Horseshoe's blog: Thanksgiving Day- Belated and Elated!

Here I sit, eating my Thanksgiving meal two days after Thanksgiving Day.  Nope, not leftovers like so many of ya’ll are eathing. Maybe my meal is considered firstovers, or firstevers?   Of course now that I think about it, having this food on my plate is not a first ever event for me, but it sure is for the huge Thanksgiving catfish…

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Sorry to have been so tardy in my blog postings, Folks.  Life, life’s schedules and what we perceive as life’s schedules, combined with a final willingness on my part to just slow down and rest and do very little in the evenings have certainly occupied my time lately.  All in all I’m thankful for the aforementioned.  Yep, I’m still alive and kickin’!  Although I don’t kick so high anymore I still have enough spunk to get by with.

(“Spunk". Ain’t that a special word? I remember 35 years ago an elderly woman once told  me, hands on her hips, “If’n ya ain’t got no spunk in yerself then no one else will”, then she *gently winked, nodded her head in a knowing way, spit some snuff juice onto the sidewalk and went back to tending her flower bed. She reminds me now of a **tiger lily.)

Ya see, on Thanksgiving Days past my family used to go visit “the other side” each year, my inlaws.  This left me to fend for myself for entertainment and celebration but I learned to be happy with that. I’d enjoy smoking a Boston butt on the grill, mopping it every 30 minutes over the next five hours with liquid seasoning and eventually turning it into Carolina pulled pork BBQ.  And since it was too much for me to eat I’d pack it all up and drive the containers around to friends, surprising them.  Some years I’d smoke a turkey breast and some turkey legs on my smoker grill, cooking them to perfection. Boy-howdy, that's the true definition of "YUM!" and "Yummy!!" Even the wildlife at MoonDance Farm would peek out of the woods to see what smelled so good!  Well, except the local turkeys for some reason.

This year my daughter was invited to her boyfriend’s house for some good eats.  And boy-howdy did they have a spread, or so I heard!  She contributed, too, taking cheesecake cupcakes with a chocolate mousse topping, or “bottoming” depending on which one you grabbed.  They were yummy by the way!  :>)   My wife doesn’t eat turkey or any other meat, normally preferring raw foods so that meant one thing, no cooking this year!  I went fishin’!  Yep, first daylong fishing trip in years!

Ya see, if I ever want a day off from work I have to leave the premises.  Working on a farm, even one as small as MoonDance, you find yourself easily working seven days a week. This being the case, some year’s back, after nearly a hiatus of 20 years from it, I took up fishing again, mainly in an effort to get myself outta here.  Although I seldom go regularly I guess that is what makes the times I do go special.  It was after one o’clock before I left the farm but before two o’clock I was sitting on rock jetties at Fall’s Lake staring into the water; two fishing poles stared in the same direction, one baited with a worm and working the topwater, the other baited with a piece of chicken liver on the lake bottom.  I sighed an audible exhale with a musical note hum which seemed to blend in with the warm breeze, seemed to harmonize with the honk of a pelican-like bird that flew two feet over the water also looking for fish.  I’d hoped its honking wasn’t complaining about the poor fishing that day, there was no doubt it had been fishing longer than I.

Thirty minutes passed before I caught a small catfish. I took it off the hook, spoke to it in a kindly tone of voice, asked it to come see me again sometime when it had grown up and then turned it loose.  Apparently it went home and told its family what a nice guy I was because it wasn’t 10 minutes later my pole doubled over.  The Grand-Daddy of Catfish had my number and was calling me on the line!  It was a whale.  During my excitement I was thinking of large fish, crocodiles, the Loch Ness monster, how deep the lake is in case I get pulled in, how old my fishing line was and will it break at the last minute.  Reeling the line, balancing on wiggly rocks I worked my way down to the waters edge hoping to bring this treasure to the landside of the lake.  Wow!  I couldn’t believe my eyes.

As you can see, I brought the fish home.  It would barely fit in a five-gallon bucket.  From the bank of the lake I texted my daughter about it, then wondered who else in my phone book I could tell.  Vic and Hank’s number popped up; after all, they invited me to their house for Thanksgiving and I couldn’t make it so at least I could share mine!

Before the day was over I caught quite a few more fish from that spot, then moved to another part of the lake where there is always plenty of firewood. Before sundown I had a fire on the bank, two poles propped up in forked branches, fully baited, and enjoyed watching the sunset.  Although I caught six or eight more fish I threw most of them back and came home with the monster and five other keepers.  The monster turned out being 2 feet long and weighing five and a quarter pounds.  What a nice Thanksgiving Day.  I have no doubt the Pilgrims and the Native Americans of long ago would’ve enjoyed it, too.

Tonight I ate some of that monster gift/fish, thankful.  There’s plenty left.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a fried catfish sandwich! What a treat!

I hope ya’ll had a great Thanksgiving Day, too!

Best to you and yours!

Friend, Shoe

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*“Gently winked”? Well, those are a special kind, Folks. It’s not a wink that is meant to be secretive so no one but you sees it.  And it’s not at the other end of the spectrum, one that is out there with a hard emphasis like our modern day ‘wink-wink-nudge-nudge’. Nope, a gentle wink is more akin to a silent hug, a slow hug that is done with your eyelid and your sincerity, a passing along of part of your self to another and that’s that. 'Nuff said. I reckon it's also called "sharing".

**Tiger Lily.  Some years back I was discussing the description of the flower of a Tiger Lily.  The best I could do to describe it was...

..."how I love the way those petals fly back like that. Reminds me of a wonderfully pert, determined, and confident person, with hands on hips declaring who they are and what they believe in and are willing to stand up for! An amazingly wonderful piece of subtle power".

Every Tiger Lily I've ever met, human or flower, has my utmost respect.  Shoe.

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