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| Over the Hill By: Kathleen Perry |
| 7-24-07
I stood in the cabin door and watched the sun easing up over the hills on the far side of the hollow below me. Its fingers of light spread out, uncovering everything that was hidden by night’s darkness. The night birds had hushed and a whole new song was being sung now by the birds that occupy the daylight hours. The animals of the night knew it had been time to leave and had quietly slipped away into the pre-dawn darkness, to make room for the sun loving, daytime critters. My eyes strained to watch Night fade away, and Day move in to fill that awesome spot. I was amazed to be witness to the birth of a new day unfolding before me! I turned and came back inside and added more wood to the fire in the cook stove that stood in one corner of the cabin. The coffee was already perking as I opened the tiny door of the oven and slipped in an even smaller pan of biscuits. Since this oven gets really hot I had to leave the door open a crack to regulate the heat. And since no manual came with the woodstove with instructions on how to keep your biscuits from burning, this is a lesson learned from experience. The bacon in the iron skillet popped and sizzled as I took it up. Ummm. I set the plate of bacon on the door of the warming oven that I had just opened, to keep it warm. A couple of spoonfuls of flour was stirred into the bacon grease in the skillet and soon browned. After adding a pinch or two of salt and a little milk, it began to bubble. Since you can’t turn off the burner on a woodstove to decrease the heat, I just slid the steaming skillet to the back end of the stove where it still bubbled but not quite as fast. I scrambled up a few eggs and set them on the other warming oven door. Talk about a feast fit for a king! We filled our blue tin plates with biscuits and gravy and bacon and eggs from the stove and sat down at the big table, just the two of us, to enjoy this authentic country breakfast. We could see out the doors and windows in all directions as we ate, and with the doors open to let out the heat from the stove we could hear all the morning sounds of the crows cawing and the song birds singing. The cabin smelled of fried bacon and perked coffee. What could be better? I’ve traveled a little, eaten some good food in a variety of places, and marveled at some beautiful sites in the world, but mornings like this one rank right up near the top with me for pure enjoyment! Hey, Old Man, when can we do this again? 7-17-07 My sister, Ella, and I boarded the plane in Lexington and settled in for the short flight to Atlanta. There we would meet my daughter Kim and three of her friends and take yet another flight across the continental United States and out over the Pacific Ocean to Oahu, Hawaii! Plans and reservations had been made about ten months in advance and the excitement had grown with each passing day until finally here we were actually flying the friendly skies! I had flown before, and with no problems but I guess it’s a given that as one gets older there’s a tendency for things to change. Suddenly and with no warning. No sooner had we reached our flying altitude and leveled off than I became dizzy and my stomach began to churn. I clutched the armrest of the seat and held on. Oooohhh. I looked out the tiny window in hopes of seeing something that would distract me. They say its mind over matter. Didn’t work. I put my head back and closed my eyes. I asked the flight attendant for something to drink, thinking that would help. I took another motion sickness pill. Notta. Zilch. The flight was the early morning commuter from Lexington to Atlanta and was not a big plane. (Like the one that went down at the airport this past year.) It was a tad rough and bumpy and I felt every bump. As we neared the mammoth Atlanta airport, with no relief in sight, I came up with a survival plan. There was no way I was going to fly another 8-10 hours on any plane to Hawaii or anywhere else! I informed Ella that once we landed I was renting a car and driving straight back to Frenchburg, Kentucky! This flying was for the birds! I don’t know if it was a look of panic or one of amusement that flickered across her face. But she tried to calm me down and soon we were making preparations to land. The plane taxied into position and mercfully gave up its cargo. As we departed the plane and made our way inside I was staggering along like a drunk person. Oooohhh. Then out of the crowd of passengers hustling around, I saw Kim coming toward me with a beautiful lei that she placed around my neck. By that time I was crying. I think it was from relief of having my feet on the ground once again. (If I could have found any ground at that point I would have got down and kissed it.) Turns out she had been airsick too. As we compared notes, my spirits lifted and I cancelled my plans to drive back to Frenchburg. To make a long story short, the trip was wonderful! I saw some of the most beautiful and exciting sites, and participated in some activities that were mind boggling for an old woman from Menifee County, Ky! But that’s another story. One thing I learned while on this trip to Hawaii, on which you have to fly for up to ten hours each way, and when you get there many of the activities are in or on the water. I discovered not only am I prone to be air sick, but sea sick as well! Ooohhh! July 3-07 I turned the key in the lock and pushed open the back door of the cabin. The smell of the surrounding woods had permeated the room and was welcoming me into its peaceful solitude once again. Stressed out, I needed all the peace and quiet I could get. I quickly dropped the bag of supplies onto the big table which took up a big part of the cabin space. Harold had made the table several years ago from a maple tree that had grown around the other side of the hill. I shook down the ashes in the wood cookstove that stood in the corner and quickly had a fire going from the wood that was neatly ricked behind the stove. The blue granite coffee pot was made ready and set on the stove. In a few minutes one of my favorite things begun to happen. That old pot begun to perk! like the Maxwell House commercial from many years ago. Perk-perk! Perk-a-perk! an’t you just smell that coffee? I opened the doors to the cabin and let the cool air blow through, taking what musky smell there was to the outside. A quick whisk or two with the ragged broom took care of a couple of wasps that had fallen to the floor since the last time I was there. With a cup of that steaming coffee in hand I went out onto the porch and sat down in the swing and looked out over the clearing to the green rolling hills across the nearby hollow. The summer had been dry but somehow the trees hadn’t suffered and were several shades of a lush green that made you just want to breath deep and relax. As I sat quietly enjoying the peace and quiet, I noticed a movement at the lower edge of the opening. A mother deer walked silently around the edge of the woods, stopped suddenly and flicked her tail. The tiniest little speckled fawn broke out of the underbrush and came running toward her. It nuzzled its mothers side and began to nurse. What a sight! I felt like an intruder as I sat there, barely breathing, watching Mother Nature up close. In a few minutes the doe took a couple of steps away from the fawn, and as if on cue, the fawn kicked up its tiny heels and trotted back into the underbrush. The doe picked around awhile longer and then headed back down the hill and into the woods. My goodness! After all these years I am still amazed at the sight of a deer. I went back into the cabin and warmed up my coffee with with the brew from the old blue pot. We call our matching blue granite cups “cowboy cups” because they are like the metal ones the cowboys pour scalding coffee into around the campfire, and immediately drink. Haven’t quite been able to do that yet. I stayed around the cabin for a couple more hours, soaking up the peacefulness that hung in the air like sunshine over a butterfly. Finally I gathered up my belongings and locked the cabin doors and headed out. The gravels popped under the truck tires as I made my way up the hill. The crisp clean air, the woods with their piney fragrance, and the sight of beautiful doe and fawn had jump-started me once again! Calm and relaxed now, it made me want to say “Thanks, I needed that!” Mother Nature is a wonderful healer. OVER THE HILL June 28-07 OK, all you turkey hunters, drag those turkey breasts out of the freezer before they freezer burn…. and get cooking! I come from a family of hunters in an area where many believe the year consists of two seasons - the ‘open hunting season’ and the ‘closed hunting season.’ For many outdoorsmen and women, summer is a waste of time because the majority of hunting is done during the fall, winter and spring. If you are fortunate enough to fill your tags during the proper seasons of deer, turkey, etc, it is your responsibility and privilege to process your game and then come up with tasty ways of preparing it for the table. This is half the fun of the whole operation. The attached recipe is wonderful for celebrating the success of your turkey hunt and will feed a pretty good size bunch of friends and relatives. Notify the crowd of the time and place of the feed, and then dig around in the freezer and pull out that stash of wonderful wild turkey breast that you proudly put there this past April following the Spring Gobbler Season. If you don’t have the turkey at this point, hold onto this recipe and use it later this year when the Fall Turkey Season comes in. |