Remind me of all of this when she turns 16 and returns my car two hours past curfew with an empty gas tank

Just before the new year, we took the kids up into New Hampshire to celebrate a little snowfall with some downhill skiing.

Skiing in New England isn't like skiing in Tahoe or many other destinations. The mountains are smaller, and the snow (so say the experts) is different. I don't know. I'm from Georgia. Most of our snow comes in cones. I grew up skiing occasionally, and I can sort of remember how to get from the top of the hill to the bottom in more or less one piece, but that's about it. 

The Critter has been skiing every season since we moved here, however, and she's both confident and comfortable. 

 

She and I stuck my Bride and the Boy into their respective classes, and went up our first chair lift of the morning.  I asked her if we could take one of the "green" slopes to start out with - this was at Crotched Mountain, which has nice long, windy slopes with plenty of room to practice your skills. 

The Critter gave me a thumbs up and headed down the slope. I zig zagged and tacked back and forth across the hill, giving my body a chance to calm down after being strapped to two long, rigid sticks with the unreasonable purpose of making my downhill descent faster and less deliberate. I would zoom, swish. Zoom, swish to a somewhat controlled stop. And check back up the hill to watch the Critter steadily descend. She has remarkable control. She points her skiis downhill, and goes at a nice, even clip, apparently exactly as fast as she wants. No more, no less. 

The Critter has several friends that are on the local racing teams. They figure out tricks to go faster. They seek speed, and get frustrated when they don't win, and show up the next week to do it again.  I asked her if she wanted to race or join one of the teams. She said, "No thanks." And we got back in the chair lift and headed up the hill again. 

A few more runs and I was feeling comfortable enough to let her choose the next slope. She chose a blue slope, where some of the teams were practicing slaloms. It had a steep drop off, coming from a black diamond above it, where the racers would weave in and out around poles. The Critter just smiled, and headed off at her steady pace. About halfway down, I lost control, and tumbled to a wretched stop. I sat in the snow and contemplated how the hell I was going to get off the hill.

An older guy stopped me and asked me if I needed any help. 

"No. Just remind me that I don't have to try and keep up with my 10 year old next time." 

He laughed, and said he had been right where I was and helped me me up. I swallowed my pride, took my skiis off, and walked the rest of the way down the steep part of the slope, until it went around the bend and leveled out to something more rational. 

I found the Critter there waiting on me. 

She had stopped, and watched the racers zoom by, and was patiently watching the slope for me to finally make it around. We laughed a bit together at the foolishness of old men who think they can keep up, and I strapped my skiis on again. I told her to give my battered, snowy corpse a gentle shove down the hill if I didn't manage to make it all the way off of this slope. And which pocket I had put the car keys into. Zoom, swish, zoom, swish, stop, I went down the rest of the hill. Steady, easy, confident skiing she went along side me. 

We skied for another couple of hours and headed home, where I soothed my oldness with a hot bath, a cold beer, a half bottle of motrin, and something on my kindle. Simultaneously.

 

The Critter has never been in a rush. She strolls through the day, enjoying whatever she's doing at her pace. It shouldn't have surprised me that she took skiing with the same confidently content insouciance that she does everything else. She ran cross-country this past autumn for the first time, and was consistently the last to finish at every meet. But she was having a good time. She enjoyed her classmates. She liked the activity and running through the woods. She felt good about what she was doing.  And I gave her a high five when she crossed the finish line. She's in competition with nobody but herself. And she seemingly came into this world already & instinctually aware of that fundamental truth.

 This is the same kid who, when she was five and meeting a friend at the movies, chose to wear her Pirates of the Carribean costume. With the hat. Not because it was a movie about princesses, or because her friend was going to wear her costume. Just because she enjoyed it. These are the lessons you hope and pray your kids - maybe especially your daughter - picks up. Enjoy who you are. Be comfortable with your skin. Laugh when you fall down, and wait for those that need a little extra time. Especially when it's your daddy. 

This week, she got in trouble. Normal, 10 year old kind of trouble that cost her tv, computer and other electronics priveleges for a week or so. (I learned this trick from the Army: "Drop and start doing pushups until I get tired!" The irrationality of the punishment is the only way to restore a little fun into being a parent in those moments.) 

This morning, I made her lunch and slipped a note into her lunchbox:  I'll love you to the stars and back, little girl. Even when you get in trouble. 

I cannot teach this stuff. Hell, if anything, she's teaching me. I just get to sit back and watch this remarkable kid turn into a remarkable person. And wish it wasn't happening so damned fast.

2013 - we salute you.

The last day of holiday should, by law, be spent in your pajamas. 

The ski helmet, goggles and rifle were his own idea. 

In his defense, here's a picture of the Critter taken at the same age, in a similar state of fashion-forwardism.

Not sure what it is with my kids and goggles. It must be because we live in The Future.  I remember from the comic books I read as a kid that there would be more goggles in The Future. 

Fall traditions - father/daughter slaughterhouse day

It's that time of year. 

The time of year where I send a note into the school that gets added to the Grady children's "special file". 

'Dear teacher. It's the annual father/daughter slaughterhouse day.

This makes perfect sense in our world.

No intervention needed here. Move along." 

As I discovered the first time we did this, there are very few places you can have your livestock processed in Massachusetts. In fact, there's only one in the eastern half of the state. The fifth generation Blood Farm: a small family business that is kept busy mostly by hunters and smallhold farmers and specialty butchers. It's a beautiful place in its way, situated on the outskirts of Groton, MA with a history and rhythm seeped into the chill of the cold rooms and laughter of the crew working at a steady pace on whatever carcass is in front of them. 

Along with the pigs and beef quarters, we saw plenty of deer hanging (it being November) - one of the butchers said that last week someone brought in an 800 pound moose, and another guy brought in a small-ish bear from someplace in Maine.  

Seeing the processed carcasses hanging, waiting on the butcher's knife made us all kinds of happy. The Critter was pointing out the livers and other bits, and the different animals by their shape. She's been paying attention. Here she is trying to spot our pigs from the various carcasses in the cooler.  

So what's the cost of taking a pig to slaughter these days? 

One of our pigs was 230 pounds. The other 250. This is about average for our previous years. Good, healthy, year-old pigs (more or less. probably a little bit less than a year, actually). 

The cost of slaughter was $30 for the smaller, $35 for the latter.  There are additional transportation costs, and the cost of the animals themselves, of course, but the slaughter process itself was dirt cheap. Figure that the slaughter involves management of the live pig to the killing floor. The quick kill itself. Then draining, shaving, evisceration and bisecting (the pigs are always cut in half).  Probably only about 15-20 minutes of actual effort in a highly efficient operation, and a couple/three hours of overall calendar time. There's the cost of overhead: disposal of the extra bits, the staff, refrigeration, inspection readiness (Departments of Health or Agriculture are frequent visitors).

Once you pay the staff, there's not a whole lot of profit going on here. It's a labor of love as much as convenience.  And when you add all the costs, including butchering together, I'm still coming out a dollar or a bit more per pound cheaper than the cost of meat at the grocery store, all in. So I'm definitely ok with driving out there every year, to make sure they're still there the next year when I need them. 

(if you're a little bit squeamish, feel free to skip the next picture). 

Our favorite butcher, Mike Dulock, has moved a bit further away this past year. It's a about a 45 minute drive down various highways with two pink fleshy carcasses, wrapped in plastic in the bed of my truck. (I was tempted to let a trotter stick out over the edge, just to see if I'd get a wave from folks driving by, but I contained myself.)

Mike's new shop (follow him on Twitter - @craftbutcher) is fantastic. I like it better than his old place, despite the distance. It's in the city, so it doesn't have the luxury of space that his old suburban location had, but it's set up much more intimately, with the processing area viewable to the customer and passersby. It's much more European-Olde-Worlde, much less American-sterile. And the curiosity of seeing a whole animal expertly rendered into familar parts has always drawn me in - It's why I'm so non-plussed by the grocery store butcher.  And he's set it up to take best advantage of that, and really engage the customer with what they're eating, right from the time they buy it. 

This is what 'farm-to-table' is all about.

Mike's costs are a straight by-the-pound processing, and he and I spend a few minutes talking about what I want to do with the pigs. This year, that involves 3 prosciuttos (so three of the hams are allocated). All the belly will be desitined for pancetta (so no skin left on the belly), and I want plenty of back bacon of the English, non-streaky sort (which creeps down into the belly, making it a bit less wide). 

We're more a fan of roasts than chops, and always need plenty of trimming for sausage. This year's "special" new goal will be to make guanciale - I've got last year's cheeks set aside as well in the freezer, which should be fine. Otherwise, I told Mike and his lovely assistant Maureene to just 'cut it however the pig speaks to you'. By now, he's got enough experience with how we like our animals that I have complete faith in the end result. 

At the end of the day, the Critter and I headed home and fried up some onions and fresh sausage that Mike had on hand (different pigs). They were an English breakfast sausage style recipe, and I was thinking about having him make up a few pounds for me from our animals, to save me the trouble of casing them. (of all the parts I enjoy, that is not one of them). 

We ate our sausage with toast and a little spicy mustard, and sat in companionable silence at the counter, happy with our days effort. 

She left me a good morning message in the frost on my truck this morning. 

I think she still enjoys our outings.