Deer Meat, Orca's and Ella's Grand Deduction..

Tales From Yesterblog: So one Monday evening after work, I gathered up the family and headed east to Blue Springs. My uncle graciously offered to let me use his meat grinder, and finally tackle the 20 or so pounds of deer meat that I wanted ground up into burger. I was going to just make this trip on my own, but my Aunt Nana invited us all out for dinner to just "hang" for a bit, so we took them up on it.

I had already done the prep work on the meat, and it was probably fifty percent thawed, so all that was left to do was grind it, bag it and tag it. My uncle's grinder was a beast and we able to run it through twice in no time. A beautifully simple process. Roone decided to hang with us guys downstairs and it took every last ounce of his self control to not to try and eat raw deer meat! The boy just loves the stuff. Bambi is currently his favorite movie, but rest assured, he will soon fully comprehend where Bambi's momma turned up. He kind of understands the connection, because he asks where the meat comes from.. Anyway, mission accomplished, Deer Chili here we come!!

Meanwhile upstairs Rachel, my Aunt, and Ella was getting to watch Free Willy. Ella is now five and she has quite an affinity for ocean life, and took to the movie pretty quickly, or so I thought... Roone and I came upstairs to see the finale, and Ella was quite stirred by the drama of Willy's rescue attempt that seemed to drag on for an eternity!! A fallen tree in the road, Willy needs constant spritzing, then more nets and boats, and then finally he jumps over the rocks into the ocean...

So we drive home in a rainstorm, and get the kids ready for bed. As I am tucking Ella in, I take a moment to ask her something. "So Ella did you like the movie - Free Willy?" I was making conversation at this point to direct the subject to something other than the "dark", or "scared", not expecting the response I got. Ella quipped quite quickly. "No Dad, they need to just leave orcas in the ocean!"

I had to choke back a burst of laughter, and just grinned in the dark and said, "You know what Ella, you are right!" What an insightful remark from a 5 year old girl! She wasn't impressed with the storyline whatsoever. All of the ridiculous stress and drama she was put through watching this poor creatures life hang in the balance for all of 112 minutes could have been SO EASILY avoided, had those guys just left Willy in the ocean where he belonged!

A grand deduction indeed, and applicable to so many other aspects of life. So the lessons learned for the day: 1. Don't leave a carnivorous bear cub named Roone alone with raw meat on the counter. 2. Before you remove something from it's natural habitat, be it orca, human, plant, mineral, or Windows Vista.. go watch Free Willy again and then put it back where you found it.. unless you are going to eat it!