My Granddaddy Vance (my mom's dad) lives out in Highland County, Virginia, about an hour drive over the the mountains from me. So, recently I've been going out to spend time with him one weekend out of every month.
It's always fun being with Granddad. At 90 years old he's a riot and manages to say and do things that have me laughing to myself for days after our visits. I know that years from now I'll look back on this special time together with very fond memories.
One memory I'm sure to keep for awhile took place this past weekend during our visit. Sunday morning I woke up to make our breakfast. It had been decided the day before that I would make Chip Beef Gravy on toast with some special chip beef that my only Robin had left Granddad (it wasn't until after I ate the gravy that I was informed that chipped beef was actually chipped venison).
Well, I made our gravy in my grandparents rather large cast iron skillet. Took the skillet from the stove to the kitchen table and we served our breakfast from it. After putting away some leftover gravy in the refrigerator we were left with some pan scrapings of gravy that my Granddad was pretty particular about, he wanted to save them for my uncle's dog when they came to visit later in the morning.
The time in the morning stretched on and my uncle hadn't come for his visit. I was getting anxious to get some work done, like feed the cats, and clean the breakfast dishes. Both of those things my Granddad wanted me to wait to do until my uncle came (I think he was wanting my uncle to help me with these tasks). Finally I told my Granddad that I needed to go ahead and finish the work so I could get ready for church.
The first item on the agenda was to feed the cats. My Granddad keeps a large supply of dry dog food on hand for his cats :) Talk about cats, they have close to 20 of them roaming around their farm land. When you take out their food to the back porch they all come running in a swarm. You can't really hold them because they're all wild, and would probably scratch you to ribbons. On this particular morning I saw some kitties among the group. One kitten was this light gray color and I thought it might still be young enough for me to hold it without it getting all crazy on me.
I safely picked up this precious kitten and took it inside to show my Granddad. He liked that kitten so much he told me to go ahead and let it eat the gravy scraps he was saving for the dog. I told Granddad I would take the kitten back outside and then throw the gravy scraps in the food pan for all the cats. Granddad wasn't hearing of that, he told me to go ahead and sit the kitten on the kitchen table where the skillet still lied and let it eat from there.
For those of you who know me and my view on pets, you know I don't think they belong in our homes and especially at our kitchen table. But there I was setting this kitten down to its breakfast. It being such a large skillett the first thing this cat did was to climb on inside the skillet to get the gravy scraps piled up on the one side.
If ever there was a time I should have had a camera it was that moment. Here was this beautiful gray little kitten curled up in a cast iron skillet, eating gravy scraps to its heart's content. Don't you wish you could have seen it too?
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