NOVEMBER SUNSET
By Thomas John Carlisle
There will always be a sunset, so I do not need to run
To the window of my study, to enjoy the present one.
Yet there’ll never be another, quite identical to this
So I stop my busy fingers, lest the beauty I should miss.
As I glory in its magic, and the scenes it paints to me
I should never take for granted, that tomorrow I can see.
So this sunset I am watching, on this brisk November night
Is my foretaste and my promise, of the everlasting light.
After a cloudy, misty morning, the sun has come out on Pilot Knob, making its multicolored trees glisten. It is almost as glorious as last night’s sunset, and makes us realize that this beauty will soon be gone. Hopefully, we might enjoy Indian summer weather before winter descends on us. It comes after a hard freeze and frost, and usually is the last of our mild weather for the year.
November has settled down upon our hills. To me, this is not a dismal or gloomy season, but a slowing down for us as well as the processes of nature. Mornings dawn with the icy crunch of frost underfoot, and the air is crisp as a Winesap apple. Friendly spirals of smoke rise from the chimneys, testifying to the cozy warmth within. Neat stacks of firewood piled beneath sheds and on back porches gives a feeling of security as winter looms nearer.
Yesterday’s wind has blown many of the leaves from the trees, and our yard is covered in yellow leaves. It reminds me of the fun we had as a kid playing in the fallen leaves. Once they were raked into a pile, it was time to jump in them, bury in them and scatter them all over the yard again. We loved to play “Who did kill cock robin?” Remember that game? “Who did kill cock robin, Oh, who did kill cock robin?” “I said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow, and I did kill cock robin.” The game ended with cock robin jumping up from being buried in the leaves and chasing all the rest. The one who was caught was then cock robin.
It is now hunting season, with our boys out in the woods. I could never kill a tender-eyed deer, but once they are dressed and prepared for the stove, I don’t have any trouble eating them. I have found that cooking venison like pepper steak is delicious. We eat a lot of wild game, including squirrel and rabbit. Killing game for cooking is quite all right, and is something that we mountaineers have always done. It is deadly wrong to kill simply for the love of killing.
Most families have a rabbit beagle, a squirrel dog, and a ‘coon dog as well. Criss has always kept squirrel dogs, because he loves to squirrel hunt with a dog. We raised pups for a while, but are out of the business right now. At his age, he has had to drop the ‘coon hunting, but he really loved it. The golden years have taken care of many sports!
The funniest rabbit tale I ever heard happened years ago when my brother, Larry, was a kid at home. He was rabbit hunting with Denny Clayton, a neighbor boy. Their family owned a number one rabbit beagle, and they ran a rabbit into a drainpipe and couldn’t get it out. The beagle grew frantic, running from one end of the pipe to the other, and barking furiously. Denny’s father George said, “I’ll get it out for you, boys.”
He sent Denny to the house for a pint of gasoline, which he poured into one end of the pipe and struck a match to it. There was a loud “whoom,” the pipe flew up six or more inches in the air, and then settled back down. Just then, a naked rabbit with all the hair singed from it, shot from the pipe and ran down over the hill. The beagle took one startled look at it, tucked his tail between his legs and hid under the house. No amount of persuasion could lure him out. He was done for the day.
Cooler weather stimulates the lagging appetites of warm weather and inspires us to cook heartier meals. The oven feels good as cookies bake, or a pie browns to perfection. It is time for spicy bowls of chili and vegetable soup, fragrant apple pies and hot breads spread with butter.
I have a recipe for venison bologna, a delicious concoction that tastes a lot like summer sausage. If your bow hunter was lucky enough to bag his game, you may like to try this.
VENISON BOLOGNA
10 pounds of ground venison, run through the grinder only once
½ cup Tender-Quick salt
One cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons garlic salt
3 teaspoons hickory smoke salt
1 teaspoon onion salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons liquid smoke
Mix together and stuff in pork casings or muslin casings. Bake on cookie sheets or bread pan for two hours at 200 degrees. Put pan of water in oven while baking the venison to prevent dryness. Drain off grease while still hot. Cool, and then freeze.
I love venison that has been properly field dressed and cut correctly. I think it is as good as beef and a lot healthier. I usually dust a little garlic powder or garlic salt on it, but some think that it masks the true wild flavor. We learned early to eat the wild foods that our Heavenly Father has provided so abundantly for us, and be thankful. The Bible tells us in 1Timothy 4:4. “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it is received with thanksgiving.”
EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE
By William Herbert Carruth
A fire mist and a planet,–
A crystal and a cell,–
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where cavemen dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod,–
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze from the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields.
And the wild geese sailing high,–
And all over the upland and the lowland
The charm of the goldenrod,–
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come dwelling and surging in,–
Come from the mystic ocean
Whose rim no foot has trod,–
Some of us call it longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty,–
A mother starved for her brood.—
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathways plod,–
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
