He Brought Home Dinner

Gather 'round ye peoples of the Internet for I've a got a little story.
Monday night T walked in while I was in the bedroom folding clothes (huge surprise!) and asked the kids why Mama doesn't answer her phone. I cringed. I walked into the kitchen and found T covered from head to toe in mud. I'm serious. I wasn't even sure this man was in the right house. He had his shirt bundled up, obviously holding a treasure. Luckily this was all a total surprise to me since I had abandoned my phone about 15 minutes before he came in. He only tried warning me five times. Oh, but what did he have in that shirt? It was not the heart of a grizzly bear. It wasn't a cute puppy. It wasn't even gold that he found buried under a ton of silt. It was seven bass. (Fish, not like bass guitars.) I scrambled around and found them a slightly better home than that blue plaid shirt (that may never come clean).

They all jumped in my stock pot and I tried to rinse them as best I could. They were covered in mud, too.

(Side note: I had shined up the sink, cleared the counters and mopped  swiffered the floors in the previous two hours. Then came the mud. And fish. Happy-happy-joy-joy!)

Then I got the question I dread. "Do you have a sharp knife?" Yeah.... No. I would actually love to have one but I'm incredibly cheap and refuse to purchase a really good knife. So I get out this gigantic knife that is a piece of crap and hand it to T. "No! I hate that knife. Anything but that one. Do you have a fillet knife?" Yeah.... sorta. Only this fillet knife is from the same set that the gigantic crap knife is from. Worthless. I suggest he try using his hunting knife that my Opa gave him. He tries, but it needs to be sharpened. I form a brilliant plan.

"How about I call L? He might have something we can borrow." L is my brother-in-law. He and my sister live about five minutes away. I give him a call and ask if he's busy. He answers no, but sort of hesitantly. I ask my questions. He says they'll be over in a few minutes. We don't usually call anyone on the spur of the moment to come over and really I was just asking "oh-my-gosh-there's-7-fish-in-my-sink! I-don't-have-a-knife-that's-worth-a-darn-What-do-I-do?" They offered. I accepted.

Thankfully, I have a pretty awesome brother-in-law and my sister's not too bad either. They brought over their electric knife (I know, it's not how the old folks taught us) and it was so easy. Looking. I didn't attempt anything, but they sure made it look easy! 
      
Apparently we need an electric knife, larger cutting board, a decent set of knives and L on speed dial. He always shows up when we need assistance in "wild life cleaning". Like when T shot a deer, then a hog and now the fish. (L has all the awesome cleaning stuff.) Some day I will be prepared with a sharp knife, super-sized pans, zippered bags and, of course, food. Because all that work makes for a hungry crew.
So, now I have three zippered bags of fish in my freezer. I fed my guests some enchiladas for their help. They had just finished a two mile bike ride before I called them (are they crazy? It's hot out there). I also served up some ice cold lemonade. (Thrilling details.)

Another side note: T caught the bass with his bare hands. His friend was draining his stock tank to clean it up (he's doing lot's of clearing/cleaning) and a bunch of fish were just waiting to live in my freezer. I have a celebratory photo (currently my desktop background) of him standing in the middle of the tank, a fish in each hand doing sort of a double fist pump. It's pretty cool. Believe me. 

That was Monday night. Tuesday night... not nearly as eventful.
Mama