Christmas break

When I was a child and Mom and Dad were trying to build the business, we hunted every day except Christmas Day. Santa Claus would come on Christmas Eve, and we would have a one day break before going back at it. As the years progressed and our occupancy increased, I realized that it was very important to give the staff and dogs a week's rest around Christmas so that the last half of season would be as fresh as the first half. Cader IV has continued that practice.

Today will be our last day of hunting until after Christmas. We have been completely full these last two days. The weather forecast for both days called for an 80% chance of rain, but we did not miss a minute of hunting even though we received 1.5 inches of rain. God smiled on us as our rains came during the night, and the wee hours of the morning. But, it has been two raw, overcast and cold days with our temperatures never getting out of the mid 40's. Now I know that is balmy weather compared to what some of you are experiencing, but us Southerners do not have as much antifreeze in our bodies as you do.

The last half of season promises to be a good one. Since our president-elect says that it is OK to say so, my primary reason for posting this short blog is to wish each of you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year !

What If

I have been following with great interest the antics of the losing side in this last election. What really got my attention was reading that California was thinking of seceding from the Union. Now the folks on the Left Coast are usually the first ones to come up with new ideas; so I don't know how to break it gently to these folks, but my part of the US came up with that idea in the 1860's. It didn't work out so good for us! We gave out of bullets, food, and everything else after General Sherman made his famous march through Georgia. But, as far as I am concerned, GO FOR IT, you folks from California. And take Oregon with you while you are at it!

Another thing that is particularly galling to me is the concept of "Sanctuary Cities". Basically, if I understand it correctly, these are cities who refuse to obey the federally mandated laws of the land.  Yet our federal government continues to fund these cities while allowing them to thumb their collective noses at Washington and the law.

The above paragraphs set the stage for the title of this blog/rant, "What If". Hawks are federally protected species as raptors. In spite of the fact that wind turbines are killing hawks, eagles, and other raptors by the hundreds, it is against federal law for us to shoot hawks that are eating so many of our quail on a daily basis that they can hardly get their fat wings in the air. What if I just decided to ignore the law, and thin the population? Would that be any different from a sanctuary city? Maybe we can declare ourselves a "Sanctuary Plantation", and I don't even want any funding from Washington.

What if some of our sheriffs and game wardens out west decided to look the other way while a cattleman killed a grizzly bear or a pack of wolves that were decimating his livestock? Would that be any different? Finally, and most importantly to me, what if public schools stood up and said that we are going to ignore your law prohibiting prayer in schools? We are going to start the morning with a devotional and prayer which will be broadcast into every classroom the first thing each morning. By the way, that is the way every morning of school started for me, and we did not need police officers in the schools. The only shootings that happened in school were the dove hunts after we got out of class, and many of us had our shotguns on the school bus that morning.

The only thing I'm trying to say here is that if reasonable people are forced to obey stupid laws, then the other side should have to do the same. We should level the playing field. Your call, Washington, but you should not be allowed to have your cake and eat it too.

By the way, the quail hunting and weather is great at Riverview . If you have not made it here to see us yet, you should call soon as available dates for the balance of the year are really shrinking fast !

Blessed rain

Have you ever seen a bird dog grin? I would swear that I saw a bunch of our dogs " grinning like a bunch of mules eating briars" after we got an inch and a half of rain sometime after midnight last night. For the past couple of weeks, it has been so dry here that the dogs could not even smell their own rear ends in the afternoon hunts when there was no dew on the ground.

Even more blessed news is the fact that the weather gurus are calling for this much or more rain later this afternoon, beginning about the time the afternoon hunts end. That makes our four groups in here almost as happy as the dogs. Now, while big pine trees absolutely can't smile, they sure are all standing taller and majestically today with no drooping needles weeping toward the ground. I know that our dogs will be able to locate the quail today. It would be especially gratifying if our guests could shoot a few of them. One of our top guides came in Friday, and I heard him tell Jerry, " We got four quail this morning, but they were all big, trophy birds".

Things are really looking up at Riverview, and we all have a better hitch in our "gitty-up" after this weather. On top of that, our temps are supposed to drop into the mid 20's by Saturday. The rain plus the cold weather should finally send the pine beetles to hell, or wherever they go when they are not killing beautiful 50+ year old pines. We are staying ahead of them here by cutting any bug infected tree down as soon as it is spotted in order to stop the spread to healthy trees.

In closing, I have just a couple of random observations. It is really disturbing to run into some old person, only to realize that he or she was in your class in high school. I always think," surely I don't look that old?"

I  have always been paranoid about plagiarizing anyone; so let me say that this quote was shared with me by my best friend friend who heard it from his preacher. It spoke to my heart, and I wanted to share it with y"all. " I know I am not what I Used to be, or what I am Supposed to be,or what I am Trying to be, or what I am Going to be----when I see You face to face".

Observations

Well, as I was watching the news yesterday, I saw where there had been another senseless attack on innocent students at Ohio State. I realize that to say that this is an instance of Islamic terrorism would be premature and politically incorrect even though the perp. was a Muslim from Somalia. But what I can state is that we should ban all cars and butcher knives if we are to follow the thinking of the liberal left! I can guarantee you that had the young man used an AK 47, President Obama would be holding his last bleeding heart gun control plea press conference.

Speaking of guns, someone sent me a great clip developed by Homeland Security titled, "Run, Hide, Fight". I am not being my normal sarcastic self here. This is a good short video that I would encourage anyone who has family members living in metropolitan areas to encourage their family members to view. It describes how one should react in the first few minutes of a terrorist attack based on your circumstances at the time the attack begins. Somehow, I just don't see much chance of something like this happening in a rural setting because of the lack of availability of soft targets. Even if you found a target, "Bubba" would be toting, and he isn't going down without firing off a few rounds back.

As far me, I'm old enough to see no shame in hiding if the opportunity presented itself, but I'm too old and slow to run. Consequently, I am always armed even in church or when I go to the booming metropolis of Camilla, population of 5,000. I have a concealed carry permit, and about the only time I do not wear a weapon on my person is at Riverview. If someone could break through Cader IV, Jerry, and Greg to get to me, they have earned the right to shoot me. I believe that they would be leaking from so many holes that there would be no air or blood left in their bodies. The only thing that could be worse for a terrorist at Riverview would be if he happened to show up on the same day that a party of Joe's was here. To protect the innocent , I will not add a last name to Joe.

On a more pleasant subject, we finally saw a little rain during the wee hours of the morning this morning. It was not much, but we are grateful to God for every drop. And we stand an even better chance of more substantial rainfall in the morning, and again on Sunday. Maybe our dry weather pattern is about to change.

I have been tempted to complain about the weather, but I have a lot bigger fish to fry with the Lord than to aggravate Him about the weather; so I try to save my prayers for the big stuff. Also, I am reminded of a poem my Mom taught me at an early age. It does like this:
" Ain't no use to sit and whine
   When the fish ain't on yo' line
   Just bait yo' hook and keep a tryin'
   Keep a gowin'"

You might have to be a native Southerner to translate that one, but what it really says is that whining and complaining are not going to change your circumstances. We are blessed with so much in this great nation, and we sometimes take those blessings for granted. Have a great day today !

This & That

Is it just me, or does everyone else wish that our nation would just pick a time, and stay on it? While I know that this is not a hot political issue, the time changes in the fall and spring drive me crazy. Even though it is Thanksgiving morning, I was once again wide awake and drinking coffee at 4:30 am. Evidently, my body still thinks that it's 5:30, and I can't convince it otherwise.

I usually slip out into the den to read and watch the local news since I have no desire to awaken my wife who takes a dim view of my early rising habits, and she takes an extremely dim view of being waked up at what she deems " an ungodly hour", I can't really say that I blame her for that.

However, it is fun to sit out in our den which is mostly plate glass and Pecky Cypress with a very high ceiling. I can see God's creation start to break light each morning on one of the most beautiful places on earth. There are almost always a few deer that have bedded down in our yard that start to amble about shortly after sun up, and then a little while later along comes the turkeys taking care of the acorn crop for me.

Thanksgiving is the one holiday that Martha and I are blessed to have all of our children and grandchildren with us. We are even more blessed that we have guests at Riverview over Thanksgiving which means we all get to eat at one big table here at the Lodge, and Martha does not have to cook for this army of family. Thanksgiving night dinner at Riverview is the only meal here that is served buffet style. We have smoked turkey and ham plus all of the traditional dishes that have been in the Cox family for generations.

Cader IV will set a time for dinner, and warn the guests that if they are late, they may fall in line behind the Cox clan. We've never had any guest late for Thanksgiving dinner. All of the Riverview family joins me in wishing you and your families a very happy Thanksgiving. We all have a lot to be grateful for !

A beautiful day

I woke up this morning to an absolutely beautiful day in South Georgia. I walked out of the house right at daylight to say," Good morning, Lord". I also spoke to my little white deer who has taken to bedding up in the grass in our yard even though we have the yard lighted. It is a crisp 38 degree morning, and I am envious of all of the fun our guests are going to experience today. I was in such a great mood and frame of mind. Then I went and ruined all of that by turning on the news!

First of all, let me say that I am very proud of the way President Obama, President-elect Trump, and the defeated candidate, Secretary Clinton, have handled this transition. This is what a democracy is all about. This is also Veterans Day, and I honor all of the brave men and women today who wore the uniform so that this type of election and transition could occur. Many of these brave folks paid the ultimate price for us to go to the polls, and accept the will of the people.

What I am ashamed of is the anarchists and spoiled college punks who did not get their way, and who are using the election as an excuse to riot and destroy property. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that some of these folks are being paid to foment strife. The college kids probably bother me the most with the way they are being pampered and coddled with " comfort foods" and free passes from class because they did not get their way. I have seen the grave sites of the generation of our ancestors that were college age who stormed the beaches of Normandy.

I fear that each successive generation of American citizens are getting softer. I remember whining to my mother once about how hard my Dad was working me in the tobacco and peanut fields. She just looked at me , smiled, and said," Honey, you have it easy compared to the way his father worked him". I hated pulling weeds out of peanut fields by hand so much that I would often fake a stomach ache to go home. I got caught in the " Little Boy who cried Wolf" trap finally because I really did have a bad stomach ache one day. Pop thought I was faking, and would not allow me to go home. By the time, they finally took me to the doctor, my appendix had ruptured,my liver had an abscess, and I had gangrene in my stomach. They did not give me much of a chance to survive, but God was not finished with me yet.

When Cader IV came along, I made him work in every crappy job we had on the plantation in the summer time including scooping the doo-doo out of the kennels. When he got old enough, I gave him a pocket knife. I caught him playing with it in an unsafe manner one day and warned him to be careful. As you would expect, he cut his hand, and came to me with the blood running off of his hand. I looked at it, and determined that the cut did not need stitches. He asked me what he should do, and I replied," Pee on it, and pour some turpentine on it". To say that he was not happy with the answer or my lack of compassion would be an understatement, but I have raised a son who is a man now in every definition of what the word,"man" implies.

I have no sympathy for these cry babies in college now, and place most of the blame on their parents and teachers. OK, that finishes my rant for the day; so let's go back to the first paragraph of this blog.

It is a beautiful fall in South Georgia. Y'all come see us!

Election and quail hunting

OK folks, the election season is over, but the quail hunting season is just getting started good; so it is time to turn our attention away from politics and toward what's really important--quail hunting. Of course, I hope everyone realizes that I am writing this as a "tongue-in-cheek" comment.

However, before leaving the subject of politics, let me just say this. We need to think about the name of this great nation, and remember that first word, "UNITED", in the name of the United States of America. We seem to be a divided nation that desperately needs to heal, and find some common ground in the middle that we can all meet upon. I realize that I am showing my age here, but I grew up in a time at Riverview when corporations could legally entertain politicians. I had the privilege of meeting some great statesmen in my early years here. The one thing that they all agreed upon was that compromise was necessary to do what was best for the people. They would reach across the aisles to make that work. At the end of the day, if a bill could be passed that no one got everything they wanted, and everyone was just a bit unhappy, it was probably a good bill. I trace the end of that kind of politics to the Bill Clinton/ Newt Gingrich era. After that, there was no compromising on any issue, and every vote seemed to be right down party lines. Who suffered the most from this type of government is "We, The People". I am praying that this is the dawn of a better day for our beloved nation!

Now as to quail hunting, I have a lot more knowledge and experience with it than politics. The 2016-2017 season is off to a good start. With this drier than normal rainfall we have experienced, our English Cockers are paying for themselves in spades by being able to find and retrieve downed quail. Everyone is really enjoying these lovable little dogs. The Cockers are making it a bit more difficult for a few of our guests who insist that they killed a quail when the guide absolutely knows that not a feather was touched on the shot. People may lie, but a dog is incapable of doing so. If the bird is there, they will find him. If he was not hit, they will come back, look at you with those sad eyes as if to say, " Are you going to make me continue to look for a non-existent quail?"

In closing, let me say that we do still have some open dates for this season, but the phone is ringing everyday, and dates are disappearing daily also. Y'all come on down, enjoy some great hunting, and home made ,fried PBJ sandwiches. After all, health nuts are going to feel real stupid someday lying in hospital beds dying of nothing!

Just a few rambling thoughts

After the flood of 1994 which was termed a "500 year event", we had another flood in 1998 that reached almost the same epic heights. It was after the 1998 flood that I decided since I must be almost 1000 years old, I should make a vow not to ever ask God to send rain again. Both of these floods cost Riverview a lot of money. On the '94 flood,which was the worst one, we had no flood insurance since we had been on this location since 1957 without ever being flooded. We did have flood insurance for the 1998 flood. The only reason that I am recalling ancient history is to say that I did not break my vow, but I did casually mention to God in prayer last night that it is getting mighty dry in South Georgia. On the bright side, much cooler weather starts flowing into our area today.

Now is where a few of my rambling thoughts begin. I have watched with interest a lot of advertisements lately on ant-aging creams, diets, exercises, etc. I truly believe that the only way we could slow the aging process down would be if we were to pass an anti-aging bill and allow it to work its way through Congress. Since bills seem to work through this manipulative process slower than smoke off of cold doo-doo, we might all stay young forever.

We have an election coming up next week, and I have never experienced one like this in my lifetime. If every voter, voted for "none of the above", what would happen. Since that is not likely to happen, allow me to pose a constitutional question that could possibly arise, and I am being serious with this question. Should a president be elected and then impeached, could she/he pardon itself, or does the pardon have to come from the successor?
In closing this short blog, allow me to share this blessing I read the other day that I would wish on all of you:
 May your troubles be less, may your blessings be more. And may nothing but happiness come through your door!

Watching hunting dogs course through these big piney woods in search of quail is one of my definitions of happiness. Come see us!

Hospitals and hunting

Given the title of this blog, I would much prefer to talk about hunting as our first week has been excellent with great dog work although the first part of the week was warmer than normal for this time of the year. Yesterday and today have been crisp and cool--perfect bird hunting weather.

But first, with apologies to my good friend Dr. Ron F., who is adding hospital consulting to his impressive resume, I have to rant a bit about hospitals. As far as I can tell, there is no difference between hospitals and the federal government when it comes to paperwork and screw ups. At least I know that there will always be a market for our pulpwood for paper because we have to fill out a ton of repetitive paperwork at each station. It would seem to me that a central server should have all of the data on file by now. I'm also positive that Martha now knows her name, birthday, and what she is at the hospital for.

We were scheduled to have her port implantation procedure performed on Thursday, Oct. 20th at 1:00pm. They placed us in a holding cell with a temperature of about 40 degrees. Martha had blankets on her, but I nearly froze to death. The nurses kept telling us that all of the operating rooms were backed up. However, I strongly suspect that they were punishing my surgeon buddy for opening his on surgical office. They finally took her to surgery at around 8:00 pm. The procedure went very smoothly, and Martha did fine.

However, by the time we got out, the SurgiCare outpatient facility had closed; so then the lunacy of hospital procedures kicked in. They would not dismiss her until they could admit her to a hospital room before dismissing her. They had a man's room available, but no women's rooms. I never realized that hospitals designated rooms by sexes. We FINALLY got a room, and it took us all of ten minutes in the room for Martha to perform her one chore. I helped her get dressed, and we finally got out after midnight , and arrived home about 1:00 am. We took the back roads home, and I could only drive about 45 mph as we drove through plantation country. I stopped counting deer on the side of the road at 45. I had to make certain that a deer did not decide to commit suicide by car, and damage my wife's fresh surgery. Oh, did I mention that we had to be back at Phoebe Putney Hospital the very next morning to see her oncologist.

I sure am glad that Cader IV and staff runs Riverview much more efficiently than this hospital does. Our English Cockers continue to impress everyone with their sweet dispositions, and flushing and retrieving skills. We certainly have a happier client list than Phoebe Putney Hospital does. If you have not made a reservation yet, I would encourage you to give Cader IV a call. We do still have some spaces available for groups scattered through out the season. We hope to see you at Riveview, and hope everyone is enjoying this fall weather as much as we are here!

The 2016-2017 hunting season has officially opened

As the title above indicates, Riverview Plantation officially kicked off the 2016-2017 hunting season with the arrival of guests on Sunday, October 16th. However, it did not quite begin the way I had planned it. My plans were to go to church, and enjoy my first opening day as a semi-retired person sitting on my porch watching the vans arrive and listening to the guests shoot clay targets. However, I received a text from Cader IV about 7:30 Sunday morning informing me that he and his entire family had a horrible throw-up virus. He said that they had been up all night, and that the virus had not abated one bit.

So, the old war horse saddled up his pony, and came to work on opening day. I love being over 60 years old because I learn something new every day---and forget about six things that I used to know. Everything went smooth as silk, possibly because Jerry and Greg asked me to just stay in the office and answer the phone.

Since we are open, let me remind you that every day millions of innocent plants are being killed by vegetarians. You can help end this senseless violence by booking a quail hunt with us, and eating some delicious quail. The woods look great, and the dogs and guides are all doing superb jobs. From what I saw on the score cards yesterday, the quail are not cooperating too good by dropping dead at the sound of the shotguns. Maybe we need to teach acting acting lessons for our quail.

In closing this short blog, let me mention that both Jerry and Cader IV now feel that we are far enough along in our English Cocker training program that we may be ready to begin selling a few of them this year. We have one or two of these little warriors on almost every jeep now, and we have a good pipeline of young dogs in the background. If you see and fall in love with one of them while you are here this season, I think that we will at least be open to discussing some sales.

We hope to see y'all at Riverview this season!

Big cities

I don't know how much they pay folks who live in large metropolitan areas, but whatever it is, it's not enough! Circumstances have dictated that I have had to drive from South Georgia to the north side of Atlanta, Georgia several times lately. Driving on I-75 is akin to a NASCAR race. If you drive any slower than 82 mph, you will get run over. It doesn't help at all to have my built in speed nagger in the front passenger seat constantly telling me that I am driving too fast while I am fighting to stay alive.

However, the fun really begins once I near Atlanta. I remember flying into San Francisco several years ago, renting a car, and driving up into the wine country. There must have been 10 lanes of traffic, but everyone was strolling along at 55-65 mph, and they were all happy as a clam to let you change into another lane if you needed to get over. Now maybe they were all smoking a little dope, and on medicated peace and tranquility, but even though the traffic was horrendous, the driving was easy and pleasant.

NOT SO WITH ATLANTA TRAFFIC ! Once you approach the outskirts of Atlanta, you run into thousands of commuters who must wake up just plain mad at the world each day. They are all driving like speed demons, bumper to bumper, and hell bent for leather to get somewhere. I know where I want a good many of them to arrive, and it's quite warm down there.I'm the kind of driver who likes to keep a little distance between me and the car in front of me. In Atlanta, that is a veritable invitation for a driver to yank his car right in front of you.

Should you need to change lanes, nine out of ten drivers will close up on you if they see your blinker on just to make certain that you have no chance to get into the lane you need to be in. Consequently, you are unable to take the exit you need, and then that aggravating lady inside my GPS unit starts repeating," recalculating". She has been known to ask me to make an illegal U turn which would be tantamount to suicide.

By this time my built in speed control passenger in the front seat has finally stopped talking because her knuckles are white, and she has assumed the crash position as taught by the airlines. What these Atlanta drivers do not know is that I have a really big pistol in my glove compartment, and a smaller pistol strapped to an ankle holster. One of these days I'm going to poke that big, old Judge pistol of mine up one of their nostrils, and let them enjoy hyperventilating for a while like I do while trying to reach my destination alive.

I do not think any native southerners live in Atlanta any more. I know that we were all raised to be courteous and respectful of our fellow man. All of the drivers that I have encountered in Atlanta traffic remind me of the old song by Alabama that goes: " I'm in a hurry to get things done. I rush and rush until life's no fun. All I've really got to do is live and die, but I'm in a hurry, and don't know why".

As for me, I am so much happier driving on dirt roads and dodging deer. That's the kind of traffic problems I enjoy!

Not an easy blog to write

While it seems like two years ago, it was actually only two weeks ago that my beloved wife of over 46 years, Martha, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This is the same type of cancer that claimed my mother's life over 30 years ago. While everyone has told me that there have been great strides in cancer surgeries and treatments in the past 30 years, this was still a very tough diagnosis for me to hear.

Back when I was really running Riverview on a day to day basis, I always trained my guides to stay away from the subjects of politics and religion because they are very controversial subjects. But I am going to break that rule here and state for the record that I am a very strong believer in God and the power of intercessory prayer. There is no doubt that God's grace and mercy have been very evident in how fast the past two weeks have unfolded.

Martha's OBGYN in Albany said that there was only one surgeon that he would send his wife or mother to if they had this diagnosis. Her Albany doctor was able to get her an appointment right away, and we went to Atlanta on Sunday of last week for a Monday appointment. The doctor in Atlanta said that he was booked through October on surgery, but he wanted to go ahead and perform an exam on Martha. While performing the exam, his office received a call that he had a surgery cancellation opening for Thursday of last week. However, there was one lady on the waiting list. He instructed his office to call that lady, and she was not quite ready.

We could see God's hands at work, and we accepted the opening right away for Martha to have surgery on last Thursday. As per normal operating procedures, we signed about 4000 forms, and were told of all of the dire outcomes. Dr. Feuer did say that, depending upon what he found, he might be able to perform the surgery robotically. If so, Martha's stay in the hospital , and recovery would be much shorter. My definition of eternity was the time between her being taken to surgery and the time the doctor came out to talk to us.

He was able to perform the surgery by robot, and in his own words he said, " I would deem this surgery an A+ success. I was able to get all of the cancer". We go back to see him this Monday, and we do know that we face chemo in our future, but we feel confident that God is going to restore Martha back to good health.

Now I know all of the statistics out there; so I know that many of you are facing similar situations with loved ones. I know that I am praying for a few of you like Mark's wife and others. I just thought it important to let everyone know why I have been so silent at the time of the year when I should be rambling on about hunting season getting ready to start up.

I will say that we are expecting our first fall weather to arrive tomorrow, and everything here looks great. In any company, succession planning is so important, and I am so glad that I started working on that plan years ago. Cader IV firmly has this place humming at top speed along with the help of Jerry and Greg. While I plan to be around as much as possible, my primary job is going to be in a role as " Nurse Nick" to Martha. As a natter of fact, I'm "driving Miss Daisy" to her beauty parlor appointment tomorrow, and this is being done by a man who has not needed anything but his "sidewalls" trimmed for years.

So long for now, but I hope to see many of you at Riverview during the 2016-2017 hunting season!

Of dogs and politicians

I know that we have all seen the funny emails over the years comparing dogs to wives. My personal favorite has always been the one about locking your dog and wife in the trunk of the car for an hour. Then open the trunk and see which one is the happiest to see you. That got me to thinking about comparing dogs to politicians, especially in this particularly insane political climate.

When I feed my dog, he has never immediately started begging for another bowl of food. When I give money to a politician, he starts asking for more money as soon as the first check clears the bank.

All politicians lie skilfully and often. I have had a few dogs false point on me from time to time, and occasionally a young dog will point a stink sparrow. But all of my dogs have been ashamed of themselves for being untruthful. A politician is born without a hint of shame. To say that a politician "lies like a dog" is an insult to all of the dogs that I have known.

Usually when a dog barks, he is trying to let you know something. Politicians bark incessantly without saying anything. When a dog defecates, the worst that can happen is that you get crap on your boots. With politicians, we get covered in doo-doo up to our ears. I could go on like this forever, but I think that everyone gets the message.

On the Riverview front, we have all begun our lodge grounds clean up. It kind of reminds me of the old chain gang crews except the equipment is more modern than the slings and axes of yesteryear. In this rich land and humid soil, a lot of things can grow up on the lodge grounds in six months that need to be pruned, cut, or completely eradicated. We are beginning to get into hunting season shape, and look forward to seeing a lot of old and new friends this season!

A short weather blog

I just wanted to send out this short blog letting everyone know that Riverview survived the hurricane with absolutely no damage. The forecast for us was for 35-50 mph winds along with 5-8 inches of rain. We were certain that we would lose power since all it takes for us to lose our electricity is for a mule to poot.

When we went to bed we had our lanterns, flashlights, and all of our emergency gear around us . We left all of our shutters open under the assumption that the lightning and strong winds would wake us up. Evidently the storm shifted just enough to the east of Riverview to spare us. We never lost power, and only received an inch of rain. The storm has now shifted north and east of us; so I would say that it is over here.

I have talked to friends in Tallahassee, Thomasville, and Valdosta. Many of those cities are without power with a lot of down power lines due to fallen trees on the power lines. Our thoughts and prayers got out to them as they begin the clean up from the hurricane. I have been there/done that, and it's not a lot of fun. But, it could have been much worse, and for that we are grateful

Fall season

I believe that I saw on our local weather station that South Georgia has gone 76 straight days during which our low temperatures at night have not fallen below the low 70's. Sometimes the seasons and the temperatures actually get on the same page. This weekend is Labor Day, and we are predicting temperatures in the mid 60's on Sunday and Monday.

This weekend also kicks off college football season, and there are some pretty big games being played on week one. My television and porch will be a very popular destination for me on Saturday. Hopefully by then, this tropical depression will have dumped a little rain on our thirsty soil. We have not had a drop
of rain since Martha and I returned from overseas on August 13th. Prior to then, we had been getting steady rains once or twice a week. Some folks at Riverview are beginning to draw unflattering conclusions about these two events. I plan to stick with my dad's old words of wisdom that stated "dry weather will scare you, but wet weather will ruin you". I've experience both extremes in my life, and I will take "too dry" any day of the week.

At any rate, our food plots have all made it, and our grain sorghum has all been harvested. A rain would be most welcome, but it is not critical at this moment. We would like to see some cooler weather so that we could have more productive hours of dog training, and that appears to be headed our way.

On an entirely different subject, it seems that any discussion of politics these days is difficult to have in a civil manner; so what I'm about to say is a matter of public record rather than an opinion. I just read the list of companies who have paid Hilary Clinton huge sums of money for her speeches. I recognize many of those companies as having visited here in the past. As anyone who has ever hunted with us knows, I always give a very in depth safety talk to each group. I never realized that I could have been charging $250,000+ for my speeches. I know what I talked about, but I certainly wonder what she said that was worth so much money?

In closing, if football season begins this weekend, we know that hunting season is also just around the corner, and we are VERY ready for that also. Come see us this season!

Seasons of the year

I do believe that I would hate to live in a location where the seasons never changed, even if the climate there was always pleasant. I look forward to the change of seasons in South Georgia, and enjoy each of them with the exception of summer. I just can't find anything positive to say about the summer season in my part of the country. Yesterday our temperature/humidity index reached 112 degrees. I raised the white flag and retreated to the AC.

Perhaps that is why my favorite season of the year here is fall. Fall is when I can see summer in my rear view window. Fall is also college football and hunting seasons, two of my favorite past times. I enjoy watching one and participating in the other. Living as close to nature as I do, I promise you that I can smell fall before it arrives. I've begun sniffing the air every morning in hopes of picking up that scent which I can't define. Regretfully, I have yet to smell it, but I know that any day now I might catch a whiff of it in the air. Right now, I can't sniff too hard because I might still inhale a bunch of gnats and have a sneezing fit.

Another sure indication that fall ids just around the corner is how much later daylight is coming. I have always been an early riser, and love to watch day slowly break. Just a few short months ago, we were in the sweet corn fields, and actually picking corn before 6:00 am with decent light. This morning it was 6:40 am before I could even begin to define the trees in my yard. Of course, Cader IV says that is because I can't see good, but I disagree with him on that point. I have noticed that he no longer trusts me to tell him that no cars are coming when we approach a stop sign while riding together.

So I would say," Please hurry up and arrive at Riverview, Mr. Fall Season". We are more than ready for your arrival. Well, maybe the quail are not too excited about it. However, if I were a quail, I think that I would prefer a quick, clean kill shot to being eaten alive by a hawk. Maybe that's kind of like choosing between Trump and Clinton.

There's no place like home, Toto

I've always been told that there are three things that a man should never do--don't pee into the wind, don't pull on Superman's cape, and don't sword fight with Zorro. Well, I would like to add one more--do not try to visit five European countries in 13 days !

Martha and I just got back from a blitz of Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic. We pulled into our drive at about 2:00 am yesterday morning, and my biological clock is still completely confused due to the six hour time difference. I was wide awake and drinking coffee at 3:30 this morning. I know that many of our guests routinely travel the world on business. I just want you to know that I have an even higher respect for the lifestyle so many of our executive guests lead than ever before.

Although we saw many beautiful and historic sites, I have never seen a more beautiful sight than my home and river, highlighted by a full moon, as we finally pulled into our yard. Even the armadillo rooting up my grass looked good. Of course he will look even better when he is dead before the end of the week.

Cader IV told me that when Jonah left( that would be me), we got beneficial rains almost every day. He rode me all around yesterday, and our woods and food plots have never looked better. I was shocked at how much our grain sorghum had matured while I was away. We planted several hundred acres under center pivots in order to supplemental feed the quail during the fall and winter months. We combine this grain sorghum, store it in our grain bins, and then spread it in the woods from October through March. When I left, this grain was a golden yellow, and when I returned, it was brown and ready for harvest.

One thing that I did NOT miss while we were on our trip was the non-stop, incessant political commentary of all of the 24 hour news channels. I've about decided that ignorance may be bliss. I miss the days when Walter Cronkite told us everything we needed to know once a night in a 30 minute broadcast. However, I was unaware of the devastating flooding in Louisana  until I got home. Having lived through two historic floods here in 1994 and 1998, my prayers go out to all of my friends in that great state

In closing this short blog, let me say that I would like to reach a larger audience with these blogs; so please feel free to forward them, or send me a name of anyone whom you think might be interested in being added to this list. One of my goals in writing, other than the pure joy of writing, is to introduce more potential guests to Riverview.

Everything looks great here. All we need now is for fall to arrive along with YOU !

Politics and politicians

Wasn't it Diogenes who walked all around looking for just one honest man?  After watching the two national conventions, I could not help but think of the definition of politics. With apologies to my friend, Allan, who is a former politician, just think about this. " Poly" means "many, and "tics" are blood sucking leeches; so I would have to assume that politicians are a bunch of blood sucking leeches.

I was astounded to read recently that John Kerry stated that our AC units were a bigger threat to us than ISIS. I stayed up three nights in a row watching my AC units. Not a single one of them brandished an AK 47 or made any move to behead me although one of them did sound like it was in its death throes as it tried to combat this heat and humidity down here. Does anyone know what planet John Kerry hails from? He looks a good bit like "Lurch" from the old Adams family dark comedy to me.

We continue to get much needed rains just in the nick of time at Riverview to keep our woods and feed patches looking good. The guys at the kennels tell me that bird dog and Cocker training is progressing rapidly, but we are only able to work our dogs early in the mornings at the moment due to the extreme heat.

Meanwhile, Blake is in charge of going through all of our jeeps from bottom to top. He will soon be finished with that, and we will repaint a few of them again this year. We like to start each season with no bird pellet marks in our jeeps. I've never quite figured out how a jeep looks like a quail to a few of our guests, but evidently they do. It is also the reason we have never been willing to send more than two hunters out on a jeep with a guide. A third hunter sitting on the jeep would make an inviting target for a hunter who loses his gun discipline swinging on a quail.

In closing, let me give you this quote from someone named Ben Witherington III--" God has revealed enough of the future to give us hope, but not so much that we do not need to live by faith." I have faith that this great nation will survive and prosper no matter who occupies the Whitehouse this fall, but it is only because I have faith in the American citizens. I have very little confidence in our representatives. I believe at some point, the silent majority will rise up and take back our great nation !

Pearls of wisdom

No matter how old we get, wouldn't it be nice if we could just have our parents back for a little while to ask them a few more questions? And THIS time, we would listen to them ! What brought this to my mind is that Martha and I just got back from an annual four day meeting I have at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club in Ponte Vedra Beach , Florida. Having been in the resort and service business all of my adult life, it's very difficult for me not to be critical of things that I see in the service business.

Well, these folks do it right, and always have. I watched how friendly and attentive the entire staff was from housekeeping on up. That kind of service does not happen by accident. Someone is constantly preaching and training on customer service to achieve that level of service. I'm always an early riser, and enjoyed watching the maintenance people adjusting the sprinkler heads at daylight  because the patterns of spray were not perfect. It is just one of the many things I observed, and is one of the reasons we have held our meeting there since 1994. We also have no intentions of changing locations.

That got me to thinking of so many of the things my parents taught me about the service business when I first came home, and thought I knew everything. I will never forget my Dad saying, " Son, don't worry about the big things. You will never let those big balls drop, but it's the little things that make a difference". Folks have a tendency to notice the little things more than you can imagine. I can't walk by a piece of trash on the ground without picking it up. When your employees notice you doing that, they will do the same thing.

Dad also taught me that the sweetest sound in the world was the sound of a man's own name. From 1971-2013, I could call every guest by name after meeting him. I would learn 32 names, three times a week, and call them by name when they walked in for breakfast. That's Cader IV's job now, and it's a good thing because I think that the hard drive on my brain circuit is full. If I could dump out useless information such as ," Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow", I might have room up there to store more information. However, until they learn how to do a brain dump, my storage capacity is full.

From my mother I learned the importance of smiling and laughing. Mom told me years ago, "When faced with adversity, you can either laugh or cry. You might as well laugh because neither choice is going to change the outcome". I firmly believe people who laugh a lot live longer. And in the people business, you sure as heck need to learn how to laugh because some of the things I have been asked over the years reminds me of another of  my Dad's favorite sayings when frustrated with someone--" He's just breathing oxygen that someone else could have used".

But the most important thing that I learned from my parents, and the one that I fervently hope that I have passed on to both Cader IV and his two sisters, is that all of business is about relationships. Your customers have to know that you care about them as human beings rather than as just a potential income source. I told Cader IV when I was running Riverview that I wanted any guest who came here to think of my name when they thought about quail hunting. It was OK for them to think about Riverview in the next thought, but they needed to think about me as a friend first, and then his thought would logically flow to calling here for a hunting reservation.

I have been blessed to have the finest guests and friends in the world. They have taught me a lot over the years--including how to laugh at some really crazy questions and suggestions ! We are having a great summer, and hope y'all are also.

The power of prayer

Before I start on this short blog, I will say that I remember a line from one of my favorite country music songs that said," Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers". I know that to be a true sentiment as I have prayed for some things that I did not need, but certainly thought I did at the time.

However, after keeping Cader IV and Heather's two children from Sunday to Wednesday afternoon, I am certain that God has answered one of my prayers from long ago. When Martha and I were raising our children, at least I found raising a son to be more difficult than a daughter, and Cader IV has two older sisters. Well, my dad told me that I had gotten exactly the son I deserved because he acted just like I did at that age.

So, I can remember looking at Cader IV many times when he was young and praying," God, please give him a son someday who will be as much fun and a challenge to him as he is to me". Well, after this time spent with Caroline and CB Cox V, I think that it's a safe bet that my prayers are going to be answered. Martha and I had a blast with both of them, and loved every minute of it, but I can see those Cox genes coming!!

Speaking of prayer, we are very dry here. I promised myself that I would never pray for rain again after the flood of 1994, and I have kept that promise. However, I did mention to Him that we are getting pretty dry down here in South Georgia last night. I am also beseeching God to raise us up a great leader for this nation. We need one now in the worst way !

Sctor Rotation

In financial terms, I would define sector rotation in this manner," Every stock that I have purchased has suddenly fallen out of favor while every stock that I have sold is suddenly on everyone's buy list". In terms of Martha and I , we define sector rotation as taking turns keeping one of our triplet grandchildren for three days at a time on a rotating basis. This week finishes up the final rotation with Nate being the third and last.

Poor Nate's luck has his week as being the hottest week of the summer. Our temp/ humidity indexes have been 103-106 during his visit. Since his Papa is , shall we say"mature", we have had to revise some of our planned activities. A lot of the things we planned to do, we were still able to do, and we have substituted swimming pool time for the others. Of course the swimming pool water currently feels like a hot tub.

Meanwhile the only happy employees on Riverview this week are the ones on tractors since all of our tractors are air conditioned. As I was riding around on the Polaris with Nate yesterday, he asked me," Papa, where is everyone"? Having years of experience as an employer in South Georgia, I told him that we would find all of the men where ever the most shade was. Since I know all of those spots, we soon located everyone, and I could not blame them a bit.

If there is a slow time at Riverview , it is from early July until the end of August. All of the sweet corn has been harvested, all of the feed patches are planted, and we basically get down to maintenance, and praying for rain. We could use a good rain at the moment even though we know any storms we get with this kind of heat will be violent.

And speaking of praying,let's all pray for the United States. I was watching the news this morning of the ambush and deaths of the police officers in Dallas. Folks we have enough problems with ISIS and Muslim terrorists. We sure as heck do not need to turn on one another in this country. We need to be united as never before !

Well, I need to close for now as I'm certain that I am about to get a text informing me that my buddy is up and ready to spend his last morning with his Papa.

Praise the Lord

In about three hours we will pick our last ear of sweet corn for the 2016 season. I will not cry over saying good-bye to the harvesting crews or the ten trillion gnats. For the first time in three years, we have managed to sell all of our sweet corn at a profit, but that profit comes at a cost to someone else. I hate to agree with Al Gore, but it certainly seems that our storms in South Georgia are becoming a lot more intense than in prior years. For the past three years, there has been a lot of sweet corn grown in our area that has been flattened by severe thunderstorm winds. We were the recipients of those winds for the last two years, but we only had about five acres of wind damaged corn this season while some of our neighbors lost hundreds of acres. When demand exceeds supply in the fresh vegetable business, one can make some money.

Now that we are finishing up with our sweet corn harvest this morning, let the rains come. Barring flat tires or tractor break downs, we should plant our last food plots today, and the weather man is calling for strong storms this afternoon. Heavy rains in our woods would hit us just right today. Of course, that will mean that I will be out in Martha's yard picking up tree limbs once again tomorrow.

Speaking of the woods, they are really looking good, and we are beginning to see some young quail chicks these days as we ride around late in the day. I love watching the mama quail pretend to be wounded in order to pull us away from her precious chicks. If she only knew that I want them to survive as much as she does, she would not have to put on such an Oscar performance.

In closing this blog, I want to partially quote a very old and dear friend who also manages a little money for me. He and I go back to our college years together. The reason I say "partially quote" is because the last part is too profane to share, but it was still very funny. He said, " I have had the Asian Flu, been through Busted Bubbles, survived the Financial Crisis, been oiled down, and now I have been Brexited".

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Life is interesting. I just keep praying that God will raise up a real leader for this great nation. Right now, I do not see that person on the horizon in either party. I am an equal opportunity detester of all things Washington on both sides of the aisle!

Summer Solstice

Well, today is the longest day of the year, and the official start to summer. However, today is an unusually cool and pleasant day in South Georgia. Now last week was an entirely different story. As Martha and I were sitting on the porch one day last week around 5:30 pm, I happened to check the temperature/humidity index on my app and it was reading 106 degrees. We had every fan on the porch running on high, and were trying to convince ourselves that we were pleasantly comfortable. We finally quit kidding ourselves and retreated to the AC inside.

I hope that everyone had a great Father's Day yesterday. I sure did ! I was covered up in hugs and kisses from grandchildren, and phone calls and cards from my adult children. I truly believe that being a father and grandfather is my greatest privilege.

Things are rocking right along on schedule at Riverview. We have had plenty of rain, and our woods and food plots are looking great right now. We are keeping a close eye on our feed patches to make sure that the sugar cane aphid doesn't sneak up on us like it did last year. We are ready for that bad boy this time.

Sweet corn harvest is right on schedule. Barring an unforeseen circumstance, we should finish picking all of our sweet corn in the next eleven days. The Fourth of July market is one of the heaviest sweet corn sales volumes of the year, and we are just about to get to that point in the harvest and shipping cycle.

Since it was Father's Day weekend, I had different sets of grandchildren with me all during the weekend. The triplets wanted to go see the "puppy dogs" as they refer to all of our dogs at the kennel. I was afraid that we were going to have a riot after each of them chose an English Cocker that they wanted to take home. Papa had to take a hard stance, and veto all pleas.

Finally, in closing this short update, I want to remind each of you to keep a close eye on your firearms. If we are to believe our elected officials, weapons are the cause of all of the killings we are experiencing these days. I watched my guns all night long, and did not see a single one of them make a move to harm me or my family. I do believe that political correctness and our liberal media along with career politicians will lead to the downfall of this great nation unless we stand up to them.

God bless America !

This & That

Well, sweet corn harvest is in full swing now, or at least it was until Monday's monsoon rains from tropical storm Colin reached us. Thank goodness, there was no wind associated with this storm in our area, but we did receive anywhere from 3-6 inches of rain on that day. For some strange reason, our harvesting crew expressed no desire to get off the bus and start picking corn that day. However, they have been making up for lost time since then. Of course after that much rain, we are having to use our dozers to push and pull the mule train and field trucks through each planting. It's a lot of fun if you are a big fan of mud bogging events.

One area that really benefited from the heavy rains was our woods. You could almost see the trees, food plots, and natural cover smiling since we have just been through an abnormally dry May for our area. The old adage," April showers bring May flowers" only works if you get a little bit of rain in May. We received very little rain in May; so this deluge was a welcome event for our hunting operation.

Everything here has settled into our normal summer routine with one exception, and that is me! I'm not working as long or as hard as I have for the past 45 years. I kind of feel like I have earned the right. As a matter of fact, I have one of my 10 year old grandsons spending three days with me this week. Since he is one of my triplets, I will be repeating that process for the next two weeks after this since everything has to be equal with this bunch, and they DO keep score. He and I are spending the afternoons exploring the woods, learning nature facts, and hunting for arrowheads. He bagged his first squirrel yesterday, and I can assure you that you would have thought that he had killed a Boone & Crockett buck. City chillun!! That's why God gave them a set of country grandparents.

In closing, let me mention for those of you on our active mailing list, we mailed our summer newsletters on Monday. One day next week, I'm going to attempt to scan that newsletter, and post it to my blog site. Of course that might be above my technical abilities; so I'm making no promises. I hope everyone is having a good summer, and look forward to seeing y'all this fall or winter.

Technology and me

One of the perks that I had placed in my exceedingly long employment contract( according to Cader IV) was that the company had to provide me with a new car every three years. Well, that day arrived, and my new car is here. Had it not been for Cader IV, it would still be sitting right where they dropped it off. There are so many gizmos and features on this car that I do not have a clue how to use it. What ever happened to cranking up, putting the car in gear, and driving off.

One thing I did get a kick out of was how excited Cader IV was to show me the push button start on the car rather than a key to turn. I hated to bust his bubble, but that's the way I remember all of our first cars starting. But, no, I do not remember when you had to turn a crank handle to start the engine. The entire control panel is computerized now, and some of the features make no sense to me at all, and will most likely go unused for three years.

Technology is great, but I could tell the car and tractor makers that everything new is not necessarily better. As far as I'm concerned, the dimmer switch for the headlights would still make more sense in the floorboard of a car as in the old days. As to tractors, they look like the inside of the cockpit of an airplane. If the computers and GPS units on our tractors ever went out, I doubt that anyone other than me could lay out a straight row, and I wouldn't know how to crank the darn tractor anymore.

Speaking of tractors, it looks like we will start harvesting sweet corn this weekend; so y'all please get hungry for corn, and buy a lot of it. The crop looks good, but we never know about the price other than the fact that the market generally falls on the day Riverview starts picking. I would really love to have a little chat with the man who wrote the song," Summer Time and the Living is Easy".

 Summer time in South Georgia is high humidity, high temperatures, and ten gazillion gnats. We have some guys running chain saws thinning out undesirable hardwoods between the rows of a lot of our younger pine plantations. Other men will be in the sweltering heat of the sweet corn fields while a few lucky men will be on tractors or working young dogs in the shaded area where the temperatures will only reach the low 90's.

In closing, let me share with you a little gem a good friend sent me. I was having a small pity party about the heat, my arthritic back, and vision problems when out of the clear blue this friend sent me an email telling me to go to YOU Tube and search for " David Ring--Champion in the Game of Life". The video was 44 minutes long, but I watched it as my morning devotional this morning, and God gave me a great attitude adjustment.

I don't have ANY problems, and I AM blessed. I hope that each of you and your families will be blessed also this summer.

Where were you?

Every generation of Americans has experienced those life changing events when they vividly recall exactly where they were when one of these life altering events occurred. What that event was depends upon one's age, and age also determines how many of those events one has experienced. For my generation, there is no question that the first of those events was, " Where were you when JFK was assassinated"? Prior to this event, I remember the Cuban missile crisis and bomb drills. I might not have been the brightest light in the constellation, but I did know that hiding under my little wooden desk was hardly going to protect me from a nuclear weapon.

The day of President Kennedy's assassination is clearly etched in my mind. I'm fairly certain that I was sitting in my 8th grade home room class when the announcement came over the PA system in our school. I can still see Mrs. Fleming laying her head upon her desk and beginning to sob. Now to a country kid who knew absolutely nothing about the world at that time, I thought that it was the weirdest thing in the world for my teacher to cry over the death of some Yankee that she had never met. I was much more interested in trying to peak down the blouse of the pretty girl sitting next to me.

For my adult children, that special event may have been the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. I don't know to ask them if this is the first real one for them because they are all out of pocket today. However, there is no question in my mind that the biggest "where were you question" for most of us was 911 when the Twin Towers came down, the Pentagon was bombed, and a bunch of heroes managed to crash one plane and abort its mission.

On that day, I was out at the oak wood pile with all of the employees who were busting up firewood for the coming hunting season. Martha and I were scheduled to fly out later that morning on a private plane to visit our friend , Charlie Shelton's vineyards in North Carolina. Martha managed to get up with me, and told me to come home right away. We sat and watched this carnage on television and sobbed like babies. I had two immediate thoughts since I was uncertain as to whether our entire country was under attack. I knew where my two youngest children were, and felt that they were safe. My eldest was clerking for a federal judge at the federal building in Atlanta. I called her to tell her to get out of there now, avoid the CDC building, and head home. She replied that her judge was not in the building , and that they had not been given permission to leave. I informed her that my authority as a parent outweighed any federal judge. When I called back an hour later to make certain that Holly had complied with my directive, a young lady answered Holly's line informing me that my daughter had left the building an hour ago, and that they had all just received the order to evacuate. She also felt compelled to tell me that I must be Holly's pushy daddy, and she had been told to expect this call.

My next call was to the Sheltons to tell them that we would not be flying to North Carolina that day. As it turned out, that was a moot point as all aircraft were grounded over the US by then. I guess that this was the first day that I faced up to the fact that evil truly exists in our world. I have always known it, but somehow I did not think that it would ever reach out and touch me. Had I been younger, I know that I would have re-enlisted to go after these evil people.

I'm also  reminded of the words to an old country music song that goes, " Oh, I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then" ! I wonder if my grandchildren will get nearly the year's of innocence I enjoyed before being confronted with the face of evil. I pray that will be the case, but I fear that it will not be. So, in closing this blog that has absolutely nothing to do with hunting or Riverview, let's honor and respect our young men and women who are still laying it all on the line everyday to protect us. And, as far as I'm concerned, they are getting a very raw deal from our VA. We have a bunch of folks in Washington who seemed to be more concerned about bathroom issues than in giving these young patriots the VERY best care available.

Stand up America ! I could care less which party you support, but we should all support our veterans , and demand that they receive first class and prompt care. OK, I'm climbing off of my soapbox, and going back to check on the sweet corn fields now.

Life on the plantation

One of the old sayings that my dad shared with me years ago was that two things a man can want the most and catch up on the quickest are sex and rain. Well, we got caught up on the rain part last night. There are a lot of great things about living in the country, and I would not trade where I live for any place on earth. However, one of the few downsides to country living is that every time a mule toots or a hard rain falls, we lose our television satellite reception until the storm passes. Last night was one of those occasions. The only problem was last night also happened to be the season finale to one of Martha Cox's favorite shows.

I was fortunate to be away from the house at the time at a committee meeting at our little country church which is only about five miles from the house. People have often asked my why I am a Baptist, and the answer to that is very simple. We only had two choices out here in the sticks when I was growing up ---Baptist or heathen since the Hopeful Baptist Church was the only church within 15 miles of us. Now if there's one thing that Baptists love over almost anything else, it is forming a committee to discuss an idea to death. This may be one of the few times in my life where being on a committee worked to my advantage since I missed some of my wife's unhappiness with the Dish Network. I don't know how it works in your homes, but most things like this end up being my fault. Since I wasn't there, I couldn't take the blame.

Speaking of home and country living, I am still fighting a running battle with armadillos. I have my own private political views on immigration which I will not share in this space, but I will share my thoughts on the immigrants known as armadillos. A couple of good sized armadillos can make a well manicured yard look like a herd of hogs have been rooting in it all night long. They have no natural enemies in our part of the world, and it was also discovered through research and radio telemetry of quail nesting sites that these "possums on the half-shell" also eat quail eggs. So, as far as I'm concerned, the best solution is total eradication of these pesky critters. They do not respond well to trapping, but they do respond exceedingly well to high brass #6 shot from a 12 gauge shotgun at close quarters combat.

I keep such a shotgun in an undisclosed but easy to find location for me, and every time I wake up during the night to answer the call of nature, I also take my Maglite and shotgun outside to do a perimeter sweep of my yard. This morning at 3:45 am, I don't know who was the most shocked and surprised to discover one another, me or the 10 deer eating the grass only a few feet off of my back porch. Now that we have discovered a hot pepper spray to keep the deer out of my tomatoes, I'm satisfied to let them live.

In closing, we just finished our one month trapping program of known predators to either quail or quail eggs, and it was very successful this year.After looking at the numbers, I have surmised that possums are as stupid as they look since we caught 178 of them in only a month. My two trappers were delighted to report that they did not catch a single skunk which is also a big nest predator. I'm just not real sure how hard they tried to catch any skunks.

We are having a good late spring. The woods look real good at this stage of the game, and we are about three weeks away from beginning to harvest sweet corn. We hope y'all are doing well also!

A few short random thoughts

I have finally finished my 42nd or 43rd edition of our annual newsletter, Summer Scene. I don't have exact dates on anything here since all of our original records and most of our original cottages burned up in April of 1974. As our CPA firm stated the only good thing that came out of that fire is that all of my Mom's book keeping records burned up. Anytime Mom or Dad wanted to "appropriate" a little spending money from the company, she thought that she had cleverly hidden her tracks, but such was not really the case. After the 1974 fire, we put in a real book keeping system. We have no records that date back to our beginning year of 1957.

Sadly, we have very few early photos or memorabilia at all of the years from 1957-1974 because we were in the process of building Mom and Dad's house at that time. They were living in our home on Lake Seminole during this period of time, and had most of our family photos, early hunting scenes, and all of the family jewelry and silver stored in the old main lodge that burned during the wee hours of the morning along with eight bedrooms, our office, Mom's car, two golf cars, and a riding lawnmower. I do plainly remember that we had $25,000 worth of insurance on a property loss that exceeded well over a half-million dollars.

I made it my business to learn more about insurance after that, but I forgot to learn about having flood insurance until the great flood of 1994 almost swept us away. That loss was well over two million dollars, and would only pay off if one had flood insurance. I had tons of other insurance in force, but NO flood insurance. I've had it ever since then. That's why I have always believed that experience is the best teacher IF she doesn't kill you or break you first.

I want to close this short history lesson with a couple of observations that struck my funny bone recently. I have a fresh summer cold. That's all in the world it is, but I sure feel badly. I got tickled last night as I recalled the saying of an old mentor of mine when I was a kid. He said, " Son, a toothache in MY mouth is worse than a famine in China as far as I'm concerned". I now know what he meant.

And lastly, I have kept up with the water crisis in Flint, Michigan because every time the subject of the Flint River comes up on the national news, I just can't help but perk my ears up since that is also the name of the river flowing below my house and all of theses cottages. It just struck my funny bone to think about the fact that years ago, GM made cars in Flint Michigan, and you could not drink the water in Mexico. Here we are today and GM is making cars in Mexico while you can't drink the water in Flint, Michigan !

Rise up America, and let's take our country back from career politicians and bureaucrats before it's too late! The native Americans took care of this national treasure. Come to think of it, they did a lot of things right. The men hunted, made war, love, and smoked the peace pipe while the women cooked, sewed, and looked after the kids. Then along came us white folks and screwed up a pretty darn good system in my opinion. That's an opinion that I will pay for when my bride of 46 years reads this blog later today.

I wish Mother nature would make up her mind

The past few days here have been in the 90's which is about 10- 15 degrees above normal for this time of the year. According to the weatherman who predicts the weather like I do the stock market, and thus why I'm still working for a living, it's supposed to be stormy this afternoon. Following that, we should go to 10-15 degrees below normal.

They are calling for lows in the 40's and highs in the low 70's by Thursday. No wonder we stay sick all the time around here. When you add the sudden weather swings along with the tons of pollen in the air, it's enough to choke a bull buffalo to the ground. However, I have no intentions of letting the weather get me down. I just finished re-lining all of my reels, and got new batteries on my bass boat. I plan to start either catching or hair-lipping some bass on a serious basis shortly. I've already been enough times to get the kinks out of me, and now I'm about to get them out of my equipment.

I have not posted much information lately because I have been working on our summer newsletter, "Summer Scene". I really admire and respect writers who can crank out an article every day. I guess that I must have limited cranial capacity because I have been saving my few original thoughts and comments for The Summer Scene. An idea can get mighty lonesome sometimes wandering around in my mind! Since half the people I know are below average, I'm not overly concerned about it. However, every now and then I do think that I have lost my mind, but I'm fairly certain that my wife, Martha, is the one who took it!

Everything is going along just fine at Riverview so far into this late spring, and I will look forward to giving everyone a more detailed report in the summer newsletter in a few weeks. However, I have lived long enough to know that everything can change in the blink of an eye. But I am very comforted by the fact that God never blinks !

Life's observations

When I was young, I had a lot of great ideas that I had enough sense to run by my dad before putting into action. It would irritate me to no end when he would sometimes say, "you can try it , but it's not going to work". What irritated me so much was that he was almost always right. When I got older and less prideful, I asked him how he knew so many bright ideas of mine were destined to fail. He replied that if you live long enough, history repeats itself. Pop further informed me that if you were too dumb to learn the lessons from history, you were really just wasting oxygen by breathing his air. Patience never was his long suit.

I say all of that because I have been telling all of our folks that we were going to experience a cold April in South Georgia which we certainly have. Why did I think that? Because I've observed over the years that an unusually warm fall is almost always followed by an unusually cool spring. Weather tends to average out both in terms of temperatures and rainfall. I also believe that it will get drier than a powdered popcorn poot here before the summer ends because we had monsoonal rains in the fall and winter. El Nino will shift to La Nina which brings drought to great regions of the US.

The cool spring has been great for us for controlled burning, and continuing to work our young English Cockers. We had a great burn, and the cool, damp weather already has our cover returning. Meanwhile, we have been able to devote many more hours and people per day to dog training because it is not getting too hot to work our puppies all day. However, this weather has been very detrimental to our sweet corn plantings and crop. The soil has been too wet on many days to plant, and the corn that is up looks anemic. We all know that sweet corn does not really begin growing good or picking up the nutrients in the soil until our night time temps are in the 60's. It was 46 degrees here this morning.

I want to close this blog by completely switching subjects to politics. I guess that I need to thank Donald Trump for educating me on the confusing process of delegates and the electoral college. I know that I took Civics in high school and political science in college, but I think that the rules have changed a lot since the dark ages. Somehow, I no longer feel like my vote counts, and as in everything else involving politics, delegates can be bought with money although it has to be done subtly. The most interesting take away from all of this to me is wouldn't you think that the man who wrote the book, " The Art of The Deal", would have understood the ground rules going in?

I sure didn't understand them until lately, but then again, I wasn't running for the job. I'm still waiting to be appointed Dictator of the USA. Just let me have that title for one four year term, and I promise we can right the good ship of state.

Is it just me?

I grew up in an age where there was only one national news segment, and it came on at 6:30 pm. Since we only got two networks at the time, we either watched Walter Cronkite or Huntley & Brinkley. We got all of the news we needed to get in 30 minutes, and trusted the guys who read it to us.

Now we have so many 24 hour news channels inundating us with bad news that it's no wonder we have become a paranoid society. I wonder if the drug companies who sell anti-depressant and ant-anxiety drugs might be behind the proliferation of these networks. Have you ever truly listened to any of these news networks for more than an hour? They run out of things to say, and then start with their theories and thoughts. Liberals have their favorite networks as do conservatives. As for me, I'm sick of all of them.

It's gotten so bad that some of my neighbors are even worried about an ISIS attack in Southwest Georgia. Now I realize that most of the ISIS folks aren't rocket scientists, but even they should realize that we would be a very low profile victory for them if( and that's a big IF) they got out of here alive. Our population density is quite low. If they hit the Hopeful store at lunch time, they might take out 15 farmers, all of whom would be armed.

Even my wife has a concealed carry permit, and is packing a pistol these days. Martha has come a long way from when I took her out of the city to live in the country. The first year we were married, a big rattlesnake crawled up in our yard. There were no cell phones back in those days, and I was on a tractor. After emptying both of my pistols at the snake, she frantically called my dad on our land line. He drove over to our house and inspected the empty shells and the crawl track and said, " Don't worry, honey, that old snake crawled off in the weeds and died laughing". That snake would not be so lucky today because Martha can place at least five out of six shots in a pie plate at 25 yards. That also gives me more incentive to be nice to her.

I guess that the main point of this blog is to wonder if ignorance is bliss ? We certainly do not need to bury our heads in the sand, but we also do not need to look for buggers that are not there. However, should said bugger ever show up down here, he will be leaking fluids from a lot of places.

Cold snap before Easter

The old folks have always said that there would be one more cold snap before Easter. Well, we are experiencing that now. After a week in the 80's last week, we had frost yesterday morning, and it's fairly cold this morning too, but should warm up fast now. We could have been hunting these last two days except there would be nowhere for a quail to hide.

Jerry and the burning crews finished all of our woods burning program yesterday. The Dogwood trees and Azalias are in full bloom. Spring is really a beautiful season in South Georgia. It just doesn't last long enough. I've been reading all of these stories about the challenges of spring turkey hunting. Frankly, I don't see the challenge. On any given afternoon, I could bag a big gobbler or two from my porch. They have grown very brazen, and will walk within 25-30 yards of where Martha and I are sitting. Of course the big males are beginning to think about sex. And like all animals, they grow brain dead when they get that subject on their minds.

Speaking of brain dead, there is a fine line between stubbornness and stupidity. On Monday of this week, I had to drive to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville for my annual check up on my pacemaker. I got an A+ report. However, I am also just recovering from glaucoma and cataract surgery. One of the multiple drops that I have to put in my eyes will dilate my eyes. Martha had tried to get me to let her drive me down there, but it's a three and one-half hour drive down and the same time back for a 30 minute appointment. I insisted that I could handle it alone. WRONG !

I had forgotten that I would be driving east all the way in the rising sun. I was blind as a bat , and would not have made it without my GPS talking to me since I could not see a road sign until I was almost past it. This episode reminded me of the little old lady who called her husband and told him to be careful since there was a report on the news of a person driving south in the north bound lane of I-75. He responded, " A person, hell. There are thousands of people driving the wrong way on I-75 at the moment". I was also reminded of the Carrie Underwood song titled. " Jesus take the wheel" because that's what I asked Him to do as I hit the downtown traffic in Jacksonville.

At any rate, I made it down there and back safely, but I have decided not to be stupid again==at least for a little while. I would like to wish everyone a blessed Easter !

2015-2016 hunting season has officially ended

People often ask me towards the end of a hunting season, " Will you be happy to see the hunting season end?" I always respond with the same answer, " The day that I am not excited about hunting season beginning is the day that I will get out of it, and the day that I am not excited about seeing one end is the day that I will have myself committed to a mental institution".This n a high touch, high pressure job that carries an element of risk each day. To do that day in and day out for almost six months requires a total commitment. Now my definition of a total commitment can best be described as the conversation between the pig and the chicken when they were talking about a breakfast of ham and eggs. The pig says to the chicken, " For you it's a donation, but for me, it's a TOTAL COMMITMENT".

We had a great season, and one that was 100% safe ! Nothing got shot except quail, and quite a few of them escaped the season unscathed also. I'm reasonably certain that we had several groups at Riverview this season who were practicing" shoot and release" programs. Y'all have heard me praise our English Cockers so much that I will just mention in passing that we had very few lost dead birds this season which is something every true hunter feels good about. I just abhor the idea of killing a bird and not being able to find him.

Speaking of dogs, any of you who have read my posts know that I have always said that I would like to be as good of a person as my dog thinks I am. I recently read this quote by James Thurber who stated,"If I have any belief about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons will". Well, I have very strong beliefs about life after death, and I know where heaven is and with whom I will be. Although I can't find it in the Bible, I choose to believe that I'm going to see some of my beloved dogs again up there.

We are taking inventories today, and will begin burning our woods tomorrow. I hope y'all have a great spring and summer !

Spring is almost here

Well, we have only a few days left of the 2015-2016 hunting season. If you were to come by here next week, you would think that General Sherman had returned from the grave, and was burning Georgia to the ground again because we will begin a controlled woods burning program of at least half of our hunting courses starting this coming Monday. Speaking of old General Sherman, I am certain that he is quite warm where he is residing now ! For so many years the motto of the South was , "Forget,Hell No". I changed my opinion on that years ago when I realized that Yankee money spends just as good as Southern dollars, and we have benefited very much from our Northern clientele's generosity over the years.

The only thing that I detest about spring is that it is also tax season. I always dedicate this weekend to my personal tax preparation work. I really don't know what my CPA is charging me for since they send me a tax organizer that requires me to do all of the work. I have a sneaking suspicion that once they have my work sheets, they just feed it into a computer and charge me out of the Wazoo. I prepared my own taxes until I was 27 and became president pf the company. Our CPA firm required an officer of the company to have his tax return prepared by the firm also. I now find myself receiving a tax return that is at least 75-100 pages long, and I do not understand it at all.

However, I do understand the front page that tells me how much I owe Uncle Sam. Now I'm one of those rare people who believes that because God has blessed me that I should pay more taxes than some folks. What I resent is what Washington is spending my hard earned money on, and who all they are giving it to. I contend that conservative folks like me are more charitable than liberal folks, and have read plenty of statistics verifying that fact. Conservatives give, but they prefer to give to the charities of their choice while liberals don't want to give any of their money, but prefer to give my money to whomever they choose. It is kind of like socialism--it works until you give out of other people's money!

Have you ever seen a list of the "pork projects" in Washington which is nothing more than a vote buying scheme with your taxes? I have, and it will turn your stomach. Why do I care to spend money to see how many times a shrimp has sex? Why do I want to give money to countries that would love nothing more than to see the USA destroyed? This country was founded upon the Judeo/Christian work ethic yet we have many people drawing money through fraud and gaming the system who have never contributed a dime to society.We also have many elderly and disabled folks who deserve to be supported by those of us who have been more fortunate.

I just think that we have the fox guarding the hen house in Washington when it comes to where my tax money is being spent. I have a great solution if anyone is interested. I think that votes should be proportioned with the amount of taxes paid. A man pays $100,000 in taxes gets 100,000 votes while the man who pays no taxes gets no votes. Someone with "skin in the game" is more likely to vote for people with intelligence as to how his money is to be spent. As it now stands, I feel like I am having taxation without representation. Didn't we fight a war a long time ago over this issue?

OK, my rant for the day is over, and I feel better---not great but better.

This & That

I had glaucoma and cataract surgery on Monday, and my key board is still a bit fuzzy to me; so if you read any misspelled words in this blog, please blame it on blindness rather than ignorance. Unless someone calls for a date this week, we will ring the bell on our 2015-2016 hunting season next Saturday.

It has been an excellent season, quality wise. The cover in the woods has been outstanding, and our English Cockers have been a huge hit with all of our guests. Our occupancy rate is going to be down just a bit this year, and we can attribute every bit of that to the oil patch. I may be the only South Georgia farmer praying for higher oil prices even though we use a lot of gas and diesel here. The guys in the oil patch like to hunt, and we need and appreciate that business. We are still going to have a great year here, and our rebookings for next season are indicative of a bunch of happy hunters who visited Riverview this fall and winter.

I want to briefly change the subject to politics although we train our guides not to get into that subject with our guests. I was just reading where the current U.S. population is 323 million people. Is Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton the best two folks we can find to run for president out of 323 million people. Heck, I have visited with at least 1500 folks at Riverview this season who are more qualified than either of these two folks. Perhaps the best people just do not want to wallow in the pig pen of politics.

And another question about politics--can you believe how many people in this great nation identify themselves as socialists? I truly believe that this includes a lot of young people who do not even know what socialism really means. Maybe they think that it is like the social chairman of a fraternity or sorority that plans the parties and bands. We have fought wars to defeat this type of government ! Someone needs to help me understand the mentality of this country because I can no longer identify with the majority of the citizens. I do remember my dad saying this to me in his later years," Son, never, ever fail to recognize the dumbness of the average voting population". Pop, you were right !

I will do a final recap of the hunting season next week. For the moment, I want to thank those of you who visited and hunted with us this season. And for those of you who could not make it this year, you were missed!

The Old Days at Riverview

You will notice in the title of this blog that I did not say " The GOOD Old days" because a lot of them were not so good. Every now and then when Cader IV is complaining about a hectic day around here these days, I feel compelled to share some of my stories from my early years back home in the early 70's. I'm just going to tell one story here, but I have many of them.

Before telling the story, allow me to set the scene for you. Back then, there were no cell phones, IPads, laptops, etc. We had one television in the main lodge and one phone in each of five cottages. A full house was 20 guests. Most of those guests flew in on the old Gulfstream prop planes, and it took them 3-4 hours to get here. Evidently one of the requirements for being invited to sit on one of those planes was that you had to drink liquor from the time you got on the plane until the time you landed.

Our most dreaded week of the season each year was when one of the major New York City banks booked out the entire week. They would rotate guests every two days. The logistics alone would have been a nightmare, but it was complicated by the fact that our "go to" guy at the bank was only interested in his guide,cottage, hunting course etc. The bank was not satisfied with allowing their guests four hours of drinking time on the plane. Oh no, they would charter a bus with a bar to drive their guests to Riverview.

Now, I want you to get a mental picture of this. Twenty folks who were drunker than Fido's butt would pull in here after dark, and start stumbling out of the bus ,scattering like a flushed covey of quail. Did I mention that we did not have the night lighting on the grounds that we now have?

I would assemble as many of the staff as possible with the task of finding guests, and taking them and their luggage to their assigned cottages. Sometimes we didn't know what their assigned cottage was because the host had taken his broad butt into the one he wanted, and left us holding the bag. Well, one fateful night, it finally happened. After herding all of our intoxicated guests into their respective rooms, we found ourselves missing a guest. I found the host and asked him if Mr. Oscar was on the bus when they left the airport. He confirmed that he was.

Any of you reading this who have visited Riverview know that we have some fairly steep drop offs leading down to the Flint River that are very near our cottages. Every bad scenario was running through my head as three of us set out all over the Lodge grounds yelling Mr. Oscar's name to the top of our lungs. Finally, I heard a weak answer when I called his name. I asked, " where are you"? His terse reply,"Don't know". I then said, "Walk toward my voice and the flashlight". Again a very short reply,"scared to". When I inquired as to why, he said, " I took one step and fell 10 feet straight down. I'm afraid that the next step could be 100 feet".

That was when I knew where he was. He had walked right off the top of our trap house which was recessed, bunker style, into the side of a hill, and it was about an 8 foot drop from the concrete top to the grass below. Had he not been drunk, he would have probably broken his neck. As it turned out, the only think that he broke was his glasses.

There are many, many stories of the first night's stay here during the old days. I, for one, am very happy to say that this wireless and connected world of ours keeps our guests on their toes all of the time. I can't even remember the last time that I have witnessed an over-served guest here, and sober guests are much more pleasant to deal with than drunk ones.

A few funny conversations overheard

My mother always told me that when faced with adversity, I could either laugh or cry. She went on to say that I might as well laugh because neither action was going to change the outcome. But Mom never advised me as to how to handle some of the situations and conversations I have experienced over the years. I thought that I would share just a few with you here:

 Waitress-" Good morning, what would you like to have for breakfast this morning"?
Guest--" I don't know. Breakfast has always been waiting for me when I come down stairs in the morning".
Me to myself," Houston, we are going to have a problem with this man", and we did. He busted his finger on his shogun the first morning. A simple band aid would have sufficed, but he flew his private jet back to NY to see his surgeon, and returned that night

Guest--" I would like fresh squeezed carrot juice with my breakfast".
Martha(my wife who was still helping me at that time)--" Would you look around and see where you are in the middle of nowhere, and ask yourself if this is a California spa".
Guest--" I think that I will have a V-8

One guest who was an expert quail hunter because we had taught him how to shoot the year before giving advice to his first time guest who had never hunted quail--" Frank, there is a brief moment when the covey flushes that all of the birds are close together. If you shoot in the middle of them, you can sometimes kill one".
Me-" Now that is one philosophy, and I'm not disagreeing with your buddy, Sam, but I have found that it is generally a good idea to pick out one bird and stay with him. If you miss him on the first shot, try the same bird with your next shot. If you kill him on the first shot, then select another bird".

Guest number one--" How do the bird dogs find the quail"?
Guest number two--" They have real good eyes and can see through the grass".

One night I had a severely inebriated lady fall on her way back to the cottage, and gashed her head open badly. I was called on my emergency phone, and rushed her and her husband to the little local hospital's emergency room. The first thing that she asked me was whether there was a board certified plastic surgeon on call. I replied that she would be fortunate to find someone who could sew a good stitch. She then proceeded to loudly talk about all of the places all over the world that they jetted and hunted. As I was sitting there, I got to thinking, " The emergency room is the poor folks doctor's office. Most of the folks in here don't have two pennies to rub together, and my car is parked way out there in a dark parking lot. I eased over to her husband, explained the situation to him, and asked him if he thought he might be able to shut her up as I was unarmed at the time. I don't know what he said, but she never spoke another word to anyone, including me.

And lastly, one of my favorite stories which also included a 2:00 am call to my emergency phone. One of our guest's wives had gone into labor with their first child. She called him frantic, and he called me equally frantic. I told him to call his pilots, and that I would call the FBO to get the emergency folks out there to unlock. Now why he went on a hunting trip with a wife 9 months pregnant, I will never know. I picked him up at his cottage, and we shot out to Albany. As I was backing up to the plane, he was thanking me profusely, and asked me how he could ever repay me. I replied, "name the baby Cader". Well, he looked like a fish out of water. I finally had to tell him that I was just teasing. Yankees are so much fun to tease !

A Riverview hunting story on me

Many, many years ago, we had the flu virus strike a bunch of our guides right in the heart of hunting season. Our folks are all very loyal, and will go as hard as they can even when sick, but this was a very virulent form of the flu. We had about five guides out with 102+ fevers, and we were desperate. I managed to call in two retired guides, one neighbor. Plus our manager, Aaron and I both had to hunt.

I should have smelled a rat when at least six guides each offered me two of their best dogs. Back in those days we only put six dogs in the jeep rather than the 8-10 each guide carries now in his jeep. At any rate, I was most grateful to get 6 "good" dogs. I asked Aaron to assign me to the Eastwoods hunting course since it was virtually in my backyard where I grew up, and I knew where every covey of quail tended to congregate on that course. Now might be a good time to also point out that the Eastwoods is also the hunting course that is closest to our dog kennels.

At any rate, I started my morning with a great deal of confidence as I dropped out my first brace of hunting dogs. That was also the last time I saw that pair for the entire morning. They tore out like "scalded dogs" straight to the comfort of their kennel,bed, and food. I began to get a sense of foreboding that this might not be a good morning for me.

I decided to drive the jeep to the back side of the course prior to turning the next pair of champions out. We did not have electronic collars back then; so I stood by the jeep ready to tackle the first dog that made a dash for home. I need not have worried as evidently this pair of dogs were trained to hunt only one thing, and that was the jeep! No matter how much I whistled, cajoled, and begged, they merely plodded right behind the rear wheels of the jeep. It was now approaching 10:00 am, and my guests had not fired a shot. They were getting restless, and I was mortified.

At that point I figured that I had nothing to lose; so I kenneled my jeep trackers, and dropped out my last pair of dogs. I do not remember the second dog's name, but the first one was named Henry. I had asked each guide to give me a name and description of the dogs I would be hunting. It is important to note Henry's name because one of my guests that morning was also named Henry. These last two dogs could hunt. However, somewhere in his training program, the dog, Henry, had decided that it was his job to flush the birds just before the hunters could get in position or range for a decent shot.

Finally it happened. Henry the dog flushed a covey out ahead of us while Henry the man took a desperation shot. In my frustration, I yelled, " Henry, you S.O.B.". Mr. Henry looked at me and yelled right back, " I'm shooting as good as I can". To which I promptly replied. " I wasn't yelling at you, Mr. Henry. I was yelling at the dog. I would never call a man with a loaded shotgun an S.O.B.".

It was at that point in time that I resorted to an extreme measure that I had sworn I would never do, As I watched Henry the dog merrily chasing this covey to the next hunting course, I borrowed Mr.Henry's shotgun, and shot Henry the dog in the rump from a distance that I deemed would only sting him and get his attention. Well, it worked, and I made a Christian out of that dog. We managed to come in with 21 birds, and I was just delighted not to be the first guide at Riverview to ever come in with no birds on a hunt.

Thank goodness, one of our regular guides felt good enough to go after lunch, and I removed myself from the line-up, but I never forgot the three guides who each gave me a pair of their "best" dogs.