The Cabin: Day 1

Hi Folks!

Well like I said last time, me and granddad took a road trip up north to his cabin to see which of us had the better fishin skills. After settlin in the first night and just relaxing, we got up bright and early the next day to get a good start on the day. Granddad got hisself busy over by the stove whippin up a batch of his world famous breakfast casserole. Figured it was only right... since I hadn't been there for a good long spell... that he should put one together for me.

The ingredients are a family secret but I can tell you that that it involves a good amount of eggs and Nauga sausage along with a whole heapin helping of veggies and blue potatoes. Of course you got to add the right mix and amount of spices and stuff to get it just right. Course cooking it in a wood burning stove don't hurt none neither. Just sorta adds a flavor you just can't get any other way. Hmmmm good is all I have to say about the results.

Well nothing tops off a good breakfast like a full day fishin. After cleaning up whatever was left... and there wasn't much let me tell you... that man sure has an appetite on him... we put together something for lunch and loaded up our gear in granddad's gator and drove on over to the big river. It was only about ten minutes away but it was all downhill which made the trip pretty interesting what with dodging past boulders and trees and other stuff that looked like it was just dropped there over time by aliens or floods or whatever. They get some pretty good floods hereabouts from time to time but granddad's cabin, being where it is, sits well above whatever mischief Mother Nature might decide to do.

We finally made our way down to the flatland down by the river. Pretty looking country... a mix of grass and forest with that big ole river just a twisting and a turning its way along. Granddad took me to one of his favorite spots on one of the tributaries just out of sight of the river itself... nice deep pools of slow moving water intermixed with areas of strong current. Granddad said we should be able to get ourselves enough of a catch to take care of dinner without too much effort so we picked spots along the bank settled in for the day.

Granddad got a hit almost as soon as his first cast hit the water... seemed like a big fish... must've been thirty inches or so by the way it fought. It was a joy to watch that old man work that fish... letting it run, then reeling it in... then fighting to stop it from snarlin the line on a log when it dove deep to try and get away. Thought he must have had a Strout on the line by the way it fought. Took near enough close to an hour to reel it all the way in. It was only after he'd gotten it close enough to net that you could see that it weren't no fish at all but some kind of really big river snake... all brown and black with big yellow stripes running from head to tail all along its sides.

Well I've never been real fond of snakes since a Snaggle Tooth Flatwinder chased me halfway across the farm when I was a kid. I tell you that thing just wouldn't give up. I must've startled it or something for it lunged at me and came after me so fast that it was all I could do to stay ahead of it. Finally had to jump into the Nauga pen and even that didn't stop it. It just lunged right in after me and started across the pen. I backed my way into the middle of the peck and tried to hide. Turned out to be the smartest thing I could've done. Them Naugas took one look at that Flatwinder and just ganged up on it. Yeah they circled it until it stopped moving and then they just stomped it to death. Boy oh boy that Flatwinder was good and flat when they'd finished with it. I still didn't take my eyes off of it though until I was out of the pen and running to the house. Granddad never misses an oppotunity to tease me about it even to this day.

So you can understand why I was in no particular hurry to help granddad get his snake out of his net. He started teasing me about it... callin me all sorts of names... saying he couldn't see how a fella could be afraid of something as harmless as a Brown Belly Snake. Now I don't believe that a Brown Belly is all that harmless mind you... just ask a fledgling Coomer... but to me the snake in that net didn't look all that much like a Brown Belly to me. Granddad just kept callin for me to come over and hold the net for him so he could unhook it. Well... after a bit of trepidation... I obliged him. I took the long ended handle and held the net as far away from me as I could... what with that snake wriggling and moving around like it was fixin to jump out and do something bad. Granddad watched this for a bit, then calmly reached in and grabbed that snake just behind the head. He reached over with his other hand and took ahold of the hook... I would've killed that thing first but that isn't granddad's way... took the sport out it he always says... still and all...

He'd just maneuvered that hook out of that snake and given me one of his I told you so looks when it happened. As he turned slightly to put the hook down that snake twisted and got just enough of itself free to lunge at granddad. Got him square in the arm... wouldn't let go no matter how hard granddad pulled or tugged at it. I finally had to cut the head off and then pry its mouth open. Man oh man that was a nasty bite. Two deep puncture wounds where the fangs went in and then all sorts of tears and scratches where its smaller sharp side teeth had clamped down. Never seen nothing like it before. Granddad said there was nothin to worry about... as long as we skedaddled back up to the cabin right there and then. Seems that snake was an Eastern Striped Water Adder... deadly enough as snakes go but we had about an hour to try and take countermeasures before it would do any real damage.

Well I threw our gear back in the gator and put granddad in the passenger seat and then tore out back up that hill to the cabin. Granddad's arm started swellin and turning all sorts of evil lookin colors. That trip was the longest short trip I remember taking. After what seemed like forever... even though it was less than fifteen minutes... we got back to the cabin. I tried to load granddad into the car and drive to the nearest clinic but he said it'd take at least an hour just to get there and even then they'd have to get ahold of Doc Benson which would add a bit more time to it 'specially if he was out fishin. Besides... there was no need. He had the anti-venom in the cabin. Based on his interaction with the Adder I wasn't too certain I believed him, but I helped him into the cabin and followed his lead on this. He told me where to find the stuff... I must have been movin like a Jackalope goin so fast I don't rightly remember doing it later on.

I injected it right where he told me to... a little above the bite and right into the vein so that the serum would spread quickly through his body and get right to work. I had a few anxious minutes there as we waited to see ifn it would do what he said it would, but after about ten minutes I could see that he was feelin better, breathin more easily and the swellin on his arm was startin to go down. After about an hour or so he was right as rain... though he'll have a mean lookin bruise where that thing bit him for quite awhile. We both figured that maybe that was enough excitement for one day so we called it quits. After all, that river weren't goin nowheres and them fish would wait 'til tomorrow for us to catch 'em. Needless to say I made supper that night. Didn't do too bad... I've learned a thing or two watching Thelma Lou all those years. It might not have been as good as what

you might get at Jackie's Station over in LaGrange but we certainly didn't starve. But that as they say was that for our first day at the cabin.

That's it for now. Maybe next time I'll get to day two. 'Til then... Jon