Oh dear

Two contradictory forces have dwelt within the Mosiman home for over two decades as Brad and I have wrestled with what some would view as my hyper-sensitivity to animals; especially during this, the bloodiest of seasons. Brad was first confronted with my souped-up sensitivity syndrome twenty-five years ago when we picked up our pre-packaged venison from the butcher's. "Where are the antlers," Brad asked. "Oh," the butcher replied, shrugging, pointing with the cleaver clenched in his massive fist as his leather apron glistened with the life-blood of God's woodland creatures. "The head is over there." I will spare you the description of my new husband sorting through a pile of decapitated deer heads like a little kid looking for the right size Lego. He tossed it, with an alarming amount of nonchalance, into the back of our Plymouth Horizon. I felt like a member of the mob as we drove down the dark road with a head rattling around in our trunk. Brad gallantly unloaded our meat, bag after bag into my parent's freezer but became bogged down in rearranging the contents so as not to block my mother's Sara Lee pound cake, Swanson meals, and frozen lesueur baby peas. "Could you please just grab the last bag," he asked from the depth's of my dad's freezer. I ventured out into the darkness and approached the Horizon. I made a quick grab for the bag only to be met with terrifying resistance. I tugged and pulled frantically, gasping in terror as I locked eyes with the deer (head), dead-on. He had inconveniently rolled so that his antlers were pinning the last bag in the corner of the trunk. Twenty minutes later, my husband came looking for me and found his wife, a crumpled, sobbing puddle, in the middle of my dad's driveway.

Fast-forward twenty-five years and my exposure to hunting season has been limited to my occasionally taking a picture (with my eyes closed) and writing witty sayings on the butcher paper as Brad processes his own deer. Like it or not, my daughters have played a much larger role in this little enterprise. Both can hang, skin, and butcher a carcass while, like their father, still maintaining a healthy respect and admiration for animals balanced with a realistic view of where our food comes from. But face it...it's still hard work and it's gross to boot. So when the sound of Brad's 4-wheeler roars to life, his family might be actively praying for the "wrong" team. And upon his return, we race for the window to catch a glimpse...please don't tell him that there is much high-fiving and cheering when his back rack is empty.

We weren't so lucky a few days ago. Sydney and I went down to the garage to "admire" his acquisition. Brad asked Sydney to help hang the carcass. I watched with sick fascination as Brad held it up while Sydney valiantly attempted to run a carabiner through a pre-cut hole. "What's the problem," Brad snapped beneath the weight of his load, unable to see his daughter dodging the left cross delivery from the other leg as she tried to pin the other. Job done, we breathed a sigh of relief until his next words, "Sydney, get me the saw-zall." I disappeared as Brad criticized his daughter's technique of shaving off legs. Oh dear.