Fiddlebacks With Stories

[Aardvark]

Not the point of the post, but that bird skin has some fantastic color to it.

 

[Mistwalker]

Not the point of the post, but that bird skin has some fantastic color to it.

Thanks! I was very pleased with how the hen looked and tasted, even if she was a little on the tough side.
It's out of focus and blurry, but you can see the hen, one of the wild hens that roam those woods after whatever happened to the homestead years ago, cooking over the fire in this picture. I was so anal about all the images in this project I wanted everything to look hood to make the knife look as good as it is if that makes sense.

 

[Mistwalker]

In 2012 my Dad was living out his last days. I stayed in Tampa for about 4 months. I would spend the mornings until 3 pm when the storms came working in the swamps doing photography work and illustration images for my articles for various magazines, then when the storms moved in, I'd go to the room and cleanup, then go grab us something to eat, and go spend the evening with Dad talking about all the lessons I learned from him when he was a single parent doing his best by me. Then he would go to sleep and I would wander the streets a while, end up walking on the beach for hours in thought, then go back to the room and crash, and do it all over again a few hours later.

I became a single parent myself not long after that. Of all the Fiddlebacks I've owned, this Bloodwood Bushboot is the one I miss most of all. It was the knife I'd have on me in the facility. It was the knife I would open things for him with, and cut up his food with. Of all of them, it's the one I wish I never let go of more than any other.

 

[Mistwalker]

Two of the knives that I lost to the years of madness from 2017 to 20021, as everything superfluous and unworthy in my life was being stripped away one piece at a time, have come back to me recently in nearly identical but more refined new iterations.

The first was my first knife from my dear friend Ed Martin, one of my current Bible study partners, and the knife I had on me as I took the first photographs to capture things in nature, that would in years to come lead me back to my relationship with God. After being lost since the night my mother was murdered when I was a teenager.

The second was the Osage Esquire, that I had on me the day I met the woman who would, three years later, introduce me to the Pastor who would Baptize me. When I walked into the water, gave my life to Christ, and left my past behind me when I left the water, 5 years ago this spring.

When I looked up he term Esquire earlier, just out of curisity, one of the definitions is of an officer in the service of a king. Having left all else but my children behind me, to start my own ministry works and work with other ministries 5 years ago, and spending each day in service to my lord and savior Jesus Christ, I like that definition, and I'm thankful that the knife came back to me.

 

[Mistwalker]

Not the point of the post, but that bird skin has some fantastic color to it.

Thanks, I finally found the rest of the images from that day. I decided to roast a cornish hen over coals for my lunch that day while I did the other works for the images there in camp, and then use that as the back drop for the opener photo. I was trying to make that article my best work ever, and make everything look as good as possible.

It was delicious. I need to do that again soon, now that the roller coaster ride through all the dumpster fires is over.

These are the actual cooking and serving shots, looking at them, I can still taste it.

 

[Aardvark]

Nicely done. Roasting a bird is an art.
What is the yellow condiment?

 

[Mistwalker]

Nicely done. Roasting a bird is an art.
What is the yellow condiment?

Thank you! I spent a good bit of time fishing and trapping commercially in my youth, living off grid in tent camps all along several rivers here in the southeast. None of us were overly fond of canned foods, especially me. So I learned how to cook over an open fire at an early age. Those bottles were part of the old Tolkien project, I still have them in my prop cabinet. The yellow one was lemon zest, the white one was coarse salt.

 

[Aardvark]

Good combination for chicken.

 

[Mistwalker]

Good combination for chicken.

I was wishing I had not forgotten the pepper, but having eaten fowl, rabbit, squirrel, venison, etc. over a fire with no seasons more than once, I thought it was wonderful after smelling it cooking the whole time I was working

 

[Mistwalker]

The story of this one is just beginning. But since my first day with it is a short story of its own, I'm going to share it here.

I'm going to preface this by saying the number 13 is, and has been for several decades, my favorite number. A former business partner of mine was a triskaidekaphobe. He once challenged me to name something good associated with the number 13, and I said Jesus Christ and 12 disciples. The number 13 has just always been associated with good things in my life.

Then comes the Boudreax, which I purchased for a project that is very much, in my heart, in service to my creator and to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

It arrived today, on Good Friday. The day Jesus was crucified, the day he demonstrated what true faith looks like.

The box was too big for my little PO Box, so the put it in a parcel locker for me. The put it in parcel locker #13.

And the first flowers I saw, when I went on a short hike with it, were Dogwood flowers.

All of which encourage me that I am on the right path.

And then I remembered an experience I had last summer in gathering things for a specific purpose. An epiphany as I was gaxing on this hand full of flowers.

All in all, I think the story is off to a good start