A Week On The Mountain

I’m back from the mountain. I had a pretty good time visiting my family, and traipsing around my old haunts. I even had time to get in a couple of days deer hunting. I saw lots of deer but refused to shoot one where I’d have to drag it for a mile or so, so I reckon you could say I am a little too picky to be a good hunter!
The old farm.

On Monday and Tuesday, Dad and I went out hunting. Monday we walked all over the old farm and seen how the old place is faring now that it sits vacant, and on Tuesday it snowed and snowed and snowed. It really was blizzard like conditions so we just holed up by a cedar stand and tried to wait out the storm, and hoped that some unwary deer would walk out to us. Well, the storm didn’t pass so I decided to just walked around and take some photos. I figured that even deer wouldn’t be out in that kind of weather.




Above: Scenes from walking around the farm just as it began to snow.

After freezing my butt on Tuesday, I decided not to go hunting on Wednesday and figured I’d spend it with my family. My dad got off work at noon on Wednesday so we all loaded up in the car and went to the Rio Mall in Hampshire County. Rio Mall is really a roadside junk store that we’ve been going to for as long as I can remember. They used to have really cool bags of toys in garbage bags. We called the bags “Rio Junk”, and we’d always buy several bags on every trip. The bags cost $2 each, and I remember many toys of my childhood came from bags of Rio Junk. Sadly, Rio Mall doesn’t sell bags of toys anymore, but they do have a pretty neat operation going on there. The port-a-potty alone is worth the trip!!! Whew, that is a story in and of itself!!!!



The farm on Thanksgiving Day. It was a clear, crisp day.

On Thanksgiving Day my Mom done what she does best…try to fatten us up! She started cooking at the break of day, and Dad and I went hunting for a few hours. When we got home in the mid-afternoon, Mom was just finishing up her annual feast. We had roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes, stuffing, homemade rolls, gravy, cranberry sauce, and sauerkraut, which is a tradition carried over from my German ancestors. For dessert we had pumpkin pies, cherry pies, chocolate cakes, chocolate pies, and veritable gallons of homemade whipped cream. As Dad says, “You can never have too much whipped cream.” We ate until we were as full as ticks, and then ate some more. We just laid around the house for most of the day but around dark, Dad and I went out and split some wood. The exercise was really good to help settle all of that food…and to build up an appetite for round #2!

My brother had to go home on Friday so we decided to do a little Black Friday shopping, Burns style. We shopped at every Goodwill store between Pendleton County and Morgantown, which was I believe 7 stores. It was an all day event, and I was quite done with the whole escapade after the first stop! We got to Morgantown about 7pm, and then I toured the house that my brother just bought. Mom, Dad and I got home at about midnight!



I sat here and watched several deer walk past.

On Saturday I just laid around the house and talked to Mom. When Dad got home from work, we once again hit the wood pile and split some wood. I actually like splitting wood, there’s just something about looking at the color and grain of the wood that is so soothing. Plus, it gave Dad and I some time to catch up on times past, like how when I was a teenager Dad gave me the nickname of “Lightning”. This was because when splitting wood, I never hit in the same place twice!!! Well, in case anyone is wondering, “Lightning” was back in on the mountain last week, but I still managed to split a cord of wood, catch up with the happenings of the family, and to visit that land that I still call home.