Uncle Tyler

The girls have many uncles but the one they spend the most time with is my brother, Uncle Tyler.

Which is good because little princesses need a healthy dose of Uncle Tyler every now and then. As much farming and hunting that we do we just can’t compete with the fascination of Uncle Tyler. For starters he’s not us, so therefore he is automatically cooler in the eyes of his nieces. Second of all he shoots more stuff and happily shows the girls what he’s doing as well as finds them cool things to see and trees to climb. He also is fascinatingly dirty while he’s hunting – that’s really here nor there just a good side note. Grime aside they were excited to see him so many days last week. Since all the time spent with Tyler was the middle of the gun season it involved an extra amount of grime and plenty of opportunity to check out the hunters successes. The girls happily went with him to see dead deer while he showed them who shot which deer and what he was doing when he helped butcher them.

Clara told everyone “Tyler shoot big buck” with her arms in the air for emphasis just in case anyone missed his bow deer of a few weeks ago. Then after John shot a very nice doe she added “Dad shoot done” (rhymes with stone) to her deer hunting talk. She got rides from Uncle Tyler and anyone else who would carry her to and from the shed to see the deer every chance she got. Ivy took her friend in to see all the deer and was perhaps a little miffed when she wasn’t interested in identifying carcasses with Ivy and instead bolted for the door. In short my girls are not afraid of dead things and they love their Uncle Tyler so I was more than a bit taken aback by Clara’s bedtime conversation with me the other night:

Clara: Uncle Tyler shoot big buck!
Me: Yup.
Clara: Dad shoot big doe! (we worked on pronunciation since last weekend)
Me: Yup.
Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up dad doe.
Me: Yup he helped. (A clarification to pacify those who did cut up Johns doe (Thank you!) Tyler did not in fact cut up that deer, but he cut up some others and I was trying to get the girl to go to sleep since she was up and talking far past bedtime.)

Then there was a thoughtful silence, followed by a very worried:

Clara: Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

Me: No Clara, Uncle Tyler would never cut you up. (shit… and excuse my language but there is really no other phrase that better suits the fact that at 8:45 at night your two year old is suddenly worried that her beloved Uncle is going to carve her up like a deer.)

Clara: Uncle Tyler have big knife….. Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

So we talked about all the fun things that her Uncle Tyler likes to do with her and the conversation was going well until I mentioned that he likes to climb trees with her.

Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up trees!

Me: (shit!)

Fifteen minutes and one futile phone call to Uncle Tyler later(Tell me please – is there anything more annoying than a brother who falls asleep before your daughter, who is awake because of him???) I had her mostly convinced that her Uncle was not going to cut her up because she is not meat, and he wouldn’t do that even if he does have a big knife. She finally fell asleep and I haven’t heard any more about it since.

This weekend we will again be spending time with Uncle Tyler. The girls are already excited and I’m just crossing my fingers that we’ll all be able to sleep when we get home!

Thanksgiving Miracles

Nov28

We have Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad’s side of the family every year. I know Christmas is supposed to be the time for miracles but I think in this family the miracles come early.

Most of the miracles revolve around the fact that 45 people gathered at my aunt and uncles to eat dinner together. This means that not only is it miraculous that my aunt can seat (that’s right, you heard me – seat) 45 people in her house at once but that we have that many family members willing to show up with a side dish for the evening! The house, I feel I must mention, is a very normal house. IE: it’s not actually made to seat 45. Instead I’m pretty sure they are somehow able bend the natural occurring laws of space in order to fit enough tables and people inside it once a year – miracle. The turkeys (you need a lot of turkeys to feed this crowd… and a ham) are delicious and left overs usually go to feed a slightly smaller contingency of the family lunch the next day after they finish butchering the years deer harvest. A mere two days later and a giant feast has been mostly reduced to crumbs and turkey carcasses.

No one else was interested in the remnants of the turkey (or perhaps it was that we excitedly jumped up and down and called dibs on it) so we came home yesterday with a giant bucket of bones, giblets and necks… mmm mmm mmm! John pulled out our turkey fryer in order to find a pot large enough and spent the night making turkey stock. Today after picking bones for an hour (did I mention it was a really big pot???) he had it all ready to go. Normally we would just divide and freeze all the stock but our freezer space is limited this year. I’m not sure what happened but apparently one pig, two deer, 7 chickens, a turkey and assorted fruits just fill the thing right up. The Thanksgiving space making miracle unfortunately does not seem to apply to my freezer so after dividing up and freezing about a gallon of it we pulled out … the pressure canner.

I’ve only had the pressure canner for a few years, and up until today it had been used solely to can venison – a lot of venison– but just venison. While regular hot water bath canning doesn’t phase me much anymore the pressure canner always seems a bit intimidating. Our brief history together has been a rocky love/hate relationship. First there is the fact that I always have to double check the instructions, how long to vent the steam, how much water to add, stuff like that, which then turns me into a neurotic instruction checker even though I know the basic steps. Suddenly I can’t help but consult my instructions every five seconds, which of course makes everything take twice as long, except when I lose my instruction booklet every ten seconds… then it takes three times as long. When I actually get everything going and the steam is spitting out the top and the little pressure doohickey is spinning round and making crazy noises and I’m crossing my fingers I haven’t screwed anything up and if I did that the 50 thousand safety release valves this canner seems to have will save me, ( I have a vivid memory of Granny making chicken soup in a pressure cooker that involves a stained ceiling that I should endeavor not to think about when using the canner.) and I’m worried that even if we survive the pressure it might all be a broken catastrophe inside when I open it up again, that’s when I’m afraid I really sort of hate the canner. Then just when I get in the groove, remember how things work, force myself to leave the instruction booklet alone and push my fear of the giant spitting pot to the back of my mind I start worrying that I’m going to screw up and poison my whole family with botulism or some other fantastic disease like that.

But so far – so far – it’s always gone well. Things have not exploded and burned body parts have been kept to a minimum. I’ve only ever had one jar break and my family is still alive and kicking. Today when I finally got to pull out the still bubbling jars and only sort of burned my thumb I looked at all 16 pints of turkey stock lined up on the counter ready NOT to go in the freezer and had a change of heart. I stared at the still slightly boiling jars, I listened to the seals pop closed, I marveled at the fact that I could put it all on the floor of the pantry and nothing would get damaged by rodents and that’s when I had my own mini Thanksgiving miracle and re-fell in love with the pressure canner.

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

Nov21

I’ve read most of Chris Bohjalian’s other books so when I saw his newest on the shelf I dove right in.

Oops.

While some of his others were nightmare inducing for other reasons they didn’t involve seeing dead people, and contemplating killing your own children, not to mention and the extra chill inducing ending.

Please read something by Bohjalian… just maybe not this one.

Would I recommend it? No, well written, but just no.

Pink and Blue

Nov21

Just in case you missed it I’d like you to know that Ivy loves pink.

In case she wasn’t the one to tell you that I”ll just quick clarify that her favorites are dark pink and dark purple, she wouldn’t want you to be confused about that.

She also loves, horses, fairy’s and princesses.

Ivy is my daughter who goes to pick pumpkins in an outfit like this:

I love the girl but ~~some days~~ most days the girly girl stuff completely baffles me. (Skirts in November? Why Ivy, why?)

Then there is my bug lover Clara.

She also loves dogs, shopping and her “pink blanket” which is green.

Clara is baffling for other reasons. (Shopping?!? Real shopping and pretend?)

Love of shopping aside I must say that it warmed this mothers heart more than reasonable when Clara and I were looking at a book together and she said:

“Me wike boo Mom.”

After four years of all pink all the time, I think I’m ready to add a bit of blue!

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Nov19

It appears I read the first book in this series before I started writing about the books I was reading, which is annoying to me, and possibly to you to. Or maybe it’s just a bit of my need-to-have-some-part-of-my-life-in-order-so-I-choose-odd-small-things issue coming though and no one is annoyed other than me.

Regardless of who is or is not annoyed by this out of order book review I’ll attempt to put my own issues aside and carry on.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman was a recommendation from Pat Rothfuss’s blog. And since we should all have read at least The Name of The Wind by now we know he is a super author, and we should probably at least check out his recommendations right?

Right.

If you would like to do so yourself here is his link http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2009/08/things-i-like-magicians-and-faeries-of/

Personally I’d call The Magicians something of a Harry Potter meets Narnia in an adult sort of way.

(And by that oh best beloved I mean we’ve added, sarcasm, sex, drugs, alcohol, death and other assorted nasties)

I recall it being a fairly wonderful, if slightly startling book, so therefore I found the second in the series (see large title above) and brought it home. I then proceeded to read this book in a much shorter time frame than I should have which resulted in a much shorter night sleep than was really prudent.

And it was worth it.

Would I recommend it? Why yes, yes I would, thanks for asking.

And on a slightly different but still sort of related subject I feel compelled to share this flow chart of NPR’s top 100 science fiction and fantasy books (also recommended by Pat Rothfuss) because it’s funny if you’ve read enough of them to be dorky enough to get the jokes and possibly helpful in finding a new book to read if you haven’t.

NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Flow Chart

The Unappreciated Cat

Nov18

I was thinking about the cat today and how she’s really rather unappreciated in my blogging world. I double checked and discovered that there are five tags on posts with “cats” and 41 for “dogs”. It just so happens that I took this picture of her the other day so I thought it would be a great opportunity to share a little Fiona story.

That’s when I came to the realization that she’s not under appreciated.

She’s just boring.

In addition to boring she is also frighteningly outperformed in her cat duties by one large Great Dane.

Cat duty: Spend the day sleeping in the sun in an inconvenient place.

Fiona – check

Piper -Sleeps in an inconvenient place but takes up 20 times more room and when you oust her from that place sighs loudly and often farts in your general direction as she moves off.

Cat duty: Kills rodents or other small animals.

Fiona – Doesn’t know what to do with a mouse when given to her on a silver platter.

I know I’ve tried.

Piper- Kills rats with relish. Also death on possum, skunk and other small creatures that invade her kingdom.

Cat duty: Being a general cuddly animal.

Fiona – Waits until you are almost settled in your chair/bed/what have you and then sits on you. If you attempt to remove her she will somehow sink her freakishly sharp back claws into you on her way off.

Piper – Such a good cuddler that I actually kicked John out of bed late in pregnancy with Ivy in favor of Pipers back warming skills.

Fiona also is worse about stealing food off the table and pukes in the house more than Piper does.

To top it off I prefer blogging with pictures, while Fiona is a beautiful cat her coloring makes taking a good picture of her very difficult. This is exacerbated by the fact that she is a cat so immediately looks annoyed and haughty while turning her head away from me while I try.

I’m no longer confused about why the dog posts have outnumbered the cats.

Oh Teddy!

Nov16

Last night Clara’s toy of the moment was an old beanie baby style stuffed teddy bear. The bear has seen better days part of an ear has been mostly chewed off by Storm, it’s got the distinctive slobber crusted fur of an animal that’s been loved by Piper and Clara has gotten into the unappealing habit of sucking on one of it’s paws.

But looks aside, Clara loves her Teddy.

(Pretend there is a nice cute picture of Clara holding her Teddy here because that is really what this post should have. While you are at it pretend I’m a computer whiz and am not still arguing with my computers.)

Last night I listened to her talking to her Teddy, it went a little something like this:

“Oh Teddy!!!” Translation: Oh Teddy I’m so happy to see you!

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: Yes I love you too.

“Oh Teddy?” Translation: Are you cold?

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: Here I have snuggled you under blankets is that should be much better.

“Oh Teddy!” Translation: Come on out and play!

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: I love you.

At least I’m pretty sure that’s what she was saying!

Crazy?

Nov14

This last weekend the family gathered in Pewaukee for an “Early 2011 Holiday Meal” with Granny and Gramps before they head down to Florida. I brought a ham for dinner, my Mom made twice baked potatoes, John brought the wine, and Tyler showed up with this:

Someone should probably explain to Tyler what is and is not acceptable as a hostess gift.

After taking lots of pictures,Tyler graciously gave this deer to John and I. Since this is Tyler’s second deer of the year, and we are out of venison we happily accepted his offer. The deer was well photographed, hung in the garage and we all went and had our “Early 2011 Holiday Meal” The food was delicious, the company was not bad (considering we were all related) and soon it was time for the fun to be over and the girls to head to bed.

That’s when Tyler got a look that was a little like this:

Suddenly at 9:30 on a Saturday night after eating far too much delicious food I found myself sitting at my parents kitchen counter butchering a deer while listening to a conversation about how the family isn’t crazy we just are more interesting, or fun, or something that was attempting to justify the fact that we were spending our night putting meat into little white packages. All the while John is pulling out knives and grinders he is yelling that we made him crazy, claiming that he used to be perfectly happy watching movies or playing cards and that our family had ruined him.

I’m not sure if we are crazy or just know how to have a good time, but it was a memorable night full of laughter and I’ve got freezer full of venison again.

Can’t complain about any of that!