It's pheasant weather

This weather, reminds me of my father.

We had ice, and not a lick of it melted yesterday. My car is still frozen shut, but mainly just because I didn't even try to open it. Today, sitting on my dining room floor, painting a cabinet to go in my bathroom, and the wind picks up. I peek out the window, and on top of the ice, we're getting snow. It's coming down pretty hard.

When I was little - and I mean really little, maybe 5 or 6, I would go hunting with my mom and dad. Now mind you, I really don't remember the actual animals being killed, but I remember getting bundled up in a pair of coveralls like we were anticipating being stuck in a snowbank for a week. I remember mom packing bologna sandwiches for lunch and sitting in the middle of the truck, straddling the stick shift and my dad warning me to plug my ears as he shot.... out the window. BAD DAD!! lol. I couldn't even see over the dashboard. I just remember that when the ground looked like that, it meant it was pheasant weather.

We didn't have a ton of money back then, I never knew that most ppl didn't eat pheasant and quail on a regular basis. Yes, I suppose my father loved to hunt, but it had a nice side effect - food for 3 kids (there were only 3 of us at that point). It was not unusual for my mom to fry up a few quail for dinner - I remember it being very good, but not alot of meat on it. I haven't had quail/pheasant in 30 years! I guess I was sheltered in ways, because I didn't realize until high school that not all kids had deer for supper or their mom made the fancy dresses for the upcoming wedding or the only blankets you owned were the quilts grandma made you.

Later, when I was a bit older, my dad and his brothers and buddies (mom too) would go coyote hunting. At that point, I was kinda over having to be with my mom 24/7, and I guess once I could see over the window frame, I really didn't want to see critters being killed - and I'm still pretty much that way. Heck I don't even know when pheasant season is in Missouri... does anyone even do that anymore?

All I know, is that when I see harvested corn, with snow settling in the rows - I think of my dad, and how much he'd loved to be out in this mess right now.