What's So Difficult About this Parenting Thing?

Saturday night, I came home from work and noticed that there was a basketball in one of our pine trees.  As there is no pavement anywhere close by upon which to even piddle around with a basketball, I asked my kids the inevitable question, "Why is there a basketball in the tree?"

The answer came from my oldest son in a very matter-of-fact tone, "We used it to get the frisbee out of the tree".

My next question was a bit transparent, but I asked it anyway:  "Didn't you try to get the basketball down?"

The answer that followed was, "we tried to use the frisbee, but it almost got stuck again".

I don't care what anyone says, these are the parenting moments that I live for.  All of the bedtime arguments, squabbling over chores, teen angst, etc. are more than made up for by the times when I actually have to wonder if I am hearing Calvin and Hobbes logic, or my sarcasm lessons have taken hold.

Over the years, I have done my best to teach them what I could, as it is a parent's job to make certain their children can operate in the real world when the time comes.  It's all well and good to teach them to play myriad sports, but the best thing you can do is teach them how to work things, fix things, deal with problems life is going to hurl at them.  Life is so much easier to deal with, simply from a financial standpoint, when you don't have to huck $300 or more to a plumber when your drains clog up.  My kids know what a plunger is for, and they know that boiling water is sometimes all you need for a stopped up kitchen sink.  My youngest has developed an affinity for livestock care, and my oldest son would probably gain weight if you dropped him off in the woods with a knife for a week.  Everyone can cook for themselves, when the need arises, and they are also fair hands with gadgets.  If the power goes out at night, you will likely see a milk jug full of water with a headlamp strapped to it for area lighting.

Today, we celebrated father's day with my parents with a ride and cookout.  Lacking charcoal, we used forest detritus for our fire, and the kids followed my "if you're going to grill it, mean it" rule and made do when we didn't have a pot for the baked beans.  Zack even fussed at me for using a regular can opener, rather than the one on my multi-tool.  There was swimming involved afterwards, and the kids even got to learn how to remove a leech with minimal effort and no puking.  It was a good day.  I hope yours was, as well.  Next time, I'll share my recipe for Ultimate Showdown Potato Salad.  For now, good night, friends and happy father's day.

The Upcycling Foodie, or How to Turn Garbage into (Mostly) Useful Stuff. . .

Anyone that has followed me for a time, either here or on my YouTube channel, knows I have a thing for upcycling.  I literally cannot stand to see anything go to waste.  Cans bother me, food scraps are utter torment, and don't even get me started about wine corks.  Everything is made for a reason, and most things can be recycled, like tin, aluminum, plastics, etc., but it takes a special bit of your imagination to come up with a better use for something.

First of all, there are tin cans.  The wondrous technology available to us includes can openers that will cut off the lid of a can in such a way that it can be replaced, and all without leaving an exposed, sharp edge.  This opens the door for all kinds of shenanigans!  Of course, there are the obvious uses--pen cups, craft storage, etc.  My personal favorite use for cans is making camping gadgets.  I learned to make lanterns and camp stoves from tin cans in the Boy Scouts, back before they were afraid of people getting hurt doing such things.  Two different designs I've made can be
found here and here (be warned, the last one was one of my first videos, so it's not very exciting).

Another nice little use for tin cans is, of course, a survival kit.  The average sized tin can is capable of holding enough small gear to make the expert survivalist feel like he or she is staying in a luxury suite with mosquitoes.  For the average Joe, it carries enough equipment (if you know how to use it) to make you possibly feel like you are just on a lousy camping trip, rather than dying slowly in the wilderness.

Cooking on a tin can stove (a.k.a. "hobo stove") can be challenging, to say the least, as you have a very small space in which to start and maintain your fire.  Larger cans can be used to obtain bigger cooking surfaces and fire space, but the bigger you go, the more difficult it is to pack small and light.

Granted, if you are cooking on a hobo stove, you most likely are boiling pine needles or small animals, not attempting Lobster Thermidore.

Now, for a truly useful object, wine corks come in a very close second.  As a cooking adventurer, you just might have an abundance of wine bottles passing through your kitchen over the course, leaving you with a collection (if such is your way) of both real and synthetic corks.  These can be used for everything from floating eyeglass lanyards, to bulletin boards, and even bath mats and furniture tops.  I keep a couple in my survival pack to use as fishing floats and fire starters.  Wine cork keychains have kept my keys from hitting the bottom of the lake on more than one occasion, and simply made coasters keep your houseguests from ruining the finish on your prized coffee table.

The end-all recyclable from the kitchen is food, itself.  Where vegetable matter is concerned, there is almost an endless parade of possible continued uses.  Romaine lettuce, pictured here, is easily rooted in water and will soon provide more leaves for several sandwiches before finally switching to "survival mode" and growing spindly.  If you keep it around for a while longer, it will provide seeds to plant, starting the process over again.  Potatoes are another easily planted scrap food.  If you cut chunks of potatoes and plant them (the parts with the growing "eyes"), you will find that the vines are quite prolific.  There are several ways to raise potatoes, each one accommodating your particular space.  Indoor potato planters can produce year-round, if given proper sunlight and water, though you may not necessarily grow massive bakers.  Peppers and tomatoes give seeds that are quite eager to grow, also adapting to pots and buckets just as easily as the garden.
The point I am trying to make here is that everything has its use and, sometimes, it also has a litany of other uses.  We are living in a world of filling landfills and failing ecosystems, so the planet could stand a little less garbage.  Before you pitch an object, think to yourself, "could this still have purpose?"  We'll talk about this a little bit more in the near future, including a use for bottle caps that even Uncle Scrooge would find impressive.

Good night for now, fellow adventurers!