Snowy Park Fishing Reserve: Take 2

Yup, we didn't learn our lesson the first time.

For our fortnightly family activity (that often means spending money), we went back to the Snowy Range to try fishing again. We decided to put a life jacket on young Raven after last time !

We had a good afternoon fishing, and everybody caught at least one fish each (but Andrew's got accidently released when he was washing it.) All Rainbow trouts. Of which Andrew cooked beautifully tonight, stuffed with olive fetta tempanda (sp?), purple onion and wrapped in bacon and cooked in garlic butter.

The children have all had a go at scaling and cleaning the fish, and filleting them too. Even Raven. I, on the other hand, have not been so brave :D. We are keen that they learn how to do everything, so they can easily have that skill for later when they might need it or just handy to know. Along that theme, we are also going to make arrow heads and start hunting rabbit, when we catch them, we will skin them, cure the hides and I'm going to make a coat out of them. My grandmother used to do this with rabbit and also prepared cow hides into leather and lamb into skins. If in fact we are able to eat them safely, we'll be doing that too, as did my grandmother. This is great stuff, I wish I had have known all of this before!

She ran a farm for many years after my grandfather died. They were married only 20 years, but she was 19, he was 40 and had serious diabetes. She never remarried, she was in love with him (a fierce competition between herself and her older sister apparently.) Its wonderful learning such stuff, it puts a human story in my mind and links me emotionally to her. Before she seemed a hard, distant woman before she died of a massive heart attack in her 80s.

The children do so much natural learning, but I do want them to know the basics and how to research so that anything they might want to learn is but a book or a field trip or a course away. Giving them that freedom is the best gift I can bestow on them. Besides not burdening them with a religion or a set strict way of life.