Hunting with Dad and
Billy
A Deeply Rooted Story
By Larry Mixson
Billy survived the Turkey Shoot that year and would go hunting again. Several years after the Turkey Shoot incident I was eight or nine when I went squirrel hunting with Dad and Billy. It was in the fall, hunting season had started, and, like many Sundays, Dad drove us out to see Grandma Mixson in Micanopy. Upon arriving at the farm, I jumped out of the car and opened the gate, Dad drove through, and I closed the gate. It was a crisp bright sunny autumn day, the summer heat had passed, one of those kinds of days you wanted to be outside. Grandma had heard us coming and came out of the house to greet everyone as we walked to the front steps of the house. Dad, Mom and Brenda followed Grandma into the house to talk while my brother and I stayed outside and played, the farm was a wonderful place for two boys to explore. After an hour or so we heard the honk of a horn from the front of the house and went to see who it was finding it was Billy and Betty with their kids Janice, Karen and little Timmy.
After parking, they all piled out of the car, Grandma, Dad, Mom and Brenda came out of the house and everyone greeted everyone else, then the women all went back into the house while the men and boys stayed outside. Dad was a little frustrated with Billy, they had talked on the phone about going hunting and Dad had been ready to go since we arrived at Grandma’s, but Billy was always late, and I do mean always. Dad had known Billy since childhood and since both getting married, our two families were always getting together, and I don’t think that Billy was ever on time. That may have something to do with Dad always being early, Dad’s view was that “if you weren’t fifteen minutes early, you were late.”, and fifteen minutes was a minimum. We were most always the first ones to any family event. Dad’s being fifteen minutes early combined with Billy’s being fifteen minutes (at least) late always frustrated Dad. Mom was more patient, often telling Dad, “You know Billy is always late, they will get here soon enough.”
After the woman disappeared into the house, David and Timmy ran off to play, while I stood there with Dad and Billy when Dad turns to Billy and asked, “You ready to go?” and Billy replied, “Yup, let me get my gun.”, and opens the trunk of his car and pulls out a shotgun while Dad got his shotgun from the trunk of our car. I knew they were going hunting as Dad had talked about it with Mom on the drive out to Grandma’s. I stood there quietly as Dad and Billy prepared, getting their shotguns, shells and an old canvas bag with shoulder strip, stained from many years of use. I had never been squirrel hunting before, the only hunting I had ever done was hunting birds with my BB gun and I felt bad about that at the time. As I stood there with an eagerness in my eyes, Dad looks at me and asks, “Do you want to go with us?”. I immediately said yes, and we head for the back yard.
As we approached the gate to the barnyard, my brother sees us and comes running up over with Timmy tagging along and says, “Where ya’ll going?” and I reply excitedly, “Were going hunting.”, David, asks, “Can I go too?” and Dad replies, “No, your too young.” David didn’t take it too bad and ran off to play with Timmy and Dad. Dad opened the gate to the barnyard, we passed through with me latching the gate behind me, then, after crossing the barnyard, passed through another gate leading to the cow pasture. It seems like farms had lots of gates to pass through, to make sure the cows don’t get out, it was explained to me.
Grandma’s house sat on the front of their ninety-acre farm with the front twenty or so acres behind the house being open cow pasture with only a single dead, bleached white, skeleton of a tree out in the middle of the pasture. The Buzzard Tree, my brother and I used to call it as vultures, or buzzards as the were called in Florida, often roosted in it. Dad, Billy and I set off across the cow pasture, Billy with his shotgun over his shoulder and Dad with his draped over his arm. Dodging the occasional cow patty, passing The Buzzard Tree, which, fortunately, had no buzzards in it, although I could see them circling high in the bright blue sky, searching for death.
We headed for the woods on the back forty acres of Grandma’s farm as that was where the squirrels were. At the back of the cow pasture was the tree line to the woods, which from a distance, appears to be an impenetrable wall of vegetation, but as you got up close, there was a narrow wagon path, hardly discernable from a distance unless you knew it was there, leading into the thick forest. I had been through the woods many a time as we had to pass through it to when we went fishing at Plantation Lake but the transition from the field to the forest always amazed me. The seemingly impenetrable wall of vegetation at the edge of the field quickly thinned out, giving way to darkness under the canopy of the forest.
It was an old forest, trees two, three, and even four feet in diameter. It was the trees that allowed Grandpa to buy the back 40, selling some of the timber to pay for the land, but keeping most of it forested. It supplied all the firewood the family needed for the winters of northern Florida, cords of it stacked high under the covered side of the barn, it was there only source of heat. Unlike southern Florida with its scrub oaks and palm trees, the forest here was more like what you would find in the Carolinas, oaks of all kinds, water, red, white and the massive live oaks towering above them all. There were the almost as large magnolias, sweetgum, maples, and the hickory trees which made the best firewood. There was little vegetation under the canopy of the massive trees with only limited streaks of sunlight filtering through reaching the ground, but there was the occasional smaller holly, redbud and dogwood trees. The forest floor was covered in a deep carpet of decaying leaves with little undergrowth. It was quite pleasant to walk beneath the trees. The forest was the best place to find worms for fishing on the way to Plantation Lake Grandma taught us how to find worms by turning over decaying logs where we would find them squirming in the rich earth which we would grab and put in a tin cup for fishing.
It was a cool, crisp day autumn day, bright and sunny out in the cow pasture but deeply shaded in the forest, a perfect day for hunting squirrels. The squirrels lived in the forest, foraging for the many acorns and hickory nuts provided by the trees. Dad and Billy loaded shells into their shotguns, and we started looking for the squirrels which was not all that easy. Dad and Billy had been hunting squirrels there since they were boys and Grandpa did before them and the squirrels became wise, staying in the upper branches of the trees or always on the opposite side of the tree. Quietness was necessary, any talking or noise would cause the squirrels to run and hide so we walked silently. Dad and Billy had been hunting together since they were boys and had hand signals, go that way, look up there, circle around and so forth. Even so, the squirrels knew we were there, chattering warnings to each other high up in the trees.
We walked silently though the forest but not always looking up. We came to a hickory tree and scattered on the ground under it were gnawed on hickory nuts, a sure sign of squirrel. Looking up Dad spied a squirrel high in the tree, slowly raising his gun, he took aim, POW!, the squirrel falls from the tree, and we walked over to where it landed. I looked down at it lying on the forest floor and thought it was a little sad, one moment it was enjoying eating hickory nuts on this beautiful day and the next thing it was laying on the ground dead. Dad reaches down, picks up the squirrel, examines if for a moment and then places it in the canvas bag hanging at his side. I realize those stains on the canvas bags were dried blood from squirrels of times past.
In the summer when we walked through the forest to go fishing, we would see quite a few squirrels on the ground, running up trees, and hopping from tree to tree. Now they were nowhere to be seen, especially after the gunshot. But you could hear them chattering high up in the trees, so we continued deeper into the forest. A half hour went by, and we still hadn’t seen any, which was fine with me. I was enjoying walking silently through the forest and didn’t really like the sight of the dead squirrel, I would have been just as happy if we didn’t find anymore but then Billy signaled, “look up”. Dad and I looked up and I didn’t see any squirrel, but then Dad whispered, “Squirrel’s nest”. I had been in the woods enough times with Dad to know what to look for and soon spotted it. A little over a foot in diameter, at first glance it looks like a bunch of dead leaves stuck high in the tree. They are more apparent after all the leaves fall from the trees but it was now only mid-November. Fall comes late in Florida and the trees wouldn’t drop all their leaves until December.
Billy points at himself, then his gun then the nest signaling he would shoot the nest first. Now Billy had a 20-gauge double-barreled shotgun while Dad had a much less powerful .410 double-barreled shotgun. The 20-gauge not only is more powerful, but also had a bigger “spread” as it was called with the shot spreading into a bigger circle than the .410. Getting a squirrel with a 20-gauge was much easier than with the .410 which made Dad getting that first squirrel with one shot impressive.
Billy took aim at the squirrel’s nest; I didn’t know what to expect. Billy pulls the trigger, BLAM!, parts of the nest go flying and several squirrels go running out it. BLAM!, goes Billy with the second barrel, the loudness startling me. Then POP!, POP! as Dad fires both barrels of his .410 rapidly, then BLAM! BLAM! goes Billy again who had reloaded so fast he was able to get in a couple more shots. The smell and smoke of gunpowder filled the air. Dad and Billy look at each other with with the biggest grins and Dad says, “I think I got one.”, and Billy says, “I think might have I got two.” It all happened so fast I don’t know who got what. Dad and Billy had been hunting together since they were boys, I’m sure they had done this before.
We walk over to where the squirrels had fallen and find three, two with bigger shot from Billys 20-guage and one with smaller shot from Dad’s .410. Dad picks them up, inspects them, and puts them in the bag with the first one and says, “That should make a good meal.”, and we headed home with Dad and Billy talking about today’s hunt and some hunts of long ago. I walked quietly along behind them.
We exited the forest, blinking in the bright sunlight of the cow pasture, passed the Buzzard Tree, going through the barnyard and gates, reaching Grandma’s house where Grandma comes out from the kitchen onto the back porch and asks, “Did you get any?” and Dad says, “We got four.” Grandma then says, “Well get them cleaned up and I’ll fry them up for dinner.” Dad knew that Billy, Betty and their kids weren’t staying for dinner and asked Billy if he wants to take a some of the squirrels with him since he shot them. Billy replies, “No you can have them, Betty refuses to cook them.” I watched Dad as he skinned and gutted the squirrels, something I had never seen before but it was much like skinning and gutting a catfish which Dad had taught me. Dad gave one of the squirrel tails to David which he got all excited about, he was going to make a hat out of like Davy Cockett. Davy Crockett was David’s hero. David kept the tail for several days until it started to stink.
Dad took the cleaned squirrels to Grandma in the kitchen where she cut them up into pieces looking much like smaller pieces of chicken, rolled them in flour and fried them up in a big cast iron frying pan filled with hot lard, I watched the whole process. Mom and Brenda said they weren’t eating no squirrel so Grandma fried up some chicken for them. Mom and Brenda helped Grandma cook up some fresh green beans cooked with a piece of fatback, cornbread, and mashed potatoes from potatoes which David fetched from under the house where they were stored in the sand after harvest.
We all sat around the big kitchen table with a single bare yellow light bulb hanging over it. Mom said grace as she most often did for Dad’s grace was always, “Thank God for supper, Amen.” Dishes with the green beans, mashed potatoes, cornbread, chicken, and squirrel which Mom insisted being on a separate plate from the chicken, were passed around. I took some of everything, two pieces of squirrel. Over dinner we all talked, Dad and I about the hunt, David something about finding a dung beetle rolling a ball in the barnyard. Mom immediately said, “I hope you washed your hands.” Brenda said something about girl scouts, Mom said things too, but I wasn’t really listening. Grandma put in a comment or two but mostly sat there with a big smile. I observed, we were happy.
The squirrel was pretty good, more flavor than chicken, a nutty flavor, Dad told me because the squirrels eat acorns and hickory nuts. Living in times that nothing went to waste, Grandma even fried up the brains. I wasn’t so sure about eating the brains but then my brother David dared me and what is an older brother to do with such a dare, I ate the brains. They didn’t taste all that bad, texture was a little odd, kind of like fried chicken livers which I really liked, but it was the thought, the thought they were “BRAINS” that made them a little hard to get down. A good swig of iced tea helped. That was the first and only time I ate brains.
After dinner the “men”, just Dad, David and me since Grandpa had died, went out to the screened in front porch. David crawled into the swing and I, being more of a man now after my first hunt, sat in a rocking chair next to Dad. The women, Grandma, Mom and Brenda had stayed behind in the kitchen to clean up the dinner table and wash the dishes then they too came out to the front porch. Mom and Brenda joined David on the swing and Grandma sat in a rocking chair on the other side of Dad. Not much was said as we all sat there as dusk turned to night. David laid his head on Mom’s lap and went to sleep. Dad and Grandma talked about family, some aunt, uncle, cousin or another. The conversation turned and Grandma asked Dad when we would be coming out to see her next. She had been lonely since Grandpa had died.
We all said our goodbyes, piled into the car and Dad drove us home.