by Ron Foster
I had Cheryl bring my stainless steel Sig, and put it and her Keltec into Ziploc bags for transport and that was enough firepower for this little trip, I figured.
The whole clan saw us off and we began gently tacking out of our harbor, until it was safe enough to sink the center board and pull in the main sheet. I love to sail, no motor sounds, and the strength of the wind in the lines trying to pull them from my grip as the sail fills and adds a steady pressure that makes the boat lean over. Glorious day!
We got out on the lake about half way and I advised Sherry to get ready to come about, meaning she needed to duck the mast secondary pole that would be soon be swinging in her direction as I changed course and let out the sail almost parallel in the opposite direction we were originally headed in.
I figured I would survey Donnie’s side of the lake, then come about and shoot a diagonal, if the wind would let me, back over to my side and scope out the unknown region to the entrance to the main lake off in the distance.
“Are you having fun yet sweetie?” I needlessly asked a beaming Sherry, as I manned the tiller and cut up a bit pulling the sail in to make the small boat keel and picked up speed.
“This is fun, but you’re not going to tip us are you?” Sherry said half concerned at my navigation and half enjoying any possibility on the adventure and enjoying the moment. I had instructed her about what we needed to do, if I ever over compensated and tipped us, as well as we had our life belts on. So even though I had not sailed in years, we were having a blast running this craft through its paces when I had clear water.
“Look in back of you Sherry. You see the water getting black and maybe getting a ripple? That means you got wind or a gust coming and I am sailing by the signs so no worries, I said making the boat do a little jig with the rudder.
“Here, take the line and feel the wind, but let out the line if I tell you to,” I said offering the reins to the boat which she took hesitantly.
“You got to be strong to hold this sail David.” she said fighting the wind.
“Not really, you are forcing it too much, just feel an easy motion of give and take and work with the boa’s response. No need for a death grip, just hold that sail against the wind with what feels comfortable to you.” I told her and encouraging her get the feel of the sail and get over her anxiety of not being able to control the sail.
“That’s it, you doing great; see its no more pressure than a standard steering wheel at times, if you really pull it in, be careful now, you always got to see the edge of the boat so you don’t swamp us or make sure we both lean back the opposite way over the side of the boat with our weight and we can get this thing going as fast as we like.” I explained to her hoping she didn’t send us into the drink by getting too exuberant.
Her tinkling laughter as she played with the main sail echoed across the lake and I told her, when we started sailing back to our side of this inlet, I would let her have the tiller and lines herself and drive us, but we were on a mission and to let me resume control.
She did not want to give up those lines to her new play pretty, but she ended up doing so reluctantly, knowing we were not on vacation and that something more than a boat ride needed to be accomplished today.
“You are going to let me sail back, you said.” Sherry said, but was really assuring herself she would get another chance to experience the joy of sailing.
“Yes. You can play on the big lake; these shallows need my attention and expertise though.” I said trying to look at the shoreline and the driveways Jack and Donnie were supposed to be traveling.
“Look through those binoculars, as I come about up here and see if you see that couple. That slough doesn’t look like I would care to sail into it.” I said studying the unfathomed waters ahead of us.
“Ready to come about?” I yelled to Sherry.
“Come about!” she yelled back happy with life and the wind, and we turned towards a tack that would put us dead center on the lake across from the neighbors we were curious about.
I went about 300 yards and let the sail luff, and asked Sherry if she was ready to try the boat on her own and swapped places with her.
“Go for it girl.” I said to a very determined Ms. Sherry and except for scaring the hell out of me a few times by almost capsizing us with her need for speed, we did ok as we went past the peoples house this whole arrangement was for and started to go into the main lake.
“Ok Sherry, I see you are a contender for the next Yacht races out here, but give me back the tiller and we are going to go slow and steady, so we can recon in the shallows on the way back. I did not hardly have a chance to look going by the house, as I was too busy trying to lean over the opposite edge of the boat to keep us righted on the way over here. You going to be hell, when I teach you what the spinnaker or jib are used for, if we get to play with some different sailboats.” I told her and wiped some of the spray she had created from the lake from that wild ride off my forehead.
“Damn David, that was so neat, why didn’t we ever find time for us to do this before, you always talked about sailing and said I would love it, but I never thought it would have been this fun.” Sherry said looking sweetly at me.
“Different time, different era, we lacked the money and access to one, so it just did not happen I reckon or we had other important considerations to deal with. We got lots of time to sail another day. Now, let’s finish this mission and see if we can visit that couple today.”
“Let’s just go over there, if they don’t want to meet us, they can just wave us off.” Sherry said looking back over towards the house.
“I agree. I am tired of playing games over something as silly as going to meet a possible neighbor. If they were looking all desperate, then caution would be needed; but they don’t appear to be doing too badly on their own. They could get desperate later and want a handout and that can get awkward, if we get short on supplies. But if we don’t act like we got a lot extra, I doubt anyone is going to bother us up here. There has always been a criminal element up here that would break into places occasionally but most people that have a lake cabin are hard working family types or retirees. Civilization will sort itself out like it always does; I am just being very cautious for now, because unfortunately a lot of people will start starving and not be in their right minds. I would give someone food, if they asked; but I don’t want someone thinking about raiding us for what we got and this world has people in it that would take advantage of this situation just because that is their mentality.” I said while turning the boat towards the family’s house.
“It’s hard to know what people will do in the conditions of a long term disaster, but I agree with you that the majority of people will try to help each other if they can and that eventually the bad elements in society tend to get sorted out one way or another.” Sherry said and as we got closer we waved to the couple, who waved back and motioned for us to come over to their dock.
The couple walked down to their pier and as we coasted up Sherry threw the man our bowline.
“Well hello, we saw you having fun with that sailboat. My name is Frank and this is my wife Nancy.” Frank said and shook my hand.
“I am David and this is Sherry.” I responded and asked if I could lower my sail so we could talk a bit.
“Sure, lets go sit under the deck where its cooler.” Frank said and looking quite pleased that we had stopped by.
“How are you all making out considering the sun decided to pull the electric switch?” I asked sitting back in a chair.
“We are getting by; I guess the best we can expect.” Nancy replied and did not seem too put out about it all.
Frank asked us if we were doing ok and mentioned he had seen our group several times and asked if we have been doing a lot of hunting. I guess he was alluding to the ever present guns in our camp.
“Not too much yet, we have been scavenging some and getting moved in, we came up from Montgomery and Bernie invited us to settle in here.” I offered and th
anked Nancy for the glass of warm Kool-Aid she offered me.
“How did you manage to get here from Montgomery?” Frank asked incredulously and I told him about our collection of odd transportation. We discussed how the condition of the city was and what little bit of news we had gathered. Frank said they had moved up to the lake for the summer and normally lived in Birmingham.
“How about you, you been out hunting any?” I asked him.
“I been out once, got a little spike buck. I smoked most of it in that smoker over there.” he said gesturing at a large stainless steel box.
“I know that venison will help you on your pantry quite a bit. Have you seen many other people on the lake?” I asked with anticipation.
“Not too many. Most people avoid the heat this time of year and vacation earlier or later in the season. You got maybe 8 people scattered out over on my side of the inlet, how about your side?” Frank asked gazing towards our pier.
“We have only seen two others besides our group, but we haven’t explored too far out of our area.” Sherry told him.
I asked Frank if he had had any problems in his area and told him about the trashed house Jack had found. He said he had not had any problems, but people scavenging were starting to run into each other and a few arguments had occurred over who had rights to goods, but nothing other than that.
Sherry and I chatted with them about an hour and, after thanking Frank and Nancy for the shade and refreshment, said we would come back for another visit soon before setting sail back to our side of the lake and what we considered these days as home.
4
GOBBLER GOBBLING
Jack and I spent the next morning nailing together boxes and creating raised bed gardens. That bobcat loader saved us a ton of work by scraping off the lawns and then backfilling them, even helped with moving some small boulders and stumps to form sort of a low wall around the plot, hopefully to deter the geese and any varmints until we could put up some proper fencing. Sherry laughingly said that her back had never felt better after such ‘heavy lifting’ and kept asking if there wasn’t something else her bobcat couldn’t help get done. She pouted a little, when I told her to save the gas by parking the thing and to go help the others up at the staging area we had set aside for sorting the plants we’d brought with us from Montgomery or she could go find the cans of heirloom seeds, so we could start planting and transplanting into the various beds later this afternoon.
“Jack we to need to cut some fence post size trees to finish railing that fence, it wouldn’t hurt to cut a few more than we need because I got some other projects to use them on” I said surveying our garden plots.
“Ok, but lets take a little break first” Jack said mopping the sweat off his face.
“You think Donnie knows how to swing an axe? I want to build a Turkey cabin trap and it would go much quicker with an extra set of hands.” I asked Jack while formulating a plan to get us more self sufficient.
“I doubt Donnie ever used one before seriously but yonder he comes, you can ask him yourself” Jack said pointing at Donnie riding his bicycle down our road.
“Donnie we were just talking about you. You any good at handling an ax?’ I said and watching Donnie turn suspicious.
“I used one in the Boy scouts some, what is it you have in mind? He said looking over our gardening efforts.
“If you want Turkey for dinner this week, I was going to get you to help me build a trap” I said and beginning to think about the best place to put it. I had seen turkeys on the main road after Donnie’s place and a few deer too when I was driving up to the Lake with Sherry a year ago and I thought I might as well make the hike over that way to figure out my trap line before I really needed one. I don’t like trapping in the summer, meat spoils too quick if you don’t get to a dead animal quick enough and live trapping works but it’s more difficult and can end up with a dead animal in this heat pretty easy as they fight a snare. I only had a couple of the live cage traps for possums and such and I was not going to go after that kind of varmint just yet.
“I thought you had to use turkey calls and dress all in camo to get a gobbler” Donnie said trying to figure out what I was up to.
“No I am going to build a turkey cabin. That is a little log structure about the size of a small corn crib. We don’t need to notch the poles or anything, just stack them up; the weight of the flat roof will keep it together. Its very simple just takes a bit of time to get your posts together. What you do before you start building it is dig you a trench about 10 ft or so long that gradually slopes up to the center of where you are going to have your cabin floor. Then you build your cabin around that and add your poles for your roof spaces between them and weight the roof down with rocks or logs so the turkeys trying to fly up against it can’t knock your posts off.” I explained to my fellow would be trappers.
“That sounds simple enough, but how do you get the turkey to go in it?” Donnie said looking real interested in my plan.
“Think plural, turkeys. James Audubon used one of these same traps but larger and caught 16 in one day. See what you do is sprinkle some grain like corn in the trench and the turkeys get in the trench and follow the counter up into the trap. They are too stupid to either backup in the trench if the turkey they are following gets in trouble and once inside the trap if they can see daylight, they will keep looking up at it and not go back into the trench to escape. Its very simple an effective.
“Sure, I will help you build one. I got to see that thing work. It sounds almost too easy. What are we going to do if we catch a bunch of turkeys, we don’t have any freezers?” Donnie said trying to imagine what to do with a wealth of turkey dinners.
“I got two 50lb bags of corn that I could feed them for a while as fresh meat on the hoof as the saying goes, but I have other plans for a surplus if we get real lucky. We can barter any extra turkeys for can goods or whatever across the lake.
“How are you planning to cook them if we catch some?”Jack said eying the fire pit and tripod I had rigged.
”We clean up those metal garbage cans and gather up all the charcoal we can find, unless we do the bonfire thing and have to shovel coals. Here I will explain it to you” I said and proceeded to tell them how it was done. I had done it before when we had a turkey that was defrosting in the freezer because the power was out from a hurricane and it needed cooking before it went bad. If you do this right, the turkey will be fall off the bone delicious.
Equipment:
• 1 - 20 Gallon trash can
• 1 - Dutch Oven
• 1 - Turkey Stand (the kind you use in a fryer to get the turkey to "stand up" work well - I found mine at Bass Pro)
• 30 Pounds of Charcoal
• 1 - 15-20 pound Turkey
• 1 - Roll of Aluminum foil
• 1 - Pair of thermal gloves (like you use in a fire place)
• 1 - Small shovel for ash.
Instructions:
1. Prepare the turkey - clean and season
2. Lay aluminum foil down on the ground (I make mine about twice the size of the can). It works better if you have a layer of sand on the ground (under the aluminum foil) so the rim of the trash can make an impression in the sand for a better seal.
3. Set the Dutch oven upside down on the aluminum foil (without a lid) - this is a spacer to keep the turkey away from the ground. You can also use 4 tent stakes and a round wire rack.
4. Set the turkey stand on the Dutch oven (or center of the wire rack).
5. Place the turkey on the stand.
6. Turn the trash can upside down over the turkey (try to center the turkey inside the can).
7. Put as much charcoal as you can on TOP of the trash can.
8. Put the remainder of the 30 pounds around the trash can.
9. Let cook for 1:15 - 1:30 (either will work, I usually go for the extra 15 minutes)
10. Use the ash shovel to remove the coals off the top of the can and push them back from the bottom of t
he can.
11. Use the gloves to pick up the trash can.
12. Use the trash can lid as the serving plate - simply push the turkey over on to it.
You're done!!!
Let me add an extra little trick that it works real well to also put a small aluminum foil boat between the Dutch oven and the side of the trash can filled with a full bottle of Liquid Smoke - it increases the humidity in side the can and it adds a smoked flavor to the turkey.
Try to get the coals so that they are touching the side of the can.
“Now that sounds like a regular Thanksgiving dinner” Jack said looking like he could taste one already, sort of like Pavlov’s dogs in anticipation rung by the mental dinner bell.
“Let’s see we can do the first Thanksgiving thing at the lake like the pilgrims did when they arrived at Plymouth Rock and if we get knee deep in turkeys here; we can see if the other side of the inlet wants to have a little party.” I told them.
“As long as we do it on their side, I think that would be fun. So knowing you David you got some kind of business arrangement attached to this little party you are dreaming up. What is it?” my old buddy Jack asked.
“Well I say we start a barter system with them after the party. This will be like a free sample and introduction to the possibilities of what we can provide. I think I will take some of that smoked beef for a little side business at the party though. I wonder if anyone has any silver for trade. I said grinning.
“What smoked beef? I got a few pieces of silver I might want to trade” Donnie said.
“Ah hell, you said the wrong thing now Donnie, don’t say a word I going to get him a taste David.” Said Jack rising to go on his mission and helping me land my new silver possibility. I like silver a lot, I am like a magpie with a shiny object it fascinates me and I need it for my collection.
“Come on to the house Donnie and we can have a drink to discuss things a bit more comfortably” I said pushing my quarry along.
