Must Be Hunting Season

Because the dogs are wandering around in their deer-offal-stuffed drunken states from the prizes they drag home from the woods and A. is announcing things like this first thing in the morning when he steps outside to get firewood:

 "I feel I should warn you there is a lung on the doorstep."

Thanks for the warning. I'll just stay inside.

A Radical at Heart

A couple of weeks ago, I finally read Radical Homemakers, by Shannon Hayes. It came out about five years ago, and I have no idea why I never heard of it, because if ever there were a book that I should read, that one was it. The subtitle is "Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture."

Apparently, I'm a radical homemaker. Who knew?

Not radical in the 80's awesome sense (although that too, OBVIOUSLY), but radical in the sense of changing the world. Except it never occurred to me that disgust with consumerism and making my own sauerkraut had any larger purpose. And if I must be honest, that's not why I do things like make my own sauerkraut. Really, I'm just greedy and homemade tastes better.

But I agreed with a lot of the things in that book. And that one led me to another one entitled Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, by Kelly Coyne and Eric Knutzen.

Again with the radical and the consumer thing.

This book is awesome because it's a book full of instructions for lots of different projects, like making your own soap. Or mustard. Or beer. Or whatever*. This is the reason I currently have a large bunch of sage suspended over the woodstove, drying so I can powder it and mix it with baking soda to brush my teeth. It will no doubt taste disgusting, but sage is apparently good for, in their words, "troubled gums," which I sometimes have, so I figured it can't hurt to try.

Sound weird to you? Then you probably shouldn't read these books. But I think you should. They might make you more radical. In a good way.

* Some of it's way too out there even for me--I don't think I'm going to be composting our, ahem, "humanure" anytime soon--but I appreciate their willingness to share it all.

We Can All Relax Now

Saturday was the first day of rifle season for deer. In other words, the pressure was on for A. to get his deer. I don't know why he feels this pressure, but he does. The family must have meat, after all. *

He got up at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning to drive 45 minutes to public lands up in the hills. Up, where it is colder. A lot colder. It was about 15 degrees, with a snow cover. He stayed out for about three hours and didn't see a single deer, returning shame-faced (and freezing) to answer in the negative when the children asked if he got anything.

After several hours of jittering around, he decided to go back out around 3 p.m. This time he just walked up back onto our neighbor's property and camped out in the gully. He returned around 5 p.m. dragging a very fat doe.

This is pretty much what he did last year, so I think he's getting the idea that if shooting a deer is the objective, there is very little reason to get up in the dark and cold and drive anywhere. Obviously the hunting is better half a mile from our house.

Anyway.

Charlie in particular was excited about this deer, shouting "Hooray, Daddy!" and subjecting the deer to a minute examination. I like to think I encourage scientific curiosity, but it was still pretty gross to see him poking at eyeballs and pulling on the tongue.

Also gross is how surprisingly long a deer's tongue is. Ew.

Anyway again.

So the first deer of the season is now hanging in the barn aging, to be butchered this weekend. Due to my not-very-functional hands at the moment, I will not be participating in the butchering this year. I suggested to A. that he just cut the whole thing up into stew meat and turn it all into a gigantic batch of chili to be frozen.

Is this not how most people go about preparing freezer meals for after the baby is born?

A. has two more tags, meaning he can still take one more doe and a buck. So we could end up with the world's largest supply of chili in our freezer. Works for me.

* Joke. We still have quite a bit of our half cow in the freezer, so I think anemia will be held at bay for awhile yet.

Notes from the First Day of Winter

What's that? The calendar says it's still fall? Yeah, well, tell the calendar to take a look out my window and shut up. Snow has been falling since about 9 a.m. It didn't start sticking until about an hour ago, though.

Before it started to stick, I loaded the children up in the van to go out to the local orchard to pick up A.'s buckets of apple cider. In the past, we've pressed our own cider that A. has subsequently turned into many gallons of hard cider. But there were no excess apples this year, so A. decided to just buy the sweet cider. He made me promise that I wouldn't lift the five-gallon buckets into the van myself*, lest I damage myself or the other human currently residing in my body. So I had the lady at the orchard carry the buckets to the van for me.

I also bought two ten-pound bags of apples. Cubby carried one. Charlie carried the other. I carried nothing.

Put 'em to work young, I say.

Tonight is the St. Martin's Day celebration at Cubby's preschool. I once again volunteered to bring meat--we eat a lot of meat, so I figured I might as well supply it--and once again, I happened to choose a roast that was all tied up with string. A beef roast this time, which I browned, stuck in a Dutch oven with onions, and left in the oven all day.

Way easier than baking something or peeling potatoes or whatever.

Around 4 p.m., I pulled the meat apart in lieu of slicing, since it had been in the oven so long it was falling apart anyway, doused it in storebought barbecue sauce and dumped it all back into the Dutch oven.

My name is Kristin, and I am a lazy potluck contributor.

But at least I managed to get the string off this time. I'm sure that will be appreciated.

* I didn't mention the fact that Charlie, who I must still lift and carry regularly, weighs a lot more than five gallons of cider. I'm okay with being weak if I can get away with it.

A.P.D.--The Bedtime Edition

Before we begin with today's frivolity, please go here to read the first post I ever did for Veterans Day and take a moment to remember what today is. 

And now, on with the show!

Have you seen this map of average bedtimes by county in the United States? It's fascinating. It is also, I suspect, skewed by the fact that the responses came from people wearing some super-techie activity tracker device that I had never heard of. This is pure conjecture, of course, but I would bet that people who are more into gadgets and technology stay up later.

But let's carry on with this discussion anyway, because I found the results shocking.

In case you don't want to read the whole thing (though you should), the most notable point is that the earliest average bedtime in the United States is 10:31 p.m. That's on Maui. Not that it makes a difference where it is, the point is that this is the earliest average.

Most other places are around 11:30 p.m. or midnight. My own county apparently averages 11:23 p.m.

I know this is not unusual. We don't personally know any adults here--our age or otherwise--who go to bed before 10 p.m. 

Except us.

A. and I are in bed every night by 9 p.m. Okay, maybe sometimes 9:15, but those are our late nights. Many nights, we're in bed before nine. We can't even blame it on the exhausting little humans who suck our energy, either, because we went to bed at nine before we had kids. I usually went to bed around nine when I was in college for God's sake.

According to this map, this makes us very, very weird.

But, as I mentioned, I have my doubts about the true representativeness of these numbers. So let me put it to you, my lovelies, for a totally unscientific but no less interesting survey: What time do you usually go to bed?

Cubby Shreds

This morning's filthy weather--the dreaded "wintry mix," which is pretty much the worst kind of winter weather--kept us inside all morning. This is always, always a nightmare with my two small mountain men. They do not relish indoor play. It turns them into the caged feral animals they are.

By 9:30 a.m., Cubby was acting and sounding exactly like Taz from Looney Tunes (not kidding--he's never seen Taz, but the resemblance is uncanny), and I realized drastic measures were in order.

So I broke out the 30-Day Shred DVD.

In my current semi-crippled state, I was not doing any shredding of my own, but Cubby was happy to jump around and do push-ups and windmill arms and whatever else. For about ten minutes, anyway. It was a short workout, but he did a lot of jumping. The entertainment value of a four-year-old attempting the coordinated movement of a jumping jack is significant.

Charlie assured me he was a big boy and could do jumping jacks, too. This was also amusing, though he didn't even attempt the arm movements.

That look of glee on Charlie's face was strangely absent from my own face when I was doing this workout myself.

They even found their own handweights.

Maybe Jillian Michaels wouldn't recommend using an electric screwdriver and a lantern flashlight, but whatever. Sometimes we have to make do.

I don't think they're going to do the whole thirty days, but at least it got us through ten minutes of this interminable day. I'll take it.

The Honest Truth . . . That You Will Never Hear

In response to the "How are you feeling?" question directed at an obviously pregnant woman, the pregnant woman always says "Fine," or "Good."

That's a lie*.

The truth is ugly. The truth is little sleep and exhaustion and carpal tunnel in the hands and plantar fasciitis in the feet and back pain and aches in all the muscles and panting from walking upstairs and feelings of suffocation when forced to bend over.

But who wants to hear that? No one. And who wants to say it? Not me.

So how am I feeling? Fine. Thanks for asking.

* So is the conventional response of, "Well, you look great!" but the social niceties must be observed.