"Lightning has just hit my brain..."

That title is from the movie "Hook", featuring Robin Williams as Peter Pan and Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook. I saw it with a posse of close friends when I was in junior high, I think, and it's remained a favorite ever since. 

Anyway, as Dada prepared a lovely bacon/eggs/sourdough toast breakfast this morning, he finished off the current bottle of orange juice. Liam protested that he wanted some, so I told him to go bring in the next bottle from the garage. He was dumbfounded that there would be more out there, never mind the fact that we store them out there all winter, every winter, as we have one of those ridiculous side-by-side refrigerators that isn't wide enough to shove an extra large pizza into, and the garage keeps in plenty of cold. 

As he returns, loudly proclaiming that he'd never noticed the bagged bottles of orange juice outside the door to the garage, in my head I heard the Holderness family spoof of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". One of my favorites for sure. 

Then it hit me, like lightning. All those centuries and lifetimes of men being the hunters while women were the gatherers. I mused aloud to Dada, "wait, the MEN were the hunters?! They can't find ANYTHING! How did THAT work? The good Lord would have had to said to each deer, 'you, get out from behind that rock. They'll never find you otherwise. You, get farther into the field because they won't think to check the woods for you.'" 

Dada smiled, knowing he's guilty of not always hunting until the lost item is found, and gave me some grief about sexual prejudice. 

I continued anyway, "OH! So THAT'S why they followed the HERDS. Even men could follow a herd. 'There they gooooo!'" 
It's all so clear now! Women would have checked under every leaf for berries and under every rock for edibles, hence the "leave no stone unturned" gatherers and the men could traipse after the herds of buffalo or mastodons or whatever was in the area. Got it!

And there's our history according to me. You're welcome. And thanks to the amazing Holderness family for speaking the truth in fun. Haha! I take no credit other than copy and paste. If you haven't explored them, go check them out- they are a hoot!

Breakfast, the most important meal of the day

I'd like to say that Liam takes breakfast seriously, but if you've ever been in the tri-state area when he's supposed to be eating breakfast, you'd more often hear my voice reminding him to eat than you'd actually hear him chewing. I suppose I should be grateful as I hate hearing the sound of chewing. Licking is even worse. 

Anyway, Liam does however take the making of breakfast very seriously. He loves weekends so he can putter about in his robe (and sometimes hairnet, of his own volition, don't ask) and whip up pancakes and French toast and his favorite meat, bacon. An added bonus is that PaPa gave us his old griddle; you'd have thought we'd handed Liam the moon. 

                                          

At least we know that once he's out into the real world he won't starve to death when there are breakfast ingredients at hand. Dinner is a different story, but one thing at a time. 

A new toy for Dada

Dada and Carrie headed to a Saturday auction and came home with a fancy pirate kite, some wooden boards, and a Rototiller. They had help getting it home. (Thanks again, Jeff and Cindy!)

So he had to test it out. Hey, it just so happens we needed to get the gardens going. How 'bout that!?

Worked like a charm and we're all delighted. The tiny garden behind the house is planted; the big garden by the creek is tilled and ready to go. Carrie and I spent a lot of yesterday pulling weeds and inadvertently severing worms, sending spiders scurrying and dandelion seeds floating. It was truly sunny for the first time, and I enjoyed every single second of pinkening my skin. That's the word I'm coining. I was afraid my feet were burning in my sandals, so I did what generations of bacon have done. I headed into the creek to apply mud and, whaddaya know, it actually worked! I should have done my back...