A Universal Fascination

I don't know what it is about clomping around in big shoes that is so amusing to every child in the world, but there's no denying the fascination.

Also no denying that Mia manages to get her enormous self in half the pictures I take of Cubby. Oh well. At least she loves him.

Vocabulary Lessons

Cubby has gotten to the point where he's saying (or at least attempting to say) every new word he hears. This means, of course, that I have been making an even more concerted effort to check my mouth, because while it's pretty cute to hear him say, "bumma," (bummer), it is not quite so cute to hear "sheet" (shit) come out of his pretty little mouth.

It also means that as of now his vocabulary includes quite a few words in constant use that are a bit unusual, to say the least. "Shoo" (shoot) is a frequent one now that hunting season is upon us. As are "guh-NUH" (gun) and "dee-ah" (deer), usually closely followed by "meat" (that one actually sounds just like the actual word) and the query "ee?" (eat).

Yes, Daddy shoots the deer with his gun and then we cut it up into meat and eat it. Thank you for exposing us as the woodchucks we are, my sweet.

Then there was the pleasant surprise I got the other day. I sneezed, as has been a frequent occurrence lately thanks to this wretched cold, and Cubby quite out of the blue said, "Bess-oo."

Thank you, my child. And bless you for giving your mother hope that you're not going to be a completely coarse redneck.

Just mostly.

Knowledge

Yesterday morning when it seemed that a nap was imminent for Cubby--and I knew this because he had started throwing himself to the ground because I wouldn't let him play with the meat saw A. was using to cut up the deer because I am a MEAN MOMMY--I decided I'd better bring him inside for some lunch. But first I wanted to look in the hay barn for some eggs.

So Cubby and I trekked through the paddock to the sheep barn, where he was delighted to discover an egg ("Ug-uh?") in the lower nest and I recovered another egg from the higher nest. On our way back to the house, he was even more delighted to be holding "his" egg for me, and then asked, "Ee?"

"Sure," I said. "We can eat them."

So we went inside and fried the two eggs Cubby had brought back from the hay barn not two minutes before, and he ate them both.

Nobody will ever be able to accuse that kid of not knowing where his food comes from.

No, Don't Want To

That was A.'s first full sentence as a child. I must admit to feeling something like that sulky child as I gear myself up for going outside to cut up that deer. I was kind of already over the butchering thing, thanks to the two lambs we've already cut up this fall, but now I really don't want to do it because I have a cold. All I want to do during Cubby's nap right now is take a nap myself.

Unfortunately, that venison won't cut itself up, so off I go to heed the call of the carcass. Happy Sunday, poppets.

What's a Thanksgiving Without Dead Deer?

Not a Thanksgiving at Blackrock, obviously.

Three years ago on Thanksgiving, A. and I butchered our very first deer ever. As the MiL ran around like a maniac trying to prepare for 25 people coming to our house to eat Thanksgiving dinner, A. and I stood ankle deep in freezing cold mud in the shed and cut up a deer. It took us forever and was an incredible pain in the ass.

The next year, I had a Thanksgiving blessedly free of deer remains. Last year, I had to clear up the decomposing innards the dogs thoughtfully dragged home for Thanksgiving. And this year? Well, this year A. went hunting (again) yesterday morning. With functioning shotgun shells this time.

He drove off at five in the morning in my old Nissan, because his truck was out of gas and the turn signals no longer work. So when he shot a four-point buck (that's a young one, for those of you not familiar with hunting terms), he had to stuff it into the trunk of the Nissan, like some kind of mob hitman or something. It was pretty amusing.

He got home just as the rest of the family was leaving for the family dinner at the MiL's sister's house. So while the rest of the family sat around at Aunt Barb's eating stuffed mushrooms and drinking wine, Cubby and I watched A. wash the deer out and hoist it into a tree with a Come-a-long. We also got to watch Mia chow down on the deer's windpipe.

It's a wonderful way to whet your appetite for a big meal, let me tell you.

So now we have a deer hanging right next to the driveway in front of the house, to be butchered in a few days. Since we did two of our own lambs this year, this deer will be the third animal we've butchered in the last month or so. And it will be the last, that I will insist on.

Maybe next year I'll get lucky and get to have a Thanksgiving that does not involve a dead deer. That'd be nice. But I'm not counting on it.

Thankful?

Indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving, poppets.

Mighty Mighty Pleasin', Pappy's Apple Squeezin'*

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so today is a kind of Friday, right? Right! So let's talk about alcohol.

Specifically, let's talk about A.'s hard cider, which did indeed, uh, harden in the bucket and morph from innocent, innocuous sweet cider to nasty, alcoholic, disgusting hard cider.

Okay, so I'm not a fan of real hard cider**. But A. and the MiL, both of whom have some experience with real hard cider, have pronounced it good. Which means that A. now has six gallons of alcohol (SIX! GALLONS!) that he made for free (FREE!).

Now he just has to keep himself from drinking like a gallon a day because, you know, it's there and it was free. It's a challenge.

He's started drawing it off into screw-top bottles to further ferment and get all bubbly. So stay tuned for how that works. Maybe all the bottles will blow up from over-carbonation! You just never do know.

* For the many of you who probably have no idea about the song I'm referencing in the title, please go here for a video. For those of you who did get the reference? You're my kind of people. And you should also view the video. It's pretty awesome.

** I use the word "real" to distinguish it from commercial hard cider, like Woodchuck*** or something, which bears about as much resemblance to real hard cider as grape juice does to red wine.

*** HA! I just now registered the humor in that name. This stuff that A. made is authentic woodchuck cider. Woodchuck in the Blackrock sense, that is.