The Holiday Season is upon us. Thanksgiving is next week, and our thoughts turn to turkey and dressing and gatherings of family and friends to give thanks for the true blessings we all share. It’s really the beginning of a special time and my favorite time of the year.

Growing up here on the farm, Thanksgiving was special for a lot of reasons. In my early years, my maternal grandparents would come down and visit from their home in the Baldwin community in mountainous Ashe County. “Gran” and “Peep,” as they were affectionately referred to by all the grandkids, were a special treat to have. Peep would take me squirrel hunting while here, and a few times, we rabbit hunted. He was a serious fox hunter through his midlife years, as well as a very serious grouse hunter. Mom had grown up in a family where her brother and father regularly brought in game, especially grouse, to feed the family. I’m told that Gran could take one grouse harvested by my grandfather and feed their family of six with the roasted bird made with generous helpings of gravy, potatoes, or rice, and her famous homemade cathead biscuits. I can testify to the fact that nothing else has ever quite compared to those biscuits!

It is the mountain heritage of my mother from which our wing shooting tradition here at the farm first began. Recently married to my Dad, she noticed that most of the men in the Methodist Church in Ellerbe, of which my family were members, owned a bird dog as many had small tobacco farms, and the landscape around here was at that time very quail friendly. Yet, Dad and his brother Elsie did not bird hunt.

Setting out to rectify that situation, my Mom contacted Peep about the need for a bird dog for Dad. Luckily, a neighbor there in the Baldwin community by the name of Robert Colvard was known to have a great line of grouse setters that he raised and trained.

Sure enough, on Christmas morning, December 25, 1950, a beautiful black and white setter named Jim was a special present to my Dad from Mom. And on that day, an almost 75-year-old wing shooting tradition began. It wasn’t long before more dogs were added to the string. Uncle Elsie got the bug as well. He accumulated and maintained over the decades a fine string of setters and pointers as well. Uncle Elsie was an all-conference guard who played football for Wake Forest and had bad knees. The natural transition of the two brothers to quail hunting soon resulted in the purchase of a blue and white two-door Willy’s panel Jeep. A local metal fabricator was a legal client of my uncle, and soon, a brand new dog box was built into the rear of the Jeep.

In the 1950s and 1960s, that blue and white Jeep was commonly seen around Ellerbe, heading out with a load of barking dogs and excited hunters for a full day afield. This was especially true in the days around Thanksgiving and again at Christmas, when my Dad would shut down his sawmill, and Uncle Elsie closed his law practice for two weeks, and they quail hunted every single day. As a kid, I occasionally was able to ride along as well. I loved it. Being able to watch the dogs work and the two of them getting out and shooting the coveys was a special time in my life. There was a big cardboard box on top of the dog box in the rear of the Jeep that was always well stocked. It usually had hoop cheese, saltine crackers, Lance crackers, Moon Pies, peanuts, sweets of all kinds, sardines and jars of Penrose sausages. Except for the bottle of brown liquor that was in the box and wasn’t pulled out until the shotguns were put to sheath, I could have whatever I wanted out of the box. It didn’t get any better than that!

As you can imagine, by the time I received my single-shot Savage .410 shotgun at age 10 for Christmas, I was completely hooked on the sport.

It should be obvious to you by now that the experience of my formative years is what has driven me to attempt to provide to each and every one of you a little slice of the life I so thankfully have been able to share over the decades with family and good friends. It is a simple but rewarding life of birds, dogs and good fellowship, and it is particularly important to me that I draw upon those memories each year as I enjoy the holiday season.

So, to those of you hunting with us going forward during this part of the season, we give you a warm “Welcome” if it’s your first time here and a” Welcome Home” to the many of you who have hunted with us over the years.

As we swap stories late in the afternoon on the front porch of the Lodge or out at the fire pit, you might see a hunting buggy coming in from a great afternoon of birds and dogs and tall tales afield. Through my eyes I will see a blue and white Willy’s Jeep as it slowly winds through the open woods on the home stretch in search of that final sundown covey. In that Jeep is a lifetime of good memories of times past and the guiding light of what we envision here for you today. Bless them.

Thank you for adding to those memories as you take to the field with us, and Happy Holidays from all of us here at the Farm!