When his wife opens the door it's this heavenly spiced aroma, apples maybe, cinnamon mixed perhaps and the rush of warm air hitting my face always feels like a hug.

Then Sue actually hugs me and she smells like baking heaven. He comes in the kitchen as I let her go and shed the four million pounds of clothes I have to stay warm.

They are my happily married pals. The golden retriever friends in my life. They never flunked basic sandbox, they play well with others, and even tolerate me.

Tonight is about me not cooking. Tonight is about a fireplace burning cedar wood that makes a bowl of soup with dumplings one of the best nights in a winter.

She is amazing in the kitchen and what she does with just touching black and white keys can make me sit still for as long as she plays. On top of that oversized music box sits an apple is carved from wood, even has a leaf attached via a stem and you pick it up thinking, it's so real you could take a bite.

An apple is painted in a bowl of several, hanging on the wall, and how is it that a mere human can command a brush and paints to so totally deceive the eye? This brother's got talent. So does his wife.

In a major dumbing down I call it art. I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO CALL IT. Three little letters for what some can take nothing, and create, I know it's much more than that, but I don't do art, I have no artistic flare, bent or talent. So in my own way I leave it at that, that's art.

The art is made by Steve.

Now he has a pile of wood rough shaped in the form of duck decoys and asked if I want to crude form a couple for him. Help him. Make things go faster. I ask to be polite, are you sure you want my help. He just says grab one so I did.

In my vain attempt I'm pretty sure I made some real nice kindling at the expense of what he hoped would ultimately be a bluebill block. I've held lots of real blue bills, seen loads of decoys, but my mind can't get the bark off the wood to release the hidden bird no matter how hard I try. Before I make a bigger wood chip mess, I quit.

He says not to worry he'll just make a buffle head decoy out of what's left.

The trout whisperer