We are into the next-to-last month of 2008, and with this month is one of our major holidays, Thanksgiving, that allows us to go right off the diet wanting to or not.

Another thing is several folks have told me that they have a scheduled visit with their heart doctor this month, reminding me that I also have a visit and a stress test this week.

We all stay under enough stress without having to take the test to see if it is real. And this week I got my first taste of this year’s fresh deer sausage. There is not much better going on than that sausage. The deer sausage was really good and having eaten a lot of it over the years down here in the Deep South, I am a pretty good judge.

I had stopped by to see this friend in Buena Vista, and he was working on the deer sausage, trying to get it just right with the fat content and seasoning. He asked me to taste a piece of it and tell me what else it needed. So after eating that piece I asked for another and ate it.

“It is right on the tip of my tongue, give me another piece, and I think I can come up with the answer.”

So after eating the third piece, I reared back in my chair and told him, “What it needs is a biscuit.”

I am probably lucky that their was no fresh biscuits there because I would have made myself sick on quantity. When I left his place he put a big link of the sausage in a paper towel for me to eat on the way home. About 30 miles down the road, I stopped at another hunting store to share some of that last link with this fellow.

In the past, he has saved me deer sausage when they were cooking. He saw it and started reaching for his knife. Even though it had cooled and was no longer hot from the grill, it tasted just as good.

Not to change the subject too much, but I know you have seen pictures of a slice of ham in stores that has been cooked on a grill and is as pretty a piece of meat as there has ever been. I have seen this second guy cook ham that was as pretty as the picture and tasted mighty good also.

I went to Blountstown last week. It was before their archery season came in and the folks at Big Bend Sporting Goods has a big box of bream, mullet and french fries laid out for everyone to try. With a few hushpuppies mixed in, it was a mighty fine feast.

With their deer season in now, I expect to see the diet change down there also.

Just like here, there is some mighty big ole boys down there and they can eat almost their weight in good fried fish. Another man in Americus was telling me that last Saturday afternoon, his wife had asked what he wanted for dinner. He said that what he really wanted was vegetable soup and corn bread.

I know he wasn’t expecting it and was content with going out to eat that night, so he was very surprised to smell it cooking from the drive way. He stated that it taste just as good as he thought it would and was very content to have it again on Sunday night.

He was also somewhat surprised to have it again on Monday night, but it was still good.

On Tuesday, which is poker night, he got a fax from the fellow in charge of the food on poker night and it told him to bring his appetite because they were having vegetable soup and corn bread.

That was four nights in a row of having vegetable soup and corn bread. Then he said that it looked like there might be enough for a couple of more meals at home.

It seems that these South Georgia folks get to eating more than ever when the temperature drops and hunting season comes in.

Remember the game warden is your friend and he likes to eat also. Invite him to your eating and he may surprise you by eating some of that gator tail.

I will tell you one thing most anyone will eat and that is fried redhorse sucker sides and that season is in. Three months is all, November, December and January.

Then netting season is out for nine months. Eating them is one of the joys of this world and by the time the netting season goes out we should be able to go to the creek and catch better than a good catch of jackfish, the only fish that rivals a sucker in taste.