The old man’s name was Boyd Kelly and he and my friend Billy Jack had taken up with each other as fishing buddies at a boat ramp on Lake Texoma and became fast friends. Mr. Kelly was a Marine because my understanding is once a Marine always a Marine. He had been a wealthy man financially at one time and he loved to hunt and fish. He was looking for a fishing partner when the good Lord steered Billy in his direction.

  Mr. Kelly was dying of cancer. Oh, he was fighting it because that was his nature, but it was not a fight he was going to win. Billy and I were going to Mr. Kelly’s home because he had a Winchester 101 20 gauge, he was asking $600.00 for and he owned the gun since some time in the late 60s or early 70’s. That meant if it was a standard grade gun even it was worth that and maybe a little more.

  I had heard a lot of stories about Mr. Kelly from Billy and I felt like I already knew the old man and surely, I knew the cut of him from the old men I had grown up with. It took only a few minutes of talking with him for me to realize that it was my loss that I did not know him better.

  Billy kept an extended invitation for me to go fishing with him and I had a time or two but it hurt so much to get on that lake. The loss of my friend Robert has been like an open sore and I miss him even more today than I did right after we lost him. Billy has lost close fishing buddies and he understands my reluctance and has never pushed me. He just says, “When you’re ready to go fishing, let me know!” I never got to fish with Bill and Mr. Kelly.

 When Mr. Kelly pulled that sleek Winchester from the case, I felt my heart hammer in my chest. This was not a standard grade 101. It wasn’t the premium grade gun either, but it was ornate and shown the care of a man who knew and loved guns.

 At the forearm there was wear where a man’s hand would hold it to fire it and a few small scratches along the stock showed it had been lovingly used. The locks were crisp and the ejectors clean and working well. This gun was worth $1300 to $1400 dollars.

  Now I wanted that gun. I wanted it a lot, but not enough to cheat this old man. He had been watching me handling it and checking it out, swinging it to my shoulder with both eyes over the double barrels.

  I looked at him seriously. "Mr. Kelly, this gun is worth more than $600.00. It’s worth . . . "

 Interrupting me, Mr. Kelly said softly, "Son, I know what it’s worth. I want it to go to someone who appreciates it. Someone who will take care of it." He looked toward Billy. "Billy said you intended to get it for your wife to shoot doves with."

 I smiled. “She goes with me and watches and sometimes she fetches birds for me, though she stops as soon as I say, "Sheila fetch!"

 He laughed. "That will be a good gun for her."

 "It’s a good gun for anyone. I want the gun, sir," I said, counting out the six 100-dollar bills. He took them and I looked at this gun.

 "I had both barrels choked modified at the factory for doves," he said. "It doesn’t take tubes but I never needed anything other than modified in it."

 "I prefer modified myself," I assured him, proud of my new gun.

  We visited and talked guns for a while and then we left. A few short months later Mr. Kelly was gone.

 This morning I sit at the edge of the dove field with the Winchester in my hands, thinking to myself that I started my hunting life with a Winchester Youth model 37A 20 gauge. The Old Man that taught me to shoot a shotgun is gone as well. To say I was doing some reflection of the past is an understatement.

 The doves started flying later than normal because of the cloudy, overcast day. A dove crossed in front of me and I shot, missed and corrected as it came toward me.

 Crack!!

 A puff of gray feathers exploded mid-air as the dove fell across the fence. The twin hulls flew over my shoulder as I opened the gun and reloaded it.

 I missed more than I hit for a little while that morning, but I was connecting around 40 percent of the time as slowly worked my way up to six doves in my vest.

 Then it all came together. It was if the spirit of the gun or the spirit of that old man decided I was worthy and for the next 9 doves of my 15-dove limit I was knocking them out of the air with almost every shot. The old gun became like an old friend as it hit my shoulder and bucked with the shot that rolled another dove out of the air. As the white wings came in, I found myself once with doves all around me and only enough time to load one barrel. I had found out with a very disappointing click earlier, that the bottom barrel of the over-and-under shot first and I would stuff a shell in it and fire it like a single shot as I knocked down 4 birds with three shots reloading the one barrel as fast as I could.

 I had chuckled at the unexpected double and within minutes I found myself with a full game bag of doves. Doves are a symbol of peace and I personally think that nothing says peace like dove and jalapeno wrapped in bacon with the special sauce my buddy Jason gave me the recipe just for these TRUE Texas Dove Poppers.

  Standing there looking at that gun, I remember the smile on Mr. Kelly’s face as he watched me handle the gun with respect. If guns could tell their history, they would be so valuable no one could afford a used gun. That who own a gun given to them by their dad or granddad or owns one that has been passed from generation to generation knows of what I speak. This old gun had spoken its piece again this morning and I believe it knew it had come home to someone who knew and appreciated firearms. I broke the action and unloaded it, carrying it to my truck.

 Mr. Kelly is gone, but I have his gun -- the gun he entrusted to me as someone who valued it and would take care of it. I know some of you are thinking – he sold it to you! Smiling as I walk to the truck, he didn’t have to sell it to me. He sold it because I understood and I would take care of his old friend – his old gun and make it mine.

   Last month I reviewed my efforts last year of planting a couple of food plots on my property we affectionately call The Ranch in southern Illinois.

 To quickly recap I did a soil test at the Permanent Stand, (PS) plot and added fertilizer at the recommended amounts and lime and potash at half the recommended amounts on account of not finding enough potash in time and not having enough room in the truck to haul another 20 bags of lime. I then planted Bio-Logic Green Patch Plus seed.

 At the Quad Pod, (QP) plot I added a bag of lime and 1 ½ bags of fertilizer without doing a soil test. I planted Shot Plot here. Out of the two plots the QP plot did the best.

 This year I did a soil test at the PS plot and at an area called the Ground Blind, (GB). There’s a stand there now that my new son-in-law will be hunting from. He has been deer hunting once but says it wasn’t much of a hunt and he slept most of the day so this year will basically be his first time deer hunting and I want to give him ample opportunity to see and hopefully take a deer. No test was done at the QP plot.

 Not wanting to be rushed like last year I sent in my soil samples in July and received the results in a couple of days. They showed I needed to put the other 20 bags (800 lbs.) of lime and the rest of the potash on the PS plot. It also required 4 bags (160 lbs.) of 12-12-12 fertilizer. I once again planted the Green Patch Plus seed. I also reduced the size of the plot to 1/4 acre down from a third.

PS Plot With Barrier Installed.

 The GB plot needed 30 bags (1200 lbs.) of lime and a fair amount of potash as well as 80 lbs. of fertilizer. It seemed a little weird to me that it didn’t need the same amount of fertilizer as it is a ¼ acre in size too. Maybe it was the type of seed, Bio Logic Maximum that was planted.

 On the QP plot I spread 2 bags of lime and 1 bag of fertilizer as well as ½ a bag of potash. Once again I planted Shot Plot seed as well as a bunch of old green bean seeds I had confiscated from my wife’s seed stash. I’ll probably do a soil test on it next year just to see what condition it’s in.

 All through August I gathered my supplies but waited to buy the lime until I got down there because I didn’t have enough room to haul 50 bags plus all of the other crap I had to take with me. In mid-August I sprayed all three areas with Round-up so they would be ready to work up over the Labor Day weekend.

 I started on Friday of the holiday weekend by mowing the areas around the plots. Those areas require a lot of backing-up into areas and under trees and I didn’t want to be driving over the plots once there were planted. While mowing around the PS plot a doe and her fawn a.k.a., Meat Deer, came out and walked right down the edge of the plot while I sat in the tractor taking pictures and a short video of them for a couple of minutes. I had always heard that deer will come around running farm machinery but this was a first for me. They had always jumped and ran when I was mowing.

 Saturday morning I loaded up the lime and headed to the GB plot. It took a while to spread the 30 bags of lime because my spreader started acting up. It sounded like the gears that ran the spinner were starting to strip out and I prayed I could make it through the day without it crapping out as I only hand handheld spreaders to use after that.

GB Plot With Stakes Set

 I managed to get through the GB plot but right after starting on the PS plot the spreader gave out. Damn! I had bought 10 bags of pulverized lime instead of pelletized to see how it was to work with. Bad idea!! Never buy it! Always get the pelletized. It does not flow well through a broadcast spreader. I ended up cutting the bags open and walking and slinging it out onto the field. I figured it would disc in okay.

  That afternoon I hooked up the disc and in a few hours I had worked in the lime. The plots were ready to plant.

  Last year I just drove over the seeds to work them down and it was a mistake so Sunday morning I loaded the harrow, which is a chore by yourself, onto my small trailer and hitched it to the back of the tractor. The fertilizer, potash and seeds went into the front loader bucket.

QP Plot Emerging.

  It took a while spreading first the fertilizer then the potash and finally the seeds being a crew of one but I kept at it and by the late afternoon all three plots were planted and ready for some rain.

 I spent the rest of the week cleaning up some limbs, cutting and trimming, spraying weeds and mowing the rest of the property. On Friday I took off to our Clubhouse on Kentucky Lake to get our pontoon boat out of the water and cleaned up for the winter. And also to mow the grass.

 I left Tennessee on Monday and headed back to the Ranch. It had rained Saturday afternoon and also Sunday morning around the area in Tennessee where the Clubhouse is at and I hoped it had reached 100 miles north where the plots were. It had been a week since the plots had been planted and I was anxious to see if anything had come up.

  I was relieved to see that it had rained and very pleased that the seeds had sprouted. All three plots were covered with little green shoots emerging from the dirt!

  I spent that afternoon installing a Food Plot Protector system from Bio Logic around the GB and PS plots. The QP plot is just too narrow to “rope” off. It was easy to install. I placed 3 foot wood stakes around the perimeter and attached the special ribbon provided to them. I left a small area unprotected to see how the plot will look on both sides of the “fence” and to give the deer a little sample of what’s to come. Then I sprayed on the repellent.

  I had brought two spray bottles with me from TN and neither one of them worked so I had to drive into town to Dollar General and buy another. It worked out good as it had ounce markings on the side which made it easy to mix the repellent in the recommended dosage.

 So now I keep praying for enough rain to keep the little plants growing. Also hoping the barrier works. I have to make a trip down to get our camper soon so I’ll be checking on things and applying more repellent to the barrier. I’ll keep you posted on the progress. Until next month.