What's For Dinner?

I knew something was afoot when he went upstairs in his barn coat. He came back down with a knife that belonged to his father who grew up in Kentucky where shotguns and knives were all a boy knew. A boy who could knock a squirrel out of a tree with a slingshot became a man who went to war in the first wave. He was in a foxhole when the soldier beside him took a bullet to the head, but he aimed over the heads of the enemy and came home with a purple heart. 

The son of that man stepped back into his boots, worked his fingers into his gloves, and with the knife in one hand and a stainless-steel bowl in the other (my mother’s for whipping up cakes), went back outside in the near dark and bracing cold to skin the kill.

 

A big rabbit lived under our garden shed. I saw his tracks in the snow every morning when I let the chickens out. I knew where his entrance was and I knew his comings and goings. His circle of tracks was like a child’s game of fox and goose.

 

A big rabbit once lived under our shed.

For Poets and Storytellers my New Year's resolution is to try new recipes.