My Man's Man

Our 9 year old, Jacob, went hunting today with Frank. When he got back his 3 year old brother, Caleb, asked how it went.

After hearing the very funny story about how a hen flew out from underneath their feet, Caleb asked, "Daddy shoot it?"

"No, we don't shoot hens." replied Jacob.

"Why?" Caleb's favorite question.

Jacob was prepared, having asked the question himself earlier. "Because hens are mommys. And they lay eggs. And baby pheasants come out of the eggs and we have more pheasants next year. So we can't shoot the mommys."

"Mommys not have Daddys?" I assume Caleb was asking if mommy pheasants have spouses. I don't know but I do know that our household would not work very well if Mommy didn't have a Daddy!

Photo by HVargas.

Frank got our 9 year old a pocket knife for Christmas, a Blade Tech Ganyana Lite. I overheard Frank saying he uses his pocket knife every day.

Since I don't carry one and don't think I need one, I asked how he used it. (In all fairness, we have very different jobs. I sit within arms reach of scissors all day and he walks around building and testing things.)

A lot of men, and some women, carry a pocket knife around all day, every day. What do you carry yours around for?

Here's what Frank came up with:

1. open boxes
2. open cabinet doors (if the door is locked)
3. cut scotch brite pads
4. cut packing material
5. cut film
6. gut animals

Here are some things I've seen him use it for that I added to the list:

7. cut kids straws down
8. cut tags off clothes (the permanent tags as well as the sales tags)
9. open my Paperbackswap books
10. whittle wood to start a fire
11. cutting the wax off of wine bottles 
12. removing splinters

And we are a bit short of 101! What do you use your pocket knife for?

Photo by djreigel

A couple of months ago Frank decided we needed a wine rack. Instead of buying one, he got out the tools. (“See,” he told me, “I do use them!”)

Our then 2 year old sat and watched with me. (It’s hard work documenting these things!) He was less than impressed with the noise that all the tools made.

Here’s the finished product, on top of the freezer full of meat, underneath all the canning jars.

Note that Frank spaced the wine bottles far enough apart that the large bottles will fit.

We have a “top shelf” that holds a bottle of Grgich wine and a bottom shelf that turns over often.

Every year we go up into the national forest and cut a Christmas tree. This was our best year yet. Nobody cried, nobody got a bloody nose and nobody took a snowball in the face. We even showed some restraint and didn't cut down the first good tree we saw. We scouted for about an hour and found the best tree yet.

We hiked in. The littlest guy gets to ride on the way in.

There was lots of running and snowballs.

 
Chase was sure we were hunting. Christmas tree hunting is better than no hunting!

Here are the proud Christmas tree cutters:

We wanted to show how much work it was:

And we had to run to keep up once we lost our ride to the tree:

And while it may look like he was trying to help, he was really trying to jump on:

Our best tree yet:

A friend is wondering how to teach her kids about the connection between meat and animals, which made me wonder when kids really understand that meat comes from animals.

Certainly my 3 year old knows there's a connection between animals and the meat we eat. And he knows that Daddy goes hunting and fishing and we eat what he gets.

But yet he still thinks that Daddy shot the plastic geese decoys in the garage!

Photo by me'nthedogs.

I’m in Istanbul (for work) right now. One of the things that always amazes me is the number of people that ask "who’s taking care of the baby?" Frank, of course!

Taking care of two kids and working full time is tough but Frank does a great job. The kids get to eat a few more hot dogs than when I’m home. (Not because I cook them any thing else but because I don’t like hot dogs so Frank doesn’t cook them when I’m home.) They have to get up earlier in the morning and the youngest spends an hour or two more in day care than normal. But all in all I think Frank does an excellent job and they enjoy their guy time.

So now why doesn’t anybody ask, when Frank is hunting, "who’s cooking??"

Fishing in South Dakota

We just got back from a week in South Dakota. It was a very busy week of relaxing. We got to go fishing just about every day.

One of my favorite places to fish is by the dam in Flandreau, South Dakota. It’s beautiful. You can sit in the shade, enjoy the breeze, watch giant carp jump in the middle of the river – or watch them try not to fall over the dam.

One kiddo got to see lots of  fish, "FISH! NEMO!" and the other one caught a couple.

I chatted with my 91 year old grandmother – who is still upset we were throwing the fish back in the water!

And no one got too wet – although we did get a frantic wave and holler from a guy across the river when our 7 year old decided to see if he could actually catch a fish falling over the dam.

It was a good time. (Although I am looking forward to the days when I can go back to reading my book and Frank can enjoy just fishing. I am now a pro at untangling fishing line.)

There’s an excellent article on backpacking with babies on CNN.  While it’s got some good advice, let me tell you, that woman is a super-woman. She carries a 28 pound toddler and a 30 pound pack! When we went backpacking with Caleb, I carried Caleb and a few emergency supplies like water, food and diapers. Chase (the dog) carried a few things and Frank carried everything else! And we were both beat when we got to the top.

We’re thinking about taking both the kids  (almost 8 and almost 2) and finding a place where we can hike in just a mile or two. That way Frank and I can do  a couple of round trips if necessary.

Frank does all the cooking at our house. He’s good at it, he enjoys it and he thinks it’s important. (I think eating meals as a family is important but I’m usually willing to settle for mac and cheese rather than expend the effort for pasta puttanesca.)

Frank put on an excellent Mother’s Day weekend. Saturday morning he made breakfast burritos, then  Saturday night he made "whatever I wanted" for Mother’s Day. I requested Pasta Puttanesca which we had with a glass of wine. Then Sunday morning he asked what I wanted for breakfast and when I suggested left over breakfast burritos, he decided that he had to cook something fancy for lunch, because not cooking on Mother’s Day would be just wrong! So we had the very delicious Middle Eastern Chicken Pot with couscous.

Now here’s the kicker. Since I raved about the chicken pot, Frank has informed me that it’s really easy, takes less than 30 minutes, he recorded a tv show explaining how to do it and sent me the recipe. Hmm. Think there’s a message here? If I decide to try it, I’ll let you know if my rendition of the recipe compares to Frank’s or not.