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!
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
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" !
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 !!
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 !!
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