My birthday was a few days before Thanksgiving so that all blended together to make for an enjoyable time.
We had a visit again from the kids and granddaughter Anne Caroline. She was not at the top of her game and had a bit of an upper respiratory infection, which she in turn passed on to son-in-law Brooks.
Brooks was nice enough to share with his parents, Rhonda and Charles Baldwin and me. I did not allow it to slow me down. That is until Sunday afternoon.
So back to Thanksgiving, we were invited to have lunch with the Baldwins, which has become a tradition for us. They go the full nine yards with turkey, ham and every side dish you can imagine.
My eldest sibling and I had been planning for a while that I would come for a visit. They live in Tupelo or just south along the Natchez Trace in a community called Pontocola.
She is seven years older so I have to remind her of that occasionally. But it really was a fun time. She told me to bring guns to hunt with and fishing poles to give that a shot also. She has horses so that was also on the agenda.
I got in on Thursday night with plans to watch the Ole Miss and Mississippi State game. As it turned out they had done away with their cable service but I was able to find the game on the radio and listen. Glad I did not go to the game. I turned it off near the middle of the third quarter. We ended up playing the card game Gin. She did not play Gin Rumy so we stuck with Gin. Sis did not realize that her brother was pretty skilled at cards so one game turned to three and she threatened to play until she won. It was already 10 p.m., so I told her I let her win the last hand.
Friday we went and scouted where I needed to hunt and I picked out a nice food plot easy to get to with the intention of hunting that evening. They have about 300 acres so we rode and played and had a good time and at every one of the little lakes I casted a few times to see if they would hit a worm. No luck.
That evening I loaded up and headed to the woods to see if I would have any luck at deer hunting. As luck would have it, I was busted on hunting also. But Sis had a great meal waiting so things were well. That night back to the gin table. I still showed no mercy but I did allow her one game.
Plans for the next day were to let it warm up a bit and then ride horses. Just before noon we went to one of her friends and loaded up Apple Jack for me to ride. I told one of my friends it was a Clydesdale, figuring it would take a draft horse to get my large self around.
Sis explained to me that since I recently had surgery, I had to follow her lead and she was not trying to be bossy. She got a small step ladder to make getting on Apple Jack a bit easier. I was glad.
I rode around the arena to get acquainted with Apple Jack and thought I was doing ok, until, that is, Apple Jack decided he wanted to go out the gate which had a low entrance. That almost pulled me out of the saddle but I prevailed and stayed aboard my trusty mount.
This actually says a lot because the last time I had ridden it was bareback about 10 to 15 years earlier in the same arena and I did not stay on very long before I fell off.
We rode for a while and there without any serious horse violations so all and all it was another successful venture.
Brother and Sister had a good time laughing and complaining about the aches and pains of growing older. But it was fun, and we are already planning more adventures!
