, late this summer.

Every day that I come home I expect to see her waiting to lick my face. I have never been one to question God's infinite plan, but I sure wish He would have designed a dog's life expectancy to be the same as man's. It hurts so much to say that final good-bye to a loyal and loving dog.

Jerry Cooper is one of the finest dog trainers that I have ever met. He brings one of his little English Cockers to his office with him every morning; so I am at least getting a face lick now and then as Jerry works with her on the lodge grounds while all of our hunters are out in the fields.

Speaking of hunting, this weekend has been a Chamber of Commerce post card day for quail hunting in South Georgia.Our temps have ranged between 40-60 degrees, and there is plenty of moisture on the ground for excellent scenting conditions. We also have a full house, and many of our guests in this cycle know how to "dishrag" a fast flying Bobwhite.

We still have some openings for the remainder of the season if anyone is interested in checking on available dates. We have a little over two weeks before we shut down for a week for our Christmas break to rest the guides,dogs, and staff, and I'm certain that I will be posting something else prior to then. So, I will hold off on my holiday wishes for a while.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Thanksgiving

We are a seasonal business, and three of our major holidays come during our hunting season. Years ago we recognized that we could not afford to close down for all three of them. We are open for business on Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve and Day, but we shut down for a solid week for Christmas. Christmas is about the mid point of our season, and that long break allows all of the guides,dogs,kitchen/housekeeping, and management to come back refreshed for the last half of season.

So, since we are open on this Thanksgiving Day, we have guests and all of the Cox family arriving this evening for Thanksgiving dinner at The Lodge. There will be 16 Cox family members here, and I feel sorry for any guests who are late arriving to the buffet line tonight. My crowd will range from almost three years old to almost 14, and they will be a lively bunch. Thank goodness for private dining rooms and well insulated walls.

 As I sit here, I decided to list just a few of the things that I am thankful for today. While this list, by no means, encompasses all of my blessings, I just wanted to list a few:
I am thankful that I worship a God who is in charge and has a plan, although I wish that he would share it with me as this old world has me very confused at the moment.
I am thankful for my wonderful family--wife,children,grandchildren, and in-laws.
I am thankful to work with the best group of folks in the world.
I am thankful to have had the opportunity to grow up and work on one of the prettiest places that God ever created.
I am thankful for good health which we all too often take for granted.
 I am thankful for the best group of friends that a man could ever ask for.
 And I am very thankful and appreciative of the guests who have visited and hunted with us over the years, and who have become a part of the Riverview family.

I wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving Day !

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Random Thoughts

President Dwight Eisenhower once said," The best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy". Evidently my drill sergeant never read this quote because I can still remember him standing about an inch from my face and screaming, " Trainee, you WILL HAVE good morale". That was about the time that I decided that I should have entered basic training at 18 years of age rather than at 21 years old because by then I had a brain, and realized that you could not force good morale upon anyone.

 At Riverview, we work and function more as a family unit than a rigid reporting structure. Each employee has the same goal from bottom to top--making certain that our guests have a world class hunting experience. In order to achieve that mission, each employee is encouraged to offer suggestions and advice on how to improve the Riverview experience.

There is no doubt in my mind that the introduction of our English Cocker flushing and retrieving dogs has been a game changer here, and I will be the first one to admit that I fought this suggestion harder than anyone. I'm now a committed believer in this program. Our hunting is safer, and more challenging because of the Cockers. Also, we are not losing nearly as many dead birds. If there is a negative aspect to this program, and I do not see it as such, we are not killing as many birds as we have in the past because these little dogs encourage a greater covey burst, and we sometimes can't mark any singles down; so we find ourselves having to go hunt for another covey.

We are also having to check our guest's luggage carefully as almost every guest who hunts with one of these lovable dogs wants to take the dog home with him. We intend to keep building this program, and plan to expand it to market these dogs to our guests and friends in the future. We may have a few puppies to sell now due to the fact that we have about all of the English Cockers that we can get trained for Riverview in the pipeline at the moment. Later on , we plan to offer sales, boarding , and training. If you are interested in one of the few puppies, you can contact Jerry Cooper by email. His email address is: jerry@riverviewplantation.com

In closing, please allow me a personal moment to say that Rivevrview lost a great friend and guest this week, Pat Fallon. Pat had hunted with us for over 16 years, and we will all miss his quick wit and bright mind.


Monday, November 9, 2015

Hunting weather

As Noah might say, " It came up a cloud this weekend", and before that cloud passed we had received more than four inches of rain at Riverview. The nice thing about this deluge was it started Saturday night , and ended just after day break on Monday morning. Since we do not hunt on Sundays, this was the perfect time to receive a monsoon if you are forced to be on the receiving end of it. But the great thing about this rain is that it has been followed by some blessed cooler weather which has been way overdue on a historical basis. Our high temperature yesterday was 57, and our high today is forecast to be 62. Now that is quail hunting weather !

Speaking of hunting, I watched a very interesting UTube clip the other day. It actually had much more to do with shooting than hunting. In this video a shooter lines up some trap machines and positions them so that the clay targets are coming directly at him at a high rate of speed. Before actually stepping in to shoot, the video shows an outline of the shooter, and the location of the impact of these clay targets should the shooter miss a shot. Suffice it to say that, should he miss a target, he will be singing soprano for the rest of his life. He then steps in and pulverizes single and double incomings without ever missing a target.

I asked myself," could or would I have attempted this in my prime?" The answer to that is"NO". I think that lines up well with my philosophy that I have no desire to hunt anything that could hunt me if I missed it. If quail had small anti-aircraft missiles under their wings, I doubt seriously that I would be a quail hunter. However, I did have a quail drop a liquid bomb on my hunting cap once years ago. Evidently that particular quail was not impressed with my shooting prowess, and expressed his feelings in a very personal way.

Hunting season is off to a grea start as we enter our third week.Come see us this season !

Monday, November 2, 2015

Hunting season

Well, since my beloved Georgia Bulldogs lost to the hated Florida Gators on Saturday and we have not scored a touchdown in 8 quarters, I think that I can safely turn my attention to the real dogs--the hunting kind !

We are beginning our third week of hunting season, and the quality of the quail hunting has been excellent. We are continuing to receive rave reviews from our guests who have been exposed to our English Cocker flushing and retrieving dogs. I have yet to figure out how the big pointers and setters are satisfied to do the hard work of finding the birds, and then allow these little dogs to flush and retrieve the quail. However, they seem to be working together as a well-oiled team thus far.

Speaking of quail, I always have been a fan of statistics, and we keep quite a good bit of internal records here such as number of birds killed per hunt, number of shells shot per birds killed,etc. Suffice it to say that as we head into the third week of the season, the quail are winning the statistical battle right now. However, our cover is always a little heavier in the fall prior to a series of heavy frosts, and this is not unusual.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I have always enjoyed hunting quail so much in the fall. Not only is it a shade more challenging, but I have a lot more ready alibis for why I missed a bird. I also can fall back on that "tried and true" line we hear so many times in the fall," I know that I killed that bird, but the dogs can't find him".Any of us who have ever guided a hunt has spent hours over the years hunting for dead birds that we were certain had kept flying, but the customer is always right. I have often wished that our dogs could talk since maybe they could convince a guest that he had not cut a feather on a particular quail.

Oh well. I do love this business, and I love people. I think that quail hunters are the finest folks in the world. Y'all come see us !

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Reminiscing

We will officially open our 58th hunting season this Sunday, and I have been blessed to be here for 44 of those 58 openings. When I finished my military obligations, the month was December, and I was accepted to Law School for the following September. Martha and I were already married, and the only person who would hire me knowing that I would be a temporary employee was my Dad. I never had any intentions of making a career here because I just did not believe that my father would ever relinquish control of the business that he and Mom had the vision to found. But, he surprised me by doing so fairly quickly, and eventually sold the company to me. In the process, I learned yet another of life's valuable lessons from my father.

I realized a couple of years ago that it was time to make another transition from me to Cader IV. I could still remember how it felt to be ready for the reins and wonder if you would ever get control; so I got ahead of the curve and we made that transition a couple of years ago. It was the right thing to do, and I'm very comfortable with it.

Just as my father did, I will always feel like Riverview is mine, and plan to be active in the company as long as God grants me good health. I will say that it's nice not to have to be sweating all of the fine details of the last week's check-off list. Martha always said that the week before we would open a season was the most difficult week to live with me. However, I have been very relaxed this week. I just sit back and take pot shots at the management from the cheap seats. I learned this technique also from Pop.

 We are excited about this hunting season, and look forward to showing everyone all of the improvements that we have made over the spring and summer!

Friday, October 9, 2015

2015-2016 hunting season

Well, today will mark the end of the first week of running our dogs daily for a half-day, and actually shooting some quail over them. According to all reports that I am receiving, both the dogs and the guides attempting to kill a few quail have improved a lot from Monday through today. Our winter grass has all been planted, and the lodge grounds are really looking good.

All of the staff, guides, and housekeeping received their flu shots on Wednesday of this week. Since I am officially the only old person on the payroll, I got both a flu and pneumonia shot. My precious four year old granddaughter, Caroline, was at the office when this was taking place. She felt that it was important to hold my hand so that I would not cry. She even went the extra mile, and let me hold her precious stuffed animal, Babel, while I got my shots. She held my hand and patted me the entire time. Shots do not faze me in the least,but I thought that her gesture was very touching. However, after watching some of our macho guides, I concluded that Nurse Caroline might have served better by administering to them.

Next Wednesday, we will have our kick-off steak dinner down here for the guides. This is always a big evening at Riverview as we go over our goals and expectations for the coming season. We will officially open the 2015-2016 hunting season on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 18th, and we are all very excited about beginning our 58th year in the quail hunting business.

Fall is arriving right on schedule for us. The mornings are cool, the humidity is leaving the air, and the gnats are beginning to go wherever in the heck that they go. Personally, I wish that they would go to either hell or Syria. My beloved Georgia Bulldogs have pulled their annual folding act, and were trounced by Alabama last Saturday; so now I can concentrate on the quail hunting business.

Thanks to abundant rainfall, the woods look as good as I have ever seen them, and the birds are plentiful. As we say in the south, " Y'all come see us" !

Thursday, October 1, 2015

This & That

Fall is definitely rolling into South Georgia this weekend following some beneficial rainfall for the past couple of days. My peanut farmer neighbors who are trying to pick their peanuts probably are not as happy with the rain as we are, but these rains have fallen on Riverview at a very opportune  time. We just planted our winter rye down the sides of the lodge road, and are in the process of planting our winter grass around all of the cottages.

This week we also began working all of our hunting dogs into playing shape. Each guide is taking his string of dogs out for two and a half hours in the morning , and is supposed to be shooting a few quail over them. I used the word "supposed" since unconfirmed reports have some of our guides shooting "AT" birds. However, it seems that a number of birds are failing to cooperate by falling dead, and our retrievers are grinning and relaxing. Next week we will move up to running the dogs for an entire morning. Dogs, like any other athletes, have to play themselves into shape.

The kitchen and housekeeping staff began work last week going through all of the cottages with a fine tooth comb. It always amazes me how everything is working when we shut down in late March. Somehow during the summer months, the gremlins perform their magic in almost every cottage. Our plumbers, electricians, and heating and cooling folks are having a field day fixing items that were working great six months ago.

Oh well, it could be a lot worse. I could be President Obama, and not have a clue how to deal with Mr. Putin. I'm fairly conflicted about what we should do in Syria. President Obama drew his famous red line in the sand for Assad which he crossed with impunity while we did nothing. Now geo-politics is not my strong suit, but I think that Assad is now fighting ISIS. ISIS is nothing more than a bunch of barbarians while Assad is a butcher of his own people. Whose side should we be on ? Why isn't the best policy just to vacate the region, and let them all kill each other. I can almost guarantee you that they will turn on their Russian allies when they have no one else to fight. I would not want to send my son or daughter over there for a bunch of folks who hate us.

I have about decided that the line to the old country music song summed it up best when it said, "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy". This is a crazy world that we are living in these days. If you want to escape it for a while and see some of the most beautiful woods and best quail hunting in the world, come see us !!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Fall season

Well, the fall season is just about officially ready to begin, and south Georgia is beginning to feel the affects of it also. Martha and I spent last week in Highlands, N.C. where, thanks to elevation, it felt more like winter than fall if you are a native South Georgian. When we arrived last Monday morning, the external thermometer on my car was reading 38 degrees---BRRR ! We spent the week doing our normal thing there---I read books on my Kindle while Martha tried to help the local economy by shopping every day.

This morning got off to less than a stellar beginning for me. I missed a trophy armadillo in my yard at 5:30 am. As I was explaining to Cader IV that the flashlight slipped in my hand about the time I was squeezing the trigger, he responded, " Dad, you sound a lot like most of our guests describing how they missed a quail. It is always every reason except the fact that they just missed the bird". He may be correct, but he had better not make a mistake this week or I plan to pounce on him like "white on rice".

Speaking of quail, this week we will begin the integration of our pointing and flushing dogs working together. Dogs are like people, and have distinct personalities. It's Moss's job to find the dogs that get along and work well together. This is also the time of the year that our vet bills climb due to dog fights until the alpha males rise to the top, and we make certain that we are not pairing two alpha males together.

Jerry has also begun official guide training for our three young guides that we have hired for the season. This process will include three weeks of formal class room training and woods orientation, followed by three weeks of field work as apprentices to our senior guides. We have three fine young men joining us this year.

As a closing note, just in case any of you have tried to call us in the past day or so and received no answer, we are still in business. However, we have no telephone service. It seems as though we may have sliced our main ATT phone cable while preparing to plant our winter rye grass on the borders of the Lodge road leading into the main lodge. Since our harrow only goes about six inches in the ground, I find this hard to believe, but our ATT guy swears that it's the case. We have a dig crew coming this morning to locate and splice the cut.

The lodge grounds and woods look great, and we are looking forward to a great 2015-2016 season. Give us a call, and come see what all we have done since your last visit.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

A confused US citizen

Because I understand that a good many folks believe Fox News to be biased, I did a good bit of Google research before writing this brief tirade which has not one thing to do with Riverview or quail hunting. It seems that only 21% of the American people are in favor of this treaty with Iran, yet it looks like a slam dunk to pass.

In doing a little constitutional research , I found this: The president " shall have Power,by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present concur".(article II,section 2). So, how did we get from that to a point that it takes two-thirds of the senate to over ride a veto by the president which actually means only one-third of the senate needs to approve the deal.

Two thoughts come to my mind: First, maybe the language has been carefully crafted to where this agreement is not actually a treaty. Maybe it's just a gentleman's agreement between two friends, one of whom chants" Death to America". That would be going down the old Bill Clinton road of what the definition of "is" is. My next thought is why do we even have a house and a senate. Why do we waste time and money electing these folks when basically the will of the American people is being trampled upon.

These bozos in the house and senate could not even agree to a rule as to how to oppose this agreement. We now have Republicans McConnell and Boehner as heads of their respective houses. However, for all of the difference that has made, we might as well still have Reid and Pelosi. Our country is basically being governed by the executive branch and a very small cadre of advisers. Somehow, I do not think that this is what our founding fathers intended.

When almost 80% of the citizens of this country oppose a deal and yet our elected officials are either unable or unwilling to listen, we no longer live in a democracy. This is a scary proposition to me.I believe in our great nation, and I believe that we will not tolerate this type of government forever because we are not a nation of sheep, Come on America. Let's wake up and be heard for the sake of our children and grandchildren !

The last time I wrote something like this to my US Representative, I never received the courtesy of a reply. I was, however, selected for a " random thorough review" of my tax return. Maybe the IRS had finally finished looking at Al Sharpton and had time to concentrate on the real problems like me. It took them five months, but they found absolutely nothing, and had to send me my refund plus interest.

God bless America !!

Friday, September 4, 2015

Labor Day

At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don't have jobs, some 40% have given up even looking. Those statistics come from a survey issued this past Wednesday which begs the question, " Do folks without jobs celebrate Labor Day"? Way back in my much younger years, I found it was much easier to get a girlfriend if you already had a girlfriend. I think that the same thought process applies to jobs.

One of the reasons that I've been hesitant to really embrace full retirement is that I wonder how I would get excited about the weekend coming or taking off and going on a vacation. If every day is a holiday, what does one look forward to ? I think that I'm going to keep on working with the same mission my Dad had--to second guess and criticize the current management and my son. The view from the cheap seats is pretty good if you want to know the truth.

Gas prices are declining, and everyone except the oil companies and Riverview is celebrating cheaper prices at the pump. The reason we are not excited about it here is that the oil patch likes to hunt. As their profit margins erode, so does their discretionary spending. I would just as soon pay a little bit more at the pump, and keep seeing all of my oil buddies hunting here.

If you are going to be traveling this weekend, be careful. There are a lot of crazy drivers on the road. Martha and I will be baby sitting grandchildren this weekend and watching the UGA football game from the best seat in the stadium--my reclining chair!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

September

Wow, I can hardly believe it, but my calendar says that today is the first day of September! For all practical purposes, there is no difference in temperatures in south Georgia in the first two weeks of September and the temperatures we experience in the month of August. However, just the name of the month hints the promise of changes to come, and we do see our temperatures begin a decline by the middle of the month. Football season begins in September as well as some of our hunting seasons in Georgia.

I read a quote by someone named Robyn Davidson who said, " The good Lord in his infinite wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable--hope, jokes, and dogs". As always, I'm hoping that my Georgia Bulldogs will live up to expectations although they have a long history of failing to show up for at least a game or two.

As to jokes, we have plenty of them. They are either in Washington, or they are running for office to get there ! And I am still missing my beloved dog. I see her in my mind and heart every single day, and I even dream about my Sugar at least once a week. Without my dog, I'm going to have to get by for a while longer on just hope and jokes.

Speaking of jokes, I have,regretfully concluded, that I will never become a good pistol shot. I plan to go back to the gun store today and purchase many more rounds of 380 ammo. I'm determined to get good enough to place six shots in a pie plate from 15 paces. Until I achieve that goal, my best bet is to be attacked at close range by a very fat person.. The fact that I suffer from an inherited condition which makes my hands shake slightly all of the time does not help in the least as my sight wobbles around the pie plate like a leaf in the wind.

Oh well, I've always said that if the going gets easy, you may be headed downhill, and I'm not ready to start down that slope yet. On the bright side, I can still shoot a shotgun pretty darn good. While the bad guys may laugh at me, the birds had better not get too comfortable because it IS September!

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Another senseless shooting

As did much of the nation, I was horrified and saddened to see two young lives taken by a deranged gunman yesterday. The young reporter and camera man had their entire lives in front of them. Now they will never know the joys of marriage,parenthood, and so many other wondrous opportunities that have been snatched from them.

My next thought was that I wonder when the idiots running our country will begin to bang the drum blaming guns for this killing. That makes about as much sense as blaming spoons for fat people. My first weapon was my thumb and index finger. From there I graduated to a BB gun, and then on to real weapons that could kill. However, before I ever got to the real weapons, I had a father who drilled gun safety into me incessantly.

I grew up in a very politically incorrect generation. We played Cowboys & Indians every day at recess. I also watched Roy Rogers and Gene Autry fire at least 60 shots from a six shooter pistol almost every Saturday at what we called " The Picture Show". However, I never had any difficulty distinguishing between the real and the make believe. When my Dad placed that shotgun in my hands, I knew that it was the real deal, and I had a very real responsibility to handle it with respect and never point it at anything that I did not wish to shoot.

When I look at the many cases in our country of senseless violence and mass shootings, I really don't see guns as the root cause. I see a society where we have a breakdown of the nuclear family. Values that were drilled into me are no longer being taught. Secondly, I see a lot of mental illness that is slipping through the cracks and going untreated. We have plenty of laws on the books, but we have a bloated federal government who can't even enforce the laws that they pass.

The deranged gunman who killed all of the folks in Charleston should never have passed the NICS background search for purchasing a pistol, but he did. The illegal immigrant who had been deported six times yet still killed an innocent young lady in California should never have been in our country. But he was!

I'm old school, and I wish that we could see some old school justice return to our nation. I can assure you that the US citizens of my grandfather's day would not have tolerated what we see on television every day. Justice would have been swift and certain, and some limbs from a bunch of big oak trees would be getting a workout. I guarantee you that we would not have seen as many murderers,rapists, and pedophiles running around in those days.

Have we become a nation of sheep ?I pray that is not the case. As for me, I'm about to do something that I never thought that I would need to do. I've had a concealed carry weapon permit for a long time, but now I'm about to utilize it. I believe that our justice system is a joke, and the bad guys know that even better than I do.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

This & That

Well, like many of you I watched the stock market gyrations yesterday with more than passing interest. I feel kind of like the old cattleman who said, " I left the gate open, and all of my stock got out". I got up early this morning to watch all of the expert predictions as to what was going to happen today with the markets. Those predictions range from a minor correction to a Dow of 6000. They know about as much as I do, which is zilch.

What I do know is a feeling expressed by an old timer down here who once said, " Lord, please don't give it to me if you are going to take it away". If I never had it, I would not miss it. I can think of a lot of things that I was perfectly content to live without until they became a necessity in my life once they were invented. The cell phone is a prime example. However, I have always been kind of partial to eating well, and paying my bills.

This market correction, if that is indeed what id going on, is something that I predicted and anticipated. My only problem is that I was a good 18 months premature on my prediction as I went mostly to cash that long ago. I watched the market continue to soar while I have earned a magnificent one-tenth of one percent return on cash. Oh well, the sun doesn't shine up the same dog's fanny all of the time.

I'm still not ready to jump back into this market as I have always believed that pigs get fed while hogs get slaughtered. I've been patient this long; so I am comfortable to stay on the sidelines a while longer while the elephants trample one another. I wish that I had some confidence in the Fed or our elected officials, but I have absolutely no faith in them.

I have reached the sad stage in my life where I fear my own government more than I do ISIS. It seems that every day, they are eroding or taking another basic right of our democracy away. I feel a bit like a sheep, and I don't like feeling like a sheep. I firmly believe that it is time for us to fight for the future of our children and grandchildren. I have no idea as to who the best candidate for president of the US would be at the moment, but I have some strong feelings as to who would not be good candidates.

In the meantime, our garden is still feeding us, the pine trees are growing, and the quail are multiplying like crazy in the woods. Fall is just around the corner, and our weatherman is predicting that we will get a taste of fall tomorrow. Let's hope that he predicts the weather better than I do the stock market !

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

No place like home

My wife kidnapped me and took me on an all expense paid trip(paid by me) to Ireland for 2+ weeks. As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz," There's no place like home,Toto". I enjoyed the trip immensely, but I sure was glad to see my house again. Sometimes we need to leave South Georgia to realize just how beautiful this place we call home is--heat, humidity, gnats, and all.

 The scenery in Ireland was just awesome, and the people were so friendly and helpful. It's more comforting to me to visit a foreign country where they speak a language I understand even if with a strong accent. Of course, we ran into plenty of US citizens who struggled to understand our South Georgia dialect. I enjoyed the countryside more than the cities, but that is just my nature. After a while, all castles and cathedrals look the same to me, but terrain is constantly changing.

Speaking of cathedrals, I located one of my ancestors who had a burial vault on the floor of the church. I was feeling fairly smug until our guide pointed out that Michelle Obama's uncle, six generations removed, was also buried in this church. My smart butt friend, Earl, quickly made the connection that I must be kin to Michelle. Now what I found interesting was that they could trace her lineage that far back, but we can't find her husband's college transcripts.

We also saw some of the best dog work I have ever observed with border collies herding sheep. A sheep herder gave us a private demonstration of two of the best trained dogs that I have ever seen. Each dog performed individually or as a team based on hand signals and whistles from their trainer. It was most impressive! Oh, did I mention that they have quite a few sheep in Ireland?

I will not bore you with all of the places we visited, but we covered both Ireland, and spent a few days in The Republic of Northern Ireland. My take on Northern Ireland is that those wounds have not healed, and it would not take much of a spark for a fire to blaze back up. We were more comfortable when we exited there and got to Dublin.

Guess what folks? College football season is just around the corner, and hunting season will be here before we know it. We are ready. The woods are beautiful, the quail are plentiful, and the guides and dogs are chomping at the bits!

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Dog Days of Summer

When I was a little boy, my mother always cautioned me about the Dog Days of Summer. She would warn me that if I cut myself, which I invariably did with my trusty Barlow knife, that the wound would not heal until after that period ended. And, as usual, Mom was right. I had always thought that the term " Dog Days of Summer" referred to the fact that it was so hot down here that even the dogs couldn't stand it and tended to go crazy.

I now know that is not the case. I believe that the Romans coined the phrase, and it refers to that time when Sirius, the Dog Star,rose just before or at the same time as the sun. The Romans believed it to be an evil time when" the sea boiled,wine turned sour,dogs grew mad,and all other creatures became languid". Well, the Romans had at least some of that correct.

I have also read various dates which encompass the Dog Days, and those dates have changed over the years. My best estimate would be to peg the Dog Days of Summer as somewhere from mid July through mid August. What really got me to pondering on this subject was watching our weather forecast for the first three days of this week. Our local weatherman said that Monday of this week was going to be "hot", Tuesday was going to be "oppressive", and that Wednesday was going to be "hideous". Now I have been watching the weather for as long as I can remember, but this is the first classification of "hideous" that I can recall.

My best description of this time of the year is that it is too hot to fish any more, and it's still a little too early to begin getting excited about hunting season; so I think that I will just become languid like the Romans of old and the Riverview employees of today. However, I really can't blame anyone for moving slower and taking more breaks in this heat and humidity!

Friday, July 24, 2015

Follow up on dog kennels

One of my guests recently emailed me and asked me how our bird dogs fared in this heat we have been experiencing in South Georgia for the past three weeks, and wanted a better explanation of their housing facilities. The best way to answer that question is to first explain that the pointer breed of hunting dog was born and bred for the south, much like the Brahma cattle and us southern rednecks. You just have to be a native to survive this weather.We shave all of our English setters and any other long-haired, bigger hunting dogs late in the spring so that their hair looks very similar to mine.

However, to be more specific,our big dogs all have concrete runs with automatic feeders and waterers in them. Each run accommodates two dogs, and they share a dog house. Over the top of each house, we run a sheet of reflective metal to bounce the sun's rays back skyward. But, make no mistake about it--It is still very hot at the kennels in July and August.

Now the new digs for our English Cockers are different. To begin with, each of them have individual houses, and each house has a fan mounted to blow air on them. I can just see their neighbors in the lower class kennels glaring at them each day. In my opinion, somebody is going to bite somebody when they get a chance because jealousy has to be rampant at the Riverview kennels.

The most interesting time to be around our kennels is usually around the second week in September. That's when Moss, our kennel manager, starts assigning dogs to guides. Each guide will have a certain number of consecutive runs that houses his dogs; so dogs that have been living together suddenly have new roommates. Guess what ? Dogs get along with one another about as good as people do. Someone almost has to live at the kennels for a while until we can figure out the pairings of dogs that can share a kennel without fighting. And a bird dog fight is not a pretty thing. They fight to win, and play for keeps. I have actually seen a male pointer rip another pointer to shreds.

When I was a kid, I had a huge German Shepherd that liked to walk out to the dog kennels and torment them with the fact that he was roaming free while they were in confinement. Our kennel manager at that time, Mr. Bobby Sharp, had asked me repeatedly to keep my dog in the yard, but I ignored him. He finally got enough of it one day, and let one of our big male pointers out while Vengie was tormenting them. We never had to worry about Vengie visiting the dog kennels again after he drug his bloody, whipped butt to the house.

In closing, the woods and food plots look great. Hunting and football season will be here before we can blink an eye, and we are ready !

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Weather

An old friend once told me,"Don't knock the weather because without it, no one would ever know how to start a conversation". Well, I can guarantee you that our weather in South Georgia is the number one topic of conversation these days. It's so hot down here right now that I'm fairly certain that I saw Satan sitting under an oak tree a few minutes ago fanning himself with a church fan. I couldn't tell what church the fan belonged to, but I'm certain that it was not a Baptist church fan.

In our part of Mitchell County, there are a lot of folks with poultry houses who raise chickens. Now in case you are unaware of this fact, let me tell you that chickens need very little of an excuse to die. If it is too hot or too cold, they just check out for greener pastures. Maybe they are smarter than I think they are, and are merely choosing to die earlier rather than ending up in some preacher's belly on a Sunday afternoon. At any rate, one of my poultry grower friends told me where to order a gizmo that measures all kinds of things that he needs to keep up with in his chicken houses.One of the functions on this gadget measures the temperature/humidity index. In South Georgia we call that the "feels like temperature".

I was shocked to find out that I had to order this device from Pennsylvania. You would think that southerners would have cornered the market on how to measure heat. I took my handheld device outside a few minutes ago, and it gave me a temperature/humidity index reading of 114.2 degrees! Hey folks, we have not reached the hottest part of the day here yet! This old boy is retreating to the office for the remainder of the day. I'm not ashamed to admit that I am not as tough as I once was.

In my next blog, I plan to share a bit more about the kennels being built for our English Cockers. Suffice it to say, I am not nearly as concerned about Martha making me sleep in the dog house as I once was. I also firmly believe that our pointers are going to be seriously offended as they compare their accommodations with the ones these Cockers have.

Please allow me to close with this quote from John Adams,"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people". To that quote, I would like to add one of my father's favorite sayings that went something like this," never under estimate the dumbness of the voting population of this country". Is it any wonder that our laws are being broken, our constitution violated, and our rights taken from us on an almost daily basis? We have a voting population who primarily get their news from the late night talk shows when folks like me are asleep.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Sweet Corn and Saw Timber

Well, we are finally finished with our sweet corn harvesting and will finish our timber thinning program this coming week. I know that everyone is familiar with the old expression," sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you". Well, the bear got us in the sweet corn business this season. We had high yields and great quality, but struggled with weak demand and low prices for almost our entire window of production. We finally got to the last ten days of harvest when both demand and prices strengthened, and then along came the storms and blew a lot of this spindly stuff to the ground.

Our Haitian harvesting crews call blown down sweet corn,"sleepy corn". They do not like to pick it, but they will. Of course they charge more money for having to bend over so much and struggle with picking it off of the ground. Yield declines in blown down corn are inevitable. Our average crate per acre harvest dropped by about 100 crates to the acre in what was our best price market. As I was chatting with my close friend and partner yesterday about this business, he commented," Isn't it so much fun to work this hard to break even?" He also told me that I had made a joking but disparaging comment in an earlier blog when comparing my hunting guests to my harvesting crews; so let me set the record straight on that issue. My comments were meant as tongue-in-cheek. After re-reading it, I can see that it was insensitive. While our workforce of migrants are uneducated, they are some of the hardest working folks in the world. They do a job that no one else in this country could or would do. I will still stick to the fact that my mind will never be able to grasp" Haitian logic". I do not and can not understand how they think, but they are some hard working human beings.

Perhaps if anyone in this business of growing sweet corn is not very bright, it is us farmers who continue to take huge risks each year growing what is annually becoming a more expensive crop with diminishing returns. I am beginning to ponder the risk/reward relationship in this business. A crop that once cost me about $500 per acre to grow now costs north of $1200 an acre to grow. It is much harder to walk by and skip harvesting a $1200 per acre planting due to weak demand than it was to skip a $500 per acre cost planting in the past.

On a more pleasant subject, God blessed us with great weather for a timber thinning program. We have stayed right behind the thinning operation with two big, rubber tired front end loaders. Our employees cleaned up and burned all of the debris left behind. We then came behind that operation and planted a bunch of different grasses on the bare land. Thanks to the abundant rains( some of which produced the storms that blew down the sweet corn), the grass has flourished, and healed the land. Honestly, if I did not know the areas that we had thinned, I would not be able to tell any logging operation had even occurred on those tracts.

 Now I plan to ride out and look at these Taj Mahal kennels that Jerry and Cader IV are constructing for our English Cockers. I think that if I were one of our pointers, I would hire me a lawyer and file a class action discrimination lawsuit. So far, all I have seen is the bills for this project. I plan to look at the actual facilities this morning, and may reserve me a room there. Depending on how I get along with my wife this weekend, reserving a room might be mandatory rather than optional.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Unless you have to come to South Georgia this weekend, I would advise you to stay well north of us. It's going to be HOT down here this weekend!!

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Modern Tecnology

It is absolutely astounding how quickly we become addicted to technology. Our high speed Wifi has been down for 8 days, and we finally got it back up over the weekend. Thank goodness my IPad has 3G capability. Otherwise, we would have been unable to make some tax deposits to the government which can only be done on-line, and we all know what an understanding bunch the IRS is.

This situation got me to thinking about the things that we did not have growing up, but have become quickly addicted to. The list is almost endless, but I'm just going to mention a very few in this blog. We did not have air conditioning when I was growing up, but we did have a big attic fan that moved the warm air around the house all day long. I would leave my bedroom windows open at night, and the air would suck the curtains over my bed like a set of ghosts hovering over me. Of course the windows were open, the doors unlocked, and the keys were in the car because crime and drugs were virtually non-existent. These days I keep my heating and cooling man's phone number on my speed dial because I figure that I can survive about three hours without a functioning cooling system.

We did not have cell phones. As a matter of fact, I remember our first phone in the house. We were on an 8 party line which meant 8 families out here in the sticks shared the same line. Each family's phone had a distinctive ring. Ours was two short rings followed by one long ring. If you were a child and you were using the phone when an adult from another family picked up the phone to use it, you would hear someone say, " You young'uns get off the phone. I need to make a call". And we would hang up pronto. Now days, my cell phone attached to my hip seems as essential to me as my billfold and pocket knife.

We did not have GPS, and this is the one that I am going to close on for today. All of our tractors are equipped with GPS units. The tractors actually lay out and plant the rows of crops in unerring straight lines. The inside of our farm tractors look like the cockpit of a jet. In my day, we had to use a row marker and a steady hand to plant our rows. My Dad once commented that some of my rows were so crooked that we were going to have to bend the plows in order to cultivate our peanuts.

I read a book a couple of years ago titled, One Second After. I encourage everyone to read it. It tells a fictional tale of what happens in the US if something destroys all of our computer and GPS systems in an attack. I wonder if anyone under 30 years of age even knows how to read a map? I fear that many of the skills and talents of our ancestors are lost to antiquity. I am happy to say that I am still of the generation that can identify and live by the words of the old Hank Williams, Jr. song, A Country Boy Can Survive. In that song, Hank says," I can skin a buck, I can bait a trot line because a country boy can survive"!

Well, this old boy can survive, but I would prefer to keep my creature comforts and technology that I have grown accustomed to!

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Of cats and dogs

Over this past Father's Day weekend, my older sister and I were reminiscing about our lives as children growing up in the country. I reminded her that Pop had me in the tobacco and peanut fields before daylight while she never had to do that because she was a "girl". She quickly came back and said,"yes, but I had to go to the garden every morning to pick peas and butterbeans. Then I had to shell the darn things until my fingers were numb. After that, Mama would make me go to the fence line to pick blackberries to make a blackberry pie for her hard working men in the field".

And then Sis took it one step too far when she said, " I had to pick blackberries for y'all while dodging rattlesnakes". That's when the memories came flooding back. My sister was a cat person while I have always been a dog man. She loved cats, and had them all around her. I always felt like her cats were looking at me thinking," If I just weighed 25 more pounds, I would kill you and eat you right on this spot". I guarantee you that none of her cats would have jumped between her and a rattlesnake while I had more than one dog do that for me.

If we had the coyotes back then that we do now, they would have all been sitting around the Cox house wearing a red napkin around their necks and a knife and fork in their hands just waiting for one of Sis's cats. I learned a lot of things about cats while learning to dislike them. It is true that no matter how you turn them or how far you drop them, they do,indeed, land on their feet. I paid a terrible price to learn that lesson. Did I mention that my older sister could beat me up until I was in the seventh grade?

Now before any of you cat lovers get really mad, please let me say that I do not hate cats. As a matter of fact, I have two daughters that I love so much that I allowed them to own a cat that lived in my house. They gave her the very unique name of "Kitty", and Kitty lived with us for 19 years. Both me and my dogs got very comfortable with the cat. My first lab even got to where she would only take a half-hearted snap at Kitty's tail every now and then. I don't think that she really wanted to bite the cat. She just wanted Kitty to know that it might happen.

I've had some stubborn, hard-headed dogs in my life, but I have never had a dog that failed to love me unconditionally.As my Dad once told me," lock your wife and dog up in the trunk of the car for an hour, and then open it. See which one is happy to see you". I never got up the nerve to try that experiment. Cats appear to act as if we were placed upon the earth to serve them. Just in case my sister were to decide to take offense, why don't we just leave this with this comment." I'm a dog man, and always will be"!

 Below is a painting of my beloved Lab, Sugar, who departed this world about three weeks ago. My sweet daughter-in-law had this painting done for me as a Christmas present a few years ago. It is one of my treasured possessions. I still go to bed thinking about Sugar, and wake up missing her. Nothing gave her more joy than seeing me each morning, and I felt the same way about her.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Thoughts on Father's Day

Pope John XIII said, " It is easier for a father to have children than for a children to have a real father". I believe that no truer words have ever been spoken. If I could judged as achieving any goal in my life, I would like for it to be said at my funeral that I was a good father and grandfather. But, we all learn this profession by following in the footsteps of our own fathers, and that is what is wrong with today's society. There are simply way too many homes without a father in them. How do sons learn without a role model to follow?

So, I would like to take a few minutes to pay tribute to my father who taught me so many of life's lessons, some of them the hard way. I loved, respected, and yes, feared my Dad. He taught me that any job worth doing was worth doing right. He also instilled in me a work ethic, and a desire to succeed. Pop was a tough task master. When I was about 12 years old, my appendix ruptured, my liver abscessed, and I had gangrene throughout my body. The doctors gave me about a one in one hundred chance of surviving the surgery. How did I get in such bad shape? It was because Pop would not let me stop pulling weeds out of a peanut field just because I was complaining of a stomach ache. In his defense, I had used the old stomach ache trick in the past to escape some unpleasant jobs on the farm. Pop later told me that he would never have forgiven himself had I died. Guess what--I would have had fairly hard feelings about it myself !

 My Dad was one of the best wing shots and fishermen I ever knew. He almost never failed to get a double on a quail covey rise, and could tell you whether the birds he shot were mail or female. I, on the other hand, could just see a blur of feathers, and was delighted to just drop a bird. I did become as good of a shot as my Dad, but I never could tell whether I had shot males or females until the dogs retrieved them.

I never did become as good of a fisherman as my dad. He always told me that my basic problem with fishing was that I had to be smarter than the fish. I think that he was implying something with this snide comment, but I chose to ignore it.

Pop was a visionary. When he and Mom began Riverview Plantation in 1957, we were the pioneers of commercial quail hunting in the south. Most of Dad's friends just hooted and laughed over the insane idea that people would pay money for what had always been a free privilege in the south. Pop could also look at a raw piece of land, and see the developed potential. He taught me how to do that.
 Pop was not perfect as none of us are. He battled a problem with alcohol for the better part of his life, but he conquered that demon in 1974, and never took another drink. That proved to me that prayer works, but it works on God's time rather than mine because I sure prayed for my father to quit drinking for many years before he quit.

One of the memories that I will cherish the most was the years that my Dad, my son, and I got to spend together hunting, fishing, and talking about life in general. We would have a cup of coffee together every morning at 7:00 am. That was when I discovered why grandfathers and grandsons are so close to one another--They share a common enemy. Those two would gang up on me unmercifully. I have learned that lesson, and am cultivating Cader B. Cox V even as a two year old. If I am blessed with long life, pay back is going to be a ----- for my son, and I can hardly wait.

In the meantime, I wish all of you fathers a happy Father's Day, and I honor and cherish the memories of the fathers who have gone on to be with the Lord!

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

It's hot in South Georgia

Since we are primarily a fall and winter resort, our guests often ask us why we do not open up our beautiful facilities during the spring and summer months. I can certainly understand their feelings as they watch the beautiful Flint River roll by while enjoy a crisp autumn or cold winter day. I always reply," Folks, you really have to be a native to endure the summer months here". The heat, humidity, and gnats are real killers!

I have an evangelist buddy, Thomas, whom I love to death. One of his favorite lines is, " I try to preach heaven sweet and hell hot". Well, Thomas, my young friend, if hell is any hotter than South Georgia is today, I'm going to be a REAL good boy! I could not bear the thought of being this miserable for eternity.

 Cader IV and I just got back from the sweet corn field. Those folks started hand picking sweet corn at 5:45 this morning, and they will probably be finished with that planting by 3:30 today. They are some very tough human beings, and I admire the heck out of their stamina and perseverance. I have attached a photo of our weatherman's hand as he was pointing to the predicted temperatures for today during the 5:30 am news this morning. He got it correct this time ! Our property lies between Camilla and Bainbridge if you need a better idea of what life is like here today.

I'm going to sign off for now and work on my behavior so that I never have to worry about visiting hell since I've come close enough for comfort today.

Friday, June 12, 2015

English Cockers

I'm hoping that in the future some of my IT folks are going to show me how to post some photos with my blogs. Right now, I'm posting a blog,then forwarding that blog to my Facebook account where I DO know how to include photos. I took a couple of good photos of these sweet flushing and retrieving dogs this morning. Well, actually Cader IV snapped the photos since my hands shake a wee bit. Martha often complains about my pictures being fuzzy.

If any of you do go to Facebook after reading the blog, you will see a couple of photos of really pretty English Cockers in various ages and stages of training. You will also notice Chuck, Jerry, and Andy in those two photos since they are the three men primarily working in the breeding and training of these lovable dogs. If perchance, these three employees appear to be a little "well fed", I should note that sweet corn is so cheap this year that we are paying salaries this summer in crates of sweet corn rather than dollars. Evidently, they are getting their money's worth.

There is an old song about two tear drops falling and rolling slowly to the ocean. One tear drop is a drop of sorrow over the loss of a loved one. I experienced that tear drop this week as I laid my beloved Lab to rest in my yard. The other tear drop is one of joy over the birth of a new soul entering the world. I had the privilege of seeing that this week also as two of our best English Cocker females had healthy deliveries of litters this week. Jerry and Cheri served as midwives on both litters. They have been very proud of the mothers who have taken to motherhood with much enthusiasm. It may surprise you to know that sometimes Mama dogs are not good mothers, and will reject their puppies. I can't tell you how many bird dog puppies I had to nurse as a child with one of my sister's baby doll bottles because the mother would not let her puppies nurse.

Both of these litters come from great bloodlines, and we are very excited about their prospects. Meanwhile Chuck and Andy tell me that their started dogs are all progressing in their training on schedule or ahead of schedule. The English Cocker is a very smart animal. They are also one of the most affectionate breed of dogs that I have ever been around. When Jerry was holding two of the puppies this morning, they were wagging their tails and about to lick me to death. I absolutely love the smell of puppy breath! You can take all of the perfumes in the world, and it would not smell as good as that to me.

While my heart just is not ready for another dog right now as I continue to mourn the loss of my sweet Sugar, I am going to have to be very careful around these dogs because one could steal my heart in a minute.


Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Im memory of my beloved Lab, Sugar

Last night Sugar took her last ride with Martha and me. She was almost 14 years old, and her hips and joints finally gave out all at once yesterday. She could not climb up the two steps she likes to climb up to rest on the door step in our garage. I held her in my lap as Jerry kindly helped us drive her to the vet. For the entire ride to Bainbridge, she continued to lick the tears from my eyes, and assured me that she had led a good life and knew that she was loved. As I held her head in my arms while the vet administered the medicine, the last thing that she tried to do before closing her eyes for eternity was to lick my face once more.

I had already called Cader IV, and he was digging her grave on the banks of her beloved Flint River that she so enjoyed swimming in daily. Cader IV's precious daughter ,Caroline, sent over a few flowers left over from her dance recital, and we laid them on top of the grave when we were finished.

And then the tears and memories came flooding in. Sugar was almost 14 years old. I remember like yesterday the day we went to Rodney and Luci's house to pick our puppy from the litter. This litter all ran to big dogs with the females weighing 80-95 pounds and the males weighing 100-125 at maturity.The only thing we were certain of is that we wanted a female. Martha asked me on the way," How will we decide which puppy to choose"? I told her that we would not choose the puppy, but the puppy would choose us. When we arrived, Rodney let all of the puppies out, and we sat on the ground while they cavorted around us. One little brown fur ball kept climbing between my legs and nestling in my lap while the others rambled here there and yonder. I knew that our dog had chosen us, and we registered her as " Martha's Sweet Brown Sugar". Of course, she quickly became known as just Sugar.

Sugar was my first Lab that I owned after all of my children were grown; so I was able to train her as a real hunting dog. I had allowed the kids to ruin the others by chasing after them with balls, but I have always believed that it was more important for the kids to have a pet than for me to own a jam-up retriever. I did not have that to contend with when Sugar came along; so I trained her to be a first class retriever as well as a wonderful companion. She may have been the smartest dog I ever owned, and had an excellent nose as well as eyesight.She learned hand signals on her own by jogging with me daily as a puppy. When we would come to a fork in the road, I would motion to her which direction I planned to jog. She had directional hand signals down pat before we ever really started serious training. Once trained to all commands, she would only obey Martha if she looked at me first as if to ask," Do I have to do what she says"? That was funny to both Martha and me as she would only obey a sit,stay, or come command from Martha after looking at me for a head nod.

On our first dove hunt, everyone was in stitches watching her. When no birds were coming in, she would insist on crawling in my lap. She probably weighed about 75 pounds then, and 75 pounds of fur sitting in your lap in September is hot. I also recall on that hunt, I made a snap shot at a dove flying behind me in a thicket. I thought that I had missed the bird. Sugar kept whining and trying to leave our stand, and I was becoming agitated. Jerry Cooper, who is a great dog trainer, was on the stand up from me. He finally walked down to me and said," Boss, you killed that bird. I saw it go down, and Sugar did also. She wants to go get that bird". I turned her loose, and she came back proudly in about five minutes with a dove in her mouth.

Another thing that absolutely amazed me about Sugar was how gentle she was with my grandchildren. The only time she ever hurt any of my triplets who were very young when Sugar was young too was when she would accidentally knock them over wagging that big tail of hers because she was always so happy to see them.It absolutely floored me that a dog with enough bite pressure to snap her jaws on an armadillo and squeeze its intestines out of its rear end could feather a tennis ball out of a four year old's hand without ever touching a finger of one of my grandchildren.

 I read a story once of a man who realized that he had died. He found himself walking down a dusty trail with an old dog of his that had died many years ago.After they had walked for a while and had become thirsty, they came to a gate. He knocked on the door. When the gate keeper answered, he asked what this place was and was informed that this was heaven's gate. The man asked if he and his dog could come in and get a drink of water. The gate keeper replied that he was welcome to come in, but no dogs were allowed. The gentleman said, " Well, I reckon that I don't belong here either. They traveled on a few miles and came to another gate. He knocked on that one also, and inquired if he and his dog could come in for a drink of water. The gate keeper replied,"Certainly".Once inside, the man asked what the name of this place was and was told that he was in heaven. The gentleman was puzzled and mentioned that the last place that would not allow his dog in had claimed to be heaven also. St. Peter replied, " NO, that was a test. Any man who would leave his dog and walk in that gate entered hell!

All theology aside, I choose to believe that my sweet Sugar is in heaven. She has all of her strength and stamina back. She can now not only chase squirrels and armadillos, but she's catching them again. I miss her, but I have a lifetime of precious memories of my sweet,old girl!

Friday, June 5, 2015

sweet corn and pine saw timber

We are harvesting two crops on Riverview this summer that could not be more different in character--sweet corn and pine saw timber. I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about each of them this morning. However, when I get to the part about saw timber, I'm going to have to be very careful. I have at least two friends who read my blog who both know more about timber than I do. One is my preacher, and if he catches me in a tale, he will place me in the penalty box.He already placed me in the pew for 'smart Allecs" at Wednesday night prayer meeting. The other person is my good friend,Earl(last name redacted for security reasons), who has purchased about three states and two small countries worth of timber in his life.

First, let's go back to sweet corn for a bit more information about this product. When we first started planting sweet corn on 1982, there were only two varieties of sweet corn, Bonanza yellow corn and Silver Queen white corn. All sweet corn is date harvest determinant. In other words if we planted 15 acres of sweet corn on March 10th, that 15 acres would need to be harvested on June 3rd. With the old varieties mentioned above, if you did not pick it on that exact date, the corn would not be harvestable the next day. It would "dry back" on the ends and would not grade USDA fancy.

With the advent of new seed technology in these shrunken gene, super sweet varieties of sweet corn, several improvements have taken place. First, and most important to the consumer, the new varieties are much sweeter than the old ones. The advantage for the grower of the new seeds is that they are a bit more forgiving on that date determinant harvest day. The one day window has stretched out to two-four days in which the corn can be picked and still grade fancy. However, even accepting the outer edge of four days, that's still a fairly short window to harvest a perishable crop when supplies are heavy and demand is light. Consequently, we sometimes have to walk by a planting of sweet corn in order to stay in fresh,fancy corn. Unless demand picks up very soon, we will begin skipping a planting shortly. Our sweet corn brokers are telling us that our supplies are not too heavy, but the demand is weak right now due to cool weather up in the northeast where the bulk of the nation's population lives. I did not realize that weather affects what one eats. I will eat chili in the dead of summer, but we have already established the fact that I do not think like most folks.

Now let's look at pine saw timber. We are conducting a much needed timber thinning program here this summer which will improve our quail hunting. We have not cut any timber on Riverview since 2004. We would have thinned again in 2008, but the "Great Recession" hit about then, and the housing market collapsed. Timber prices plummeted as much as 40%. Now here is where the big difference in sweet corn and pine trees come into play. While sweet corn has a four day window, timber has a 50 year window. That old pine tree did not care whether it was cut or not. It just sat there and continued to grow. Not only did that tree not spoil because we were unable to harvest it, the tree actually got more valuable while waiting for the market to adjust.

As I said earlier, I have a couple of friends who will read this that know a lot more about timber than I do. But I will guarantee you that neither of them enjoy watching a pine tree grow anymore than I do.One of the books that I was required to read in high school was written by a man named T.S. Elliott. There is a line in one of his books that says," I have measured out my life in coffee spoons". Well, I have measured out my life here by watching trees that we have planted grow to maturity.I see majestic pines in places that I once remember helping my Dad plant peanuts. There is one tract of mature pines on our Lakeview hunting course that I used to step over the tops of when I was teaching Cader IV how to quail hunt. While seeing those trees soar to such heights makes me feel old sometimes, I love the fact that we are cutting and replacing trees for the next generation.

God gave us the stewardship of the land. Trees clean the air and protect our waters and streams from runoff. I'm proud to be a tree farmer. I like growing sweet corn also. It's just more fun when profitable, but the fat lady ain't sung yet on the corn crop. We are just getting started good!

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Musings

Well, I left the sweet corn field shortly after daylight and rode up to the chilling plant to see how many semis had shown up during the night after I went home. There were six big trucks in the yard, and I had been praying for about 20. Come on folks! You need to get corn hungry all over this great nation.
 While Martha and I were sitting out on our patio last night following a brief and blessed shower, my mind got to wandering about some of the things that I had read lately of a political nature.

A month or so back our current administration in Washington stated that unemployment was at the root of terrorism. They indicated that what we needed to do was find jobs for these poor terrorists. I believe that millions of dollars have been poured into the city of Baltimore over the last decade using that same thought process. That's turned out to be a real winning plan, has it not?

Now and even more ludicrous, I read that President Obama calls climate change and global warming an indisputable security threat. He stated that climate change aggravated tensions and creates political insecurity. Let's think about this for a few minutes. First of all, when we speak of global warming, we are talking about a rise of temperatures in the tenths of a degree over a period of time. Does anyone honestly believe that someone who lives in a region where the temperature is 110 degrees in the shade is suddenly going to go stark raving crazy when the thermometer rises to 110.1? I bet that tenth of a degree is what pushed ISIS over the edge.

Another reason that I struggle with this excuse for terrorism is that I live in a fairly hot part of the world. During the months of July and August, it is not unusual for us to go days on end with temperatures approaching 100 degrees each day. Coupled with that heat is high humidity which normally creates a temperature/humidity index of 105-114 regularly. To the best of my knowledge, I have dealt with this weather for 65 years without ever feeling prone to strap on a suicide vest or behead anyone. Lord only knows how much meaner ISIS would be if they had to deal with the heat AND our south Georgia gnats.

Finally, I need to defend the current administration by stating perhaps I am not wired to think like the rest of this country any more. While watching the local Albany news last night, I watched a clip where they were interviewing the police chief about a rash of lawn mower and lawn equipment thefts. He stated," Well, it is the season for these thefts". Color me stupid, but I did not realize that burglary had a season. I know there are harvest,football, and hunting seasons, but theft season is a new one on me.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Sweet Corn

Well, evidently most of you did not heed my plea to buy a lot of sweet corn in your local grocery stores. It looked like we had a perfect set-up for a profitable marketing season on our sweet corn. South Florida finished up earlier than normal, and shipped all of their corn out by Memorial Day weekend. The boys in south Georgia began harvesting corn with good movement and prices.


 And THEN along came Riverview to harvest our first planting on May 28th. That was the very day we were placed on restricted harvest and falling prices due to weak demand. In some ways, it is nice to know that we have enough power to single handedly move the market. I tend to think that we are a jinx, and have offered to my two partners to cease planting sweet corn if they will pay me a substantial insurance fee to stay out of the market , and allow them to sell at higher prices. They did not seem interested in my deal
.
We never begin planting our sweet corn as early as most folks here because to do so would require us to begin planting shortly after Valentine's Day. We are still way too busy harvesting Yankees at that time to think about planting sweet corn. On the bright side, we are experiencing tremendous yields and great quality on the first three plantings that we have been allowed to nibble at picking each day. On the negative side, we figure that we are losing about 12 cents per crate on each harvested crate through today; so you folks really need to begin buying more corn. This is strictly a supply/demand business with no forward pricing and no safety net.

In closing this blog, I find it an interesting observation that for half of the year, I deal with the wealthiest and brightest folks in the world. At this time of the year, I am dealing with the other end of the spectrum. My problem is remembering which group I am talking to when trying to get our corn  harvested. The only Haitian word that I understand is "Boss". They also call me by another name that I understand, but can't write in a public forum.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Weeds

There are three sure signs that summer has almost fully arrived in south Georgia: heat,gnats, and weeds. We have not had a rain in two weeks now. I just counted my two trillionth gnat today, and our temperature hit 92 before lunch. Almost everything is wilted and drooping around here with one exception, and that would be the weeds.

 The famous writer , Ralph Waldo Emerson, once said," What is a weed.? It is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered". Mr. Emerson's friend, Henry David Thoreau, lived on Emerson's farm when he wrote his famous book, On Walden's Pond. I got curious and looked up where that farm was located, and it was in Concord, Massachusetts..

 Now I hate to bust the bubble of anyone living in New England, but y'all have obviously never seen the kinds of weeds that grow in the south. I can almost guarantee you that Pigweed has no virtues whatsoever and no redeeming qualities yet to be discovered. It grows very fast, has a thick stalk, will stick the mess out of you, and plays havoc in a sweet corn field or even in a food plot. Nothing eats it, and nothing likes it. Once discovered in your field, if you do not already have a plan B to attack it, you have no plan at all since it is so hard to kill.

 If Mr. Emerson was alive today, I would be glad to ship him a few tons of Pigweed along with a few billion gnats and wait for him to find their virtues!

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Mother's Day

As we approach Mother's Day weekend, I just wanted to post a short blog in praise of mothers. My beloved mother went to be with the Lord in 1985, and I still think about her most every day. I truly believe that a mother's love is the closest that we will ever come to experiencing God's unconditional love on this earth. Growing up with Mom also taught me how to be a better husband since I learned that women are sometimes in doubt, but never wrong. I will never forget Cader IV telling me one day that " Dad, Mom is just flat wrong on this issue". I calmly backed him up against the wall, and explained to him all of the sacrifices, pain, and love that his mother had endured in raising him. I further threatened to pummel him into submission if he argued with her any more on the subject in contention. That is what I told him, but what I was thinking was this, "You have two older sisters and a mother, and you still have not figured it out. I sure have wasted a bunch of money on your education up to this point if you have not figured out the female mind yet".
 My mother was my greatest cheer leader and supporter. She also taught me so many things:
 She taught me religion--" You better pray that stain comes out of my carpet.
 She taught me how to exaggerate---If I have told you once, I have told you a million times.
 She taught me about anticipation--You just wait until your Dad gets home and he is going to tear your fanny up.
 She taught me about receiving--You are going to really get it when Dad gets home from work.
 She taught me that mothers do truly have a pair of eyes in the back of their heads,
 She also taught me that women have "wolf ears" since she could hear a muttered comment from 500 yards away.
 I still miss her, but she was very pleased with my choice for a life mate, and felt certain that Martha would continue my training. AND she has for almost 45 years now..In closing this tribute to mothers, I wish that I had the address of that mother in Baltimore who jerked her son out of that mob and slapped him back to the straight and narrow. This nation needs more Moms like that, and we definitely need Dads in the homes who have been properly trained to be good role models!
 Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers still with us, and to those who are with the Lord now !

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Rainy Weather

Since my home and most of our cottages overlook the beautiful Flint River, I am always keenly aware of the rainfall and how that affects our river. During the floods of 1994 and 1998, the river rose as much as 52 vertical feet and covered all of our facilities with the exception of my home, and it got way too close for comfort there. After the flood of '98 I promised myself that I would never pray for rain again. I am reminded of what my Dad always said about farming, " Son, dry weather will scare you, but wet weather will kill you".
 Well, I have not broken that promise. However, I made one small mistake a little over a week ago. While saying my prayers, I casually reminded God that it was getting fairly dry at Riverview, and I was worried about the stress on all of our pine timber since we had just finished with our controlled burning. BIG MISTAKE ! It commenced to rain the following day, and rained either a little or a lot for seven straight days.
 Now, we are in no danger of river flooding because our soil moisture was very deficit, and the river was quite low for the spring of the year. However, we are way behind on planting our sweet corn as it is wet enough to bog a buzzard's shadow at the moment. There are only so many "wet weather" jobs for 26 employees to do while waiting to get back into the fields and woods. Our employees have evidently learned the most important task that they can perform right now which is hide from the boss. I'm about to take a heat seeking device out and go hunt for body signatures on Rivevriew.
 On the bright side( no pun intended), the sun is shining today, praise the Lord!

Monday, April 6, 2015

Easter weeknd

What a gorgeous Easter weekend we just experienced in south Georgia. I have been attending Easter sunrise services at our little country Baptist church since I was in my early 20's. I can never recall a sunrise service with a gigantic Easter full moon setting at the same time that the sun was rising. It was a very poignant and needed experience for me because God called two young mothers in their early 40's home this weekend who lost their valiant fights to cancer. I had prayed and prayed for God to intervene in both situations, but He chose not to do so. I have always struggled with the concept of bad things happening to good people. I do know that I have no business questioning my God who has an infinite mind and perfect plan with my feeble and finite mind.
 The sunrise services, the prayers, and the words from my pastor helped. I watched that moon come up Saturday night from my porch and thought to myself that it was brighter than normal. I realized that God was sending me a signal that he was welcoming two angels into His presence that would not have to struggle with any more pain or sorrow. One of my dearest friends sent me this quote as he was struggling with the same loss. The writer said, " Prayer works, but the Lord makes His own schedule and His own way.For angels who die young, I have decided that it is God's reward to them, not His punishment to us."
 Now I realize that this is not my normal, tongue-in-cheek blog. maybe I'm writing this one for me, but maybe it will resonate with at least someone who reads it today. I promise that the next one I post will be on a lighter subject.

Monday, March 30, 2015

What I love about living in the south

Well, it is an absolutely beautiful spring morning at Riverview this morning. I woke up about 4:45 am, and very quietly eased out of bed. I have not stayed married for 44+ years to the same woman by being stupid. I eased out into the den, read my Bible for a while, and watched the early morning local news. It is very important to know what the weather is going to be on each given day since conversations in our community revolve around three topics: the weather, pickup trucks, and crops. I never want to be deficit on a third of the topics. As soon as it got light enough to see, I walked outside with a cup of coffee and listened to a couple of turkey gobblers trying to convince a few hens that they were the best looking guys in the woods.
 As it got even lighter, I took in the beauty of God's creation by observing the blooming Dogwoods, Azalias, and various fruit trees. There is just an explosion of colors right in my backyard. I am so blessed to get to enjoy this beauty, and it made me begin thinking about all of the things I love about living in the south. I'm going to share a few of those things in no particular order:
1) I love the sound of the wind blowing through the tops of the majestic pine trees.
2) I love seeing the Spanish moss swaying gently on those same breezes.
3) I love sweet tea
4) I love southern manners. I like hearing children say "yes mam, no mam, yes sir, and no sir".
5) I like the fact that we are all kin to one another. When Martha first moved back home with me, I cautioned her that we were kin to everyone we came in contact with; so be careful who you talk about.
6) I like the fact that when you are compelled to talk about someone, you can say anything you want to say as long as you add "bless her/his heart" as a disclaimer at the end of the conversation.
7) and finally, I like the fact that everyone has someone in the family who is crazier than a looney bug, and that's perfectly OK," bless their hearts"!

Monday, March 23, 2015

Oh What a Feeling

Our 2014-2015 hunting season officially ended this past Saturday at 1:00 pm, and it was an outstanding one in every sense of the word. For the third year in a row, we had more guests visit us than in the prior year, and the quality of the cover and hunting was outstanding! One of the more interesting statistics that I observed from this past season is that we had the lowest kill per hunt than any year I ever remember. You might find it odd for me to say this, but that is a good thing! We are selling sport rather than meat.
 I give a lot of credit for that statistic to the introduction of our English Cocker flushing dogs. These little dogs flat put the birds in the air rather than having them pop out of a covey and fly at various times. Another great statistic this year was that we lost less shot quail than any other season. Again, the credit for that stat goes to these little retrievers. We definitely plan to expand this program in the future years.
 However, my favorite statistic is this one: It was yet another zero defect safety season at Riverview!!! Anyone reading this blog who has hunted with us knows that my number one criteria of a successful season is a safe season, and we achieved that record again. I can only say, "Praise God".
 Today we are taking inventories of all of our supplies, and converting four of our jeeps to woods burning rigs. It's going to be too damp to burn today. However, by tomorrow afternoon this place will look like General Sherman has revisited us. Speaking of General Sherman, I'm fairly certain that he is warm where he is now without having to warm his butt on the backside of any Georgia mansions.
 As for me, I plan to spend some time resting, visiting with grandchildren, and fishing.You know what they say about fishing? " Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in a boat all day long drinking". That would be me!

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Reflections

As I was reading my newspaper this morning, the following headline caught my attention," President Obama comes down to Georgia Tech". Now seeing as how I am no fan of either President Obama or Georgia Tech, the headline sounded eerily similar to the title of the old Charlie Daniels song, " The Devil Came Down To Georgia". As far as I'm concerned, Obama and Tech deserve one another! 'Nuff said?
 We have the rest of this week and all of next week remaining in what has been an outstanding hunting season both in terms of quality and quantity of guests. One of my young guides approached me yesterday and asked me if I was looking forward to the season ending. I looked at him and responded, "Son, the day that I do not look forward to a hunting season beginning is the day that I will retire, and the day that I do not look forward to it ending is the day that I will have myself committed to a mental institution".
  I will write more when I have something worthwhile to say.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Various thoughts

It has been said that two of the things that a man can want the most are sex and rain. Well, we caught up on the rain part last night. We have learned to be expert meteorologists here at Riverview. As the brain trust of Cader IV, Jerry, Greg , and I studied the weather early yesterday morning, we made the decision to get everyone up early yesterday. We had an early breakfast, and had everyone on the jeeps at 8:30 am, and we hunted until 1:00 pm. We changed our normal three hour morning hunt to a four and a half hour hunt. Just about the time all of the jeeps rolled in at 1:00 pm it began to sprinkle. Shortly after that as Noah would have said, "It came up a cloud", and the skies opened up. There was some major league snoring going on yesterday afternoon in our cottages and some rested, happy hunters at dinner last night. This morning has broken raw and overcast, but the rain has all moved well east of us.
 Speaking of hunting, Jerry just informed me that one of our prized English Cockers gave birth to seven puppies last night. You would think that Jerry was the grandfather from the way he was carrying on about how pretty they were this morning. We are very excited about this litter as they come out of two really good blood lines. We continue to get rave reviews from all of our guests about these little dogs, and we are definitely expanding this program in the years ahead. Not only have they added to the quality of the hunts, but they are some of the sweetest dogs I have ever seen. If one of them ever washes out of the program as a retriever, I plan to take one for a house pet.
 In closing, allow me to make a personal observation. last night as Martha and I were leaving church, I found myself once again waiting for her to speak to every soul at church before ambling to our car in the deluge. That got me to thinking. there are definitely two typed of folks in the world-- Those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is that they are usually married to each other. Such is definitely the case for me. I do not have to wait for the fat lady to sing while Martha has what I term as "departure anxiety". Oh well, that is what makes life interesting !

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

cold weather

I don't know about you folks, but I would like to find that Al Gore fellow, and tell him where he could stick his global warming theory. After looking at the weather in places like Boston and Nashville, I know that I should not complain, but it is getting colder by the minute down here in the sunny south. I just got back from exercising, and there was a steady cold wind blowing out of the northwest at about 25-30 mph while the actual temperature is only 48 degrees. that makes for a fairly brisk wind chill. I bet our bird dogs are either pointing covies that are 100 yards away from them or running over them if they come into the birds from the wrong side of the wind.
 However, as I stated earlier, I have no business complaining. One of my daughters lives only about four and a half hours north of here, about an hour above Atlanta. They are in the midst of a full fledged ice storm with power out and trees down all over the place. A very close friend of mine who lives in Brevard, N.C. sent me a photo of his drive yesterday, and it is a solid sheet of ice. They are hoping to be able to escape their home by Sunday. I feel sorry for his wife because I have a feeling he might get ornery after being housebound for six days.
 If any of you folks have a hankering to see some green grass rather than that white stuff, we have four more weeks of hunting season left after this week. I can't promise you that the weather will be warm, but I can almost guarantee you that we will not have any snow or ice at Riverview.
 In closing, I just have to share this funny thought that my friend,Mike, sent me the other day. He said, " If we could convince the Chinese that Jihadists' testicles were aphrodisiacs, within ten years they would be extinct".

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Rambling thoughts

It's  strange phenomenon in this business, but random events far away can affect our business down here in south Georgia. I've been watching the events of the blizzard in the northeast unfold.The Christian in me should be worried about the poor folks who may be cold, out of power, and hungry. However, the businessman in me keeps wondering," Do I have any jets up that way that should be flying to south Georgia for a hunting trip that might be stuck on the tarmac". It's the same thing with oil prices. All of my farmer neighbors are rejoicing over cheap gas and diesel while I fret over oil prices dropping lower, and some of my best customers deciding to forego hunting at Riverview. The folks in the oil patch do enjoy their quail hunting. At one time the coal folks did also, but this current administration has almost put them out of business.
 Speaking of administrations and politicians, I was reading this morning where one regulator was defending Fannie and Freddie's 3% down payment on mortgages. One of my dad's favorite quotes was"those who fail to learn the lessons from history are doomed to repeat them".These folks have short memories and small to non-existent brains. I have said many times that I want to be the person that my dog thinks I am. I can now add that I wish my politicians and government officials were able to learn things and remember them as well as my dog does. I have never owned a dog that forgot his training lessons as fast as a politician does.
 We are having great weather, and a great week of hunting here. For those of you who are covered up in that white stuff that we have heard called"snow", come on down to enjoy some green grass, big piney woods, and some great quail hunting at Riverview over the next seven weeks. I can guarantee you that our dogs are smarter than your politicians!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Of dogs and men

I am a voracious reader, and often read quotes that I say to myself," I could have said that". With the exception of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill, I very rarely read quotes from politicians that I wish that I had thought of. However, yesterday while starting on a book of short stories about gun dogs, I read the following quote from Woodrow Wilson, " If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience". And, in spite of what my adult children might think, I do not remember Woodrow Wilson.
 I could not help but think of this quotes as I have been giving my beloved 13 year old Lab two pills daily for a skin infection. I began y placing the pill on a cracker and sticking it in a little peanut butter. This ruse worked for all of two days before Sugar ate the cracker and peanut butter while spitting out the bitter pill. Because of that, I had to revert to the old fashioned method of opening her mouth,sticking the pill down the back of her throat, and then closing her muzzle until she swallows. To accomplish this task, my hand is about half way down her throat before I can let go of the pill. On either side of my hand are huge canine teeth that I have personally seen snap an armadillo so hard that its intestines squirted out of its rear end. My sweet lab just looks at me with those trusting eyes thinking," Boss, I do not know why you are intent on choking me to death twice a day, but I love and trust you to do the right thing". I sure would never want to disappoint my dog.
 As I have mentioned to several folks, I enjoy writing when the mood strikes me, and have no idea how many folks log in to read my occasional ramblings. I told Cader IV that I was going to post this offer just to see if anyone responds. We are just about sold out for the entire season with the exception of some March dates still available. Yesterday we had a big group that had to cancel Feb. 16-17 due to an unexpected business development. That date is less than a month from now. If anyone is interested in reserving that date, we will price it the same way we do our holiday rates which is 35% off of the base rate. That amounts to a $369.25 per person per day discount. If interested, just give the office a call at 229-294-4904, and ask for Cader IV.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

People are interesting

I'm certain that it would be a boring world if God made all of us just alike. I understand and appreciate that fact. However, it has always amazed me how people can spend a day together, and see things so completely differently,especially between guides and their hunting guests. I always ask my guests how their hunt went, and then go to the guide room to ask the guides the same question.
 On so many occasions, the exchange goes something like this: Guest, " We killed almost every bird we saw. We just did not see all that many birds this morning". Interestingly these comments most often occur with guests who do not kill many quail. Guide comments on the same party." Boss, we were in birds all morning. These are very nice folks , but they could not hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle".
 Now obviously as the man in the middle, I know that someone is not telling the truth. Our guides are trained to lie, and could all pass a lie detector test while never telling the truth. Also, it's a known fact that all hunters will lie, including me. I find it almost impossible to admit that I missed a bird without some very rational alibi. I have decided that we need to add one more training function to our English Cockers. We are going to need to teach them to talk! That may be the only way for me to get to the truth.
 I would expect that conversation to go something like this; Cocker," I can't rat out my master since he loves me and feeds me, but he did hunt the course a bit backwards from what I would have done. He should know that we always find a big covey on the edge of the Flats field, and we didn't even go there. However, my pointer mates nailed a pile of covies this morning, and the guests made some good shots here and there. We would have found more covies if these hunters didn't just insist that I keep looking for dead birds that even a blind dog could see was not even slightly shot.Humans can be so stubborn sometimes, but I have to play along with them".

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

January weather---Brrr !

I realize that many things are opened by mistake, but none so frequently as the mouth. With that caveat stated, I just can't help myself, and am going to say it anyway. How in the world do you folks who live north of the Smith & Wesson line survive the kind of temperatures and weather that I am seeing on my weather map? Also, at least one of y'all must have left the back door open because these frigid temps are headed our way, aided by a brisk wind out of the northwest.
 Now I will freely admit to normally being a bit envious of my guests as they climb on those jeeps to head out to enjoy a great day of quail hunting in the big piney woods of south Georgia. However, it is not going to bother me one bit to see them head out over the next couple of days while I adjourn to my heated office. The dogs and birds do not seem to mind this cold weather, but old, bald-headed senior citizens of south Georgia could live without wind chills in the low teens. Considering what some of you are enduring, I know that I sound like a wimp, and I guess that I am.
 I received a phone call last night from Michael Gaines. Michael's father, Thomas Gaines, retired last season after spending his entire career here as our top guide. Michael and his family are planning a retirement party for Tommy sometimes this spring. He asked me to post that anyone who had ever hunted with his Dad would be welcome to send a congratulatory letter to Tommy on his stellar career at Riverview. If you would like to do that, just mail the letter to me, and I will get them to Michael before the event.
 In the meantime, stay warm, and I wish everyone a healthy, prosperous New Year !