The song starts out:
My Ozark Mountain Valley Home
Sunrise through the mountains,
Has always been a special time of day for me
Early breezes blowing,
bob white quail a'callin' in the meadows free
Cattle standing round the barn
waiting for my daddy to come and feed
And old Travelers barking by the creek
starting out another day with something treed
It's My Ozark Mountain Valley Home
Memories Of A Life that used to be
My Ozark Mountain Valley Home
Those boyhood days are callin' out to me.....
Point is, I reckon I always have been this way...anxious to get up and see what the day held for me. And what a day is just blooming over the mountain this morning.
I'm writing this at 5:30, and over the mountain it is just a beautiful rose color, to compliment a blue bird sky. The birds, sounds like millions of them, are singing loud enough that it is probably what woke me up. Sitting here with my coffee, and my dog, Old Buck The Collie, at my feet, looking out across my grass that is just getting to the cutting stage again...well, I'll get to that in a little while, right now I gotta listen to the Mockingbird sing.
Mr. Mockingbird is sitting in the tree, right next to the porch, and just drowning out all the other bird songs.
When I was about 10 years old, I had found an old catalog somewhere that sold trapping supplies, telling of all the money a person could make trapping mink, beaver, muskrat and other fur bearing animals, skinning them out, drying the hides on a board and sending them in to the fur company, somewhere in Minnesota, by parcel post. Hmmm...never did occur to me what a stinking mess that package would have been for some poor mail man. Anyway, even at 10 I was feeling the pull of entrepreneurship...man, did I ever get excited! I knew what I was gonna be when I grew up...I was gonna be a FUR TRAPPER and I was starting now.
I had a little money saved from a recent birthday (the last time I ever had any money saved) and I sat down and wrote out an order for one of them animal traps.
This was the big day...my trap arrived in the mail and I had set it last night down by the creek, figuring that was probably where all the beaver, mink and muskrats lived. It had taken me forever to get the darn thing cocked and set...standing on the handle to open up the jaws and bending down to put the little plate in proper position. I had baited the thing with a piece of raw chicken out of the refrigerator and put it in the creek, running the chain out and driving a stake in the gravel. (I had no idea whether mink, beaver or muskrats actually cared about raw chicken). Just about this time of the morning, before the sun was actually up, I was running down to the creek to get my prize, skin it out, nail it to my board and mail it off to get the big money.
I ran by the old sycamore tree with my bag swing dangling from the big limb, hit the gravel, and slowed immediately, my bare feet still tender from having to wear shoes all winter and this Spring had not toughened up yet.
I gingerly made my way across the gravel bar to the edge of the water....wait, I an see movement around my trap...oh boy, this is it! When I got close enough to see clearly, I could make out a mass of something around the trap...then I realized I was looking at every dad blamed crawdad that lived in our creek, solidly massed over what was left of the piece of raw chicken, pinchers going wild trying to get their piece of the chicken pie. I was crestfallen for a moment, no mink, no beaver, no.....wait a minute, I may not be a trapper...but, I can start a BAIT COMPANY! Yes, I will trap crawdads and sell them to fisherpeople all over...that's it, I know what I'm gonna be now when I grow up.
A true entrepreneur looks defeat right in the eye, and sees another victory, and if that opportunity don't pan out, you try another one. A lesson early learned that I have pretty well followed all my life.
So, I never did get to nail a hide on a board and let it dry to send it to Minnesota to get rich. But, by golly I came close, i could have got me a beaver if those dang crawdads hadn't eat all the bait. Come to think of it, I never did see any beavers all the time I was growing up at Pleasant 'Valley Farm...hmmm, no mink either...I did see a muskrat one time, but he was pretty scrawny and didn't look like he would make much of a coat for some lady in New York City, but ya' never know.
Well, the sun is well up now and the day is beautiful. Lots to do, so I better go check my traps, see if I caught any beaver yet. Stan
No comments:
Post a Comment