“Hey Dad!” said Caleb as I headed out the door. “When you get home from work, we should have a drink and talk about hunting a deer.”

I concealed a laugh, and simply told him “Sure. Sounds good son.” But Rachel, standing behind him, appeared equally amused.

For the “drink,” it turned out, he was happy with milk. But he had a very clear intention with the topic of conversation. “Dad, I need to learn how to kill deer.”

The request, and the “need,” surfaced an amusing truth: For a kid at age 6, Dad is still assumed to be the definitive resource on anything he needs to learn. It matters not that Dad has never shot a deer, or that he has shot exactly one turkey. And even that was the result of one gaggles foolishly predictable travel pattern near the office around Thanksgiving, not Dad’s impeccable turkey calling skills or any enviable outdoorsman-ship in general.

The turkey adventure had stretched into the night, with Rachel and a YouTube instructional video on the front deck to guide our plucking and cleaning process. It’s worth noting that Rachel, unlike most spouses, did not respond negatively to my call about a large bird in the back of my truck, in need of plucking.   Fortunately for the rest of us, her interest in fine food from fine sources outweighs the initial inconvenience of plucking.

And that may become the perfect match. If Caleb learns to hunt, under my guidance (or rather, via Dr. Grant Woods at www.GrowingDeer.tv as interpreted through Dad), and Rachel enjoys cooking the quail, deer and turkeys that march regularly within rock-throwing distance of the Ahlmann Family Airstream at Six Sigma Ranch, this could turn out well. (The buck pictured above is one of the local residents.)

So far we’ve sighted in uncle Michael’s air rifle for target practice. It can, according to reliable sources, also serve to take down my young protégé’s first game, including quail, as soon as he can reach around the stock and look through the scope at the same time. Stay tuned.

Christian

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Photo Credit: Bob Minenna