October Gran'ma Gertie

Howdy Ya’ll!

Well, I’m jest now beginnin’ to feel the first chills in the mornin’ air. Not quite chilly enough fer frost, but my old flannel shirt shore does feel good. The dog fennel’s were in full bloom about 4 weeks ago, so we aughta have first frost in about 2 more weeks. It’s usually quite nippy at night by the time the county fair comes around the last of this month.
I should be pickin’ the rest of my greens. I want to get’em before the frost falls on’em. That always makes’em taste sweet. I’ve heard tell that people up north put sugar in theirs! I like my greens good and bitter - makes the cornbread taste better. Throw a big piece of ham hock in there and you got a good supper fer a nippy evenin’.

I aught to head to the barn to put up all the fishin’ stuff. When you get to be mine and Gran’pa’s age, sittin’ on a bank or in a boat when it’s cold don’t make your bones feel so good. Once the weather turns off real cool, we have to quit fishin’ ‘till warm weather’s back. So, in keepin’ with my sportin’ type image, it’s time to dust off the shotgun and see how many shells I got.

The turkey shoots aught to be startin’ this weekend. They’ll run right up through Christmas. Nowadays, though, turkey ain’t all you can get. Sometimes you can choose between 10 pounds of sausage, a side of bacon, a fresh or cured ham, a pork Boston butt roast, and of course, turkeys. A few years ago, I filled up our ol’ freezer! It done me good to out shoot so many of them young hot shots with their fancy shotguns! There was even a few of the men folks that wouldn’t shoot against me - said it was wastin’ their money!

I’d like to get a couple of deer in the freezer and maybe a wild hog or two. There is no meat that taste as good as fresh wild hog that I know of. My daddy could skin out and cut up a wild hog so fast that he could have it done before you could get the grease hot enough to fry it! I might use one of the deer roast to make some jerky. Gran’pa ain’t got the teeth to chew it, so he just rolls it on his gums ‘till it’s soft enough to swaller. It shore does taste good, though. A few messes of squirrel, and four or five rabbit should do us nice fer the winter.

Now I know that a lot of ya’ll don’t believe in huntin’. I don’t belive in huntin’ fer sport or fer trophies like you see people on TV do. The only time I kill somethin’ is fer eatin’ purposes. I was raised in the woods, and could out shoot all the boys in the community by the time I was 10. I shoot only what I can plainly see. I don’t believe in makin’ no animal suffer. I never kill more than me and the family can eat. Besides, I like the taste a whole lot more.

You never know what the meat producer’s been addin’ to his meat, or what he’s been feedin’ his animals. I’ve heard an awful lot lately about bad meat gettin’ into the supermarkets, makin’ people sick, and sometimes killin’ people! More especially little young’uns and older folks like me. The doctor’s say that our bodies ain’t strong enough to fight off all the bad stuff in the meat. At least when I kill a wild animal, I know what he’s been eatin’ and I know where he’s been. I do the skinnin’, so I know how his insides look. If they don’t look right, I won’t eat it. I won’t eat nothin’ that’s been killed too early in the season ‘cause the weather is still too warm. After the second good freeze and cold weather is around fer a while is when I do my huntin’. I know by then that the meat will be good, and will keep long enough for me to get it home, get it skint, cut up, and put in the freezer. I may be ol’fashioned, but I ain’t stupid!
I’ve been seein’ a lot of those fancy cookin’ shows on the TV, and guess what? They’re beginin’ to use wild meat, too. I saw some foreign feller fixin’ what he called pheasant under glass. He used spices I never heard of, put some wine all over it, baked it, put it on a fancy dish of some sort and decorated it like it was some kind of present. I don’t know how his tasted, but I like my pheasant flour’d and fried in a cast iron frying pan! A pot of rice, a little gravy, biscuits and iced tea sounds perty good to go with it.

Most of this may sound mean, about me killin’ animals, but we country folks have survived fer years. Both usin’ and livin’ off the land. We ain’t like a lot of city folks. We know how to take care of the land, ‘cause it takes care of us. We ain’t as cruel as you think. When we kill, it’s quick. There ain’t no sufferin’ if we can help it. You should see how the animal dies at a slaughterhouse! Now that’s just plain mean.

I hope I ain’t offended any of ya’ll. If’n I did, I’m sorry. Not sorry that you got offended, but sorry that you cain’t understand our way of life. It’s the way I was raised, my daddy, and his before him. Some call that a tradition. I call it a good way to eat! Ya’ll should try it sometime. Even if’n you don’t hunt, I’m quite shore ya’ll know somebody that hunts. Next time you hear of’em goin’, ask’em to save you a shoulder off the deer. It’s the best BBQ meat you can find. Makes a perty good roast with potaters and onion and carrots, too. Here’s to good eatin!


‘Till next time,

Gran’ma Gertie