Candy from the Hunt

I have been searching for quail recipes and dreaming of another bird hunt lately.  

So I decided to share some more photos about our hunt a couple of weeks ago as I try wind down from a busy week.

If  you ever come across an interesting recipe for these quail, let me know!

These birds are from our first day of hunting in Arkansas.

Memories were made, for sure.

Here we are after our second hunt that weekend.

We were a little more successful on day two......

So after you hunt and kill the birds, you have to clean them.  

I'm not quite there yet.  And we had Gerald.  

He had a wonderful, dry sense of humor and instinct for hunting the quail.

By the end of the weekend, he had learned how to push my buttons.

Here he is cleaning the birds--removing the feathers and saving as much meat as he could.  

Then he would put them into the water to soak before freezing it.

Gerald says quail are "the candy of all the birds".

I asked him why, and he replied, "that's just what they say.  They just are."

"I believe you, Gerald."

And he went about his ways, ignoring me and cleaning the birds.
Doesn't this just look like a chicken breast?

While Gerald went on with his work, I got distracted and looked around the shed.

I stumbled across this old bag of corn.

It always seems to come comes back to corn and soybeans for me, no matter where I am.

Always a farm girl.  

Always fancy and country.

And classic me, I took 5 magazines I needed to catch-up on.  As Gerald finished cleaning the birds and I enjoyed the quiet of the country, I opened one of my favorite magazines Garden & Gun.

And lucky me, I found this fried quail recipe in the magazine which I was really excited about because we now had 20 quail, or pieces of candy, to eat.  

On Super Bowl Sunday instead of buffalo chicken wings, we had fried quail with homemade hot sauce and homemade ranch dressing.  Big step for me to fry and make homemade dressings.  

Next step, clean the birds like Gerald and continue to enjoy the candy from the hunt 

and the memories made along the way.

Can We Keep It?

It was November 3, 1992 and I was a first grader.  My parents were building their dream home at the time so we were living with my grandma for a few months while we were between houses.  I heard my mom and dad leaving for work when I ran down the stairs, stopped myself on the old, farmhouse banister and yelled, "Mom!  Dad!  Who are you voting for?!  George Bush, right?  You should really vote for him."

My dad shook his head and walked out the door.  And I am pretty sure mom said, "I can't tell you.  You aren't supposed to tell anyone who you vote for."

When people ask me how I got started in politics or what sparked my interest I really can never put my finger on it.  However, I remember this day very vividly.  I don't exactly remember what I was wearing (which I usually do), but I remember being an articulate, honest and slightly demanding young lady at the time (wait, was that then or now?).  

Mom tells me she doesn't know where I heard about the election or how I knew who was running.  "You might have talked about it at school or heard it on the commercials."  Really?!?  First graders don't talk politics, but maybe I did?  Or maybe I overheard my parents talking and my mom's comments like the one above just made me more intrigued?   

And to this day I am still intrigued and am still telling people, or educating people, how and why they should vote.  Today is Election Day, have you voted?!

Because you do count?  Many dismiss the fact that they matter or that they "count" in elections these day.  We have to realize that so many elections have been won by few votes and you better believe every single one of them "counted".  

When Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention back in 1787, he was asked what sort of government the delegates had created.  His reply, "A republic, if you can keep it."

A Republic is defined as "a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch."

So can we keep it our republic?

Are you going to express your freedom and vote today?

I am going to and at the end of the day I am going to drink an ice cold beer to celebrate.

And maybe I will practice shooting my gun in my backyard on the farm because I have the freedom to do so.

I feel blessed as an American and I want to keep it that way.  I literally get to walk through amber waves of grain, so the least I can do is go and express my freedom and try to be a part of keeping our republic!  You can too.  

Happy Election Day!

The Women in My Life: Our Fancy Pants, Our Guns and Our America

This coming Saturday will mark one year of marriage to my wonderful, smart, kind and thoughtful farmer husband.  But before him, I had my girls.  And while I am with him, I will have my girls.  And it if God calls him home before me and there is an after him, guess what?  I will still have my girls.  

That's why, over a year ago, on a sweet April day we got together for a #FancyintheCountry party which was a wedding shower and a slumber party all wrapped into one.  

My dear mother agreed to allow several girls to sleep over and allowed her house and deck to become fancy and her front yard to become country.  

We had some Fancy Pants wine and plenty of champagne. 

My beautiful, creative sister created a "museum" in our parents' dining room full of photos of the weddings of the generations before us and my mom's wedding dress.

And announcements of my great-grandparents and parents from our local hometown newspaper.  

And the cake topper from my parent's wedding in the 1980s. 

There were even fancy catwalks from guests upon their arrival.

My mother made some of her classic foods such as "MLT's" pickles and SOS (shit on a shingle or Polish mistakes, whatever you like to call it.)  I made sure we had my many favorite fancy cheeses and meats.   

And DON'T forget mom's famous sugar cookies.  The favorites were the cows but she did make some fancy lipsticks too.

We gathered in groups for pictures.  These are my Alpha Chi Omega sorority sisters.  The girls that were there for me when I started my college and sorority adventure, that were there for me through those crazy college years and are still by my side even though many of us are miles apart. 

I opened a fancy, thoughtful gift from my sister that was wrapped in my fiance's, family's seed company sack from the early 1900s.  Sarah collects seed sacks and had a handful of Glick ones on hand before Brett and I ever knew each other! 

I gathered all my girls from my hometown.  One I was in kindergarten carpool with, the others I met in classes or student council or by accident.  But the bond between each of these girls and myself is individually special and collectively beautiful.  

We were wrapping-up our time taking photos that took us back to prom when your face and mouth got sore from smiling too much for long periods of time when.....

.....this guy showed up!

And he said, "get your guns and let's do some shootin'!"  

This neighbor boy, who I have known almost his whole life, was invited to my party to help teach my girlfriends how to shoot and maybe entertain us a little.....

So we got the guns and the boxes of ammo.

And then they lined up on the porch with their fancy champagne and wine drinks and I showed them how it's done.  Hitting a clay pigeon on my first pull!

There were jewels, and guns and fancy things in that front yard in the country.  Oh and my mink, Nelson & Co., that I inherited from my great aunt.  (He's a staple in my life, you'll meet him again.)

Some of my girls really brought their "America" to the afternoon party.

And some decided to stay fancy while in the country.   

But hey, a girls got to learn how to shoot in her boots and her dress!

For some of them, I got so excited that they hit their target that I laughed, cried and kissed them.  Just like the targets or goals they make in their lives, I always laugh, cry or kiss them (or do all three at the same time) for their failures and their successes.  

Because that's what you do for and with your girlfriends.  Before, during and after the guys come along.

At one point I decided to sit and enjoy the moment and those that surrounded me with their screams, laughs, cries and conversations.  I knelt down in the grass that I ran barefoot in as a child, in my fancy dress with my boots (that had a little bit of cow manure on them) with the string to pull the next target in hand.  

I kept thinking, "are we always going to be able to hit all the targets in our lives?  All the goals we have set for ourselves and for each other?"   

If we do or we don't, at least we had one day in our fancy pants and an afternoon with our guns in our America where hitting the target is very much possible for all of the women in my life.  

Especially if I have these girls there to shoot with and protect me!

So the next day, as we woke up in several rooms of my childhood home and sat at the kitchen table and on the kitchen floor as we ate our homemade breakfast, I felt fully prepared to get married.  I had enjoyed a true Fancy in the Country day with many of the women in my life and felt more comfortable that they all had practiced target shooting so that I could go and get married and not have to worry about shooting for them anymore!  But even if I have to someday, I will be there before, during and after the guy to help them hit their targets....whatever it may be.

P.S.  Thanks to my wonderful and talented friend, Lindsay Jean at Jean's Boots Blog for all of these wonderful photos!