Gun-Deer Opener...

means "Doe on the Go"** sales... Mal and I don't participate in either, but I do note all local holidays, whether I participate or not. 

Just a heads-up, if you haven't already jumped the gun on this one and donned blaze-orange for your walks in the woods*, today is the beginning of the traditional hunting season in Wisconsin. (today through the 26th).  True, there is the youth hunt in October, and the disability-assisted season, but if you heard gunshots while you were hiking the woods earlier, they weren't hunting deer.
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* There are plenty of places to hike on public lands where hunting is not permitted either.  Don't complain. Share the woods! (remember, the deer harvested today might be the one you would have struck driving at dusk later...)

** This is a tradition for the ladies who don't hunt, and stay home while their men are at deer camp. Lots of craft bazaars, bake sales, and the "girls" getting together for their fun. I learned about this back when I worked at the pool/community center, which sponsored a Saturday sale in the gym. The nice thing is, the women generally don't bring the kids along. Don't get me wrong, I like children, but at this time of year (all year, actually), I don't like it when parents take children shopping and let them touch everything they can get their little hands on.

Nowadays, with more and more children being put in daycare with all the other little ones***, they are germ carriers, and the hands go from the mouths to ... whatever they are touching. I don't want to sit on a chair at a cafe where some little one has planted her feet for height minutes earlier, I don't want to browse and shop for products a child has already handled, and I certainly don't want to have to dodge them because the parent (or guardian) decides to take them out of the house, but indoors to exercise/get their energy out in an adult space. When children are well behaved, and understand they are in an adult space, great! Hands to yourself, no mouths on the tabletops, no spilling on the floor for the workers to clean up. No standing on the chairs, and no running around exploring and touching everything in the adult environment.

Ditto the library. Bring them directly to the children's area, and have them use the plastic-covered library books to browse through and read. But it's sad, when the bottom two or three shelves of the adults sections have to remain bare, because otherwise an ill-supervised child will be touching, touching, touching... even if the hands appear to be clean.

I guess, for me nowadays, the hunting season kicks off the winter season, where you shop sparingly, and leave your cheap, clean mittens on (not the pair the dog played with) in pushing the cart, and picking up your products. You cook your own food, because you hate to eat out when the rooms are warm and somebody is sick, and you stay healthy by drinking more water, sleeping well, and staying around healthy people. (I understand children self-immunize by "sharing" their germs, but I'm not a kid anymore, and I don't like to be exposed and have other people's conveniences and choices imposed on me.) PSA over. ;-)


*** I will never, for the life of me, understand waking children early to place them in daycare/schools, so they can learn how to take communal naptime on the floor with mats surrounded by other children, all of the same age.**** Don't get me wrong: I understand it is an economic necessity for single parents, perhaps, and others struggling to put food on the table. By by choice? Isn't a child best developing healthy habits at home, including sleeping, eating, playing and learning the basics? If you can afford it, why check them into a learning warehouse, years before they are publicly mandated, so that other people can be minimally paid to enter in and out of their social circle, teaching them what is traditionally learned at home? There are story hours at libraries, and other social activities for toddlers and the pre-school set, but more and more these days, nannies attend these things I hear, not mothers or fathers raising daily their own little ones. Sad.

**** The best teacher, other than parents, can be siblings of older ages. Do you need to be there on the childrens' playground to push the little one forever on the swing, when a child a few years more experienced can show him how to "pump" on the swingset? (Hold on tight, and lean your body forward when the swing is going backwards with your legs tucked at the knee, then shift backwards when the swing changes direction with your legs fully extended, pointing at the sky...) I don't remember the big kid that taught me this (I am one of the oldest in my family), but I know it wasn't an adult, but another child. Once you get good at pumping, and confident that you won't fall off if the child initially has a cautious streak, the sky is literally the limit! Fun! They get to master the limits, and possibilities, of their own bodies. That's worth teaching, no?

I hope one day as a collective society we raise more independent children, brought up in a more healthy natural and traditional way (nuclear families!), and there are less adults imposing themselves. Sure, be an adult: don't let the little ones out without the jacket zipped up, the boots on the right feet, and the mittens clipped to the sleeves, if they are the losing type. You're the adult in the situation, afterall. But it seems just the opposite: the children are allowed to decide how to dress, no one corrects them (even if they are not your own), and they get praised for trying, even if other adults wonder why you're playing with a kid with no coat, who has her shoes on the wrong feet...