Again, catching up a bit on 'journal' entries for Josh and Audrey, so sorry for the delay. About a month ago, Jess Gideon had her annual party at the farm. You can see the pictures in the Farm Picnics gallery. So the whole Aney clan packed up and headed out to Oronoco, with the intention that Josh and Dad would pitch a tent and sleep over night. The good thing about Oronoco is that it is only about 5-10 minutes from our house, so it was a perfect time to practice sleeping in a tent to see if Josh liked it and if he was 'ready' for it.

So why am I telling you about pitching a tent and why is the post titled 'The Other Hammer'? Well you know who the real hammer is ;) Couple of factors play into this. First is fact that Josh loves walking around with a hammer (my goal is to minimize the amount of time he actually has a real hammer in his hand) and 'fixing' things, so pitching a tent with a hammer was pretty sweet for Josh. Secondly, I let something slip out one day while mowing that has now turned Josh into a hammer wielding 'killer' :O That may be a bit far fetched, but maybe I should tell you where he gets the killer instinct.

When I was younger, maybe 6-7, I ended up being the brunt of one of my Mom's 'Cruel and Unusual Mental Punishments', also known as 'humor' to her ;) I don't know how many of my family members were involved in the setup but the premise went something like this. It was Thanksgiving, and my Mom and Sissy were pretending to not have a turkey and sent out a friend of Sissy's to go to all the stores to try and find a turkey to cook. Of course my Mom laid on the 'panic' real thick saying she didn't know how we were going to find one on Thanksgiving Day and didn't know how we were going to feed everyone. So a little time passes...probably half hour or so, and Sissy's friend returns to the house and low and behold she has a turkey! Crisis averted!

Now, I know to many people that know me, it doesn't suprise you at all that I have a 'killer instinct' given the dirty glares I can dish out and grudges I can hold ;) But in reality, I'm probably the biggest wimp you'll ever meet. Why am I confessing? The 'turkey' that was brought back to cook had one problem associated with it - size not being that problem. As I glanced out towards our kitchen expecting to see a Cub Foods bag or some other grocery store bag holding a frozen turkey, all I see is a flash of claws and feathers and what looked like a 100 pound turkey, as a 20+ pound real turkey came tearing around the corner. Of course I froze, but someone, I think Sissy or maybe Tim diverted the turkey's path and directed him into the bathroom adjacent to our dining room as it gobbled and did whatever else turkeys do while we 'figured out a game plan'.

One other footnote I should bring up. In my life up until this point, I've only killed one type of animal - pigeons. And I did this begrudgingly! lol I can still remember my Mom making me kill them with a pellet gun because they would build nests in our house awnings and poop/pee all over house, so she wanted them gone. I'd line up the pigeon in my sites, and right before pulling the trigger, I'd get all guilty about killing some 'baby pigeons' Mom. Pretty pathetic huh? Well, it gets worse. After I'd shoot them, I was too wimpy to pick up the dead pigeon, so I'd get Victoria, my younger sister to come pick it up after I had blown its brains out. To this day I have yet to touch a dead animal - and hope I never do!

So back to the sick joke my Mom was playing on me :) It was made known that we were going to have to kill this turkey so that we could cook it up for Thanksgiving. My family proceeded to tell the tall tales of how our Grandma used to cut/snap heads off of turkeys and they'd run around the yard headless - hence the saying 'Run around like a chicken with its head chopped off' I guess, except in this case it was a turkey that I only saw a glimpse of, sort of like Sasquatch sitings and it was in the next room over trotting around clawing up our bathroom floor. Telling these types of stories to a 6-7 year old, you can only imagine what was going through my head - I was also thinking, "Hey, at least I have a head, which is more than this turkey is going to be able to say".

I tried to stay calm and listen to the stories, but a sick feeling started brewing in my stomach when everyone was saying they didn't want to have to be the one to kill it. I felt like everyone was looking at me to step up and say I was Rambo or something, but remember, I'm pro life advocate for animals ;) So my Mom came up with the idea that all the kids would draw straws to see who had to kill it. Note, my Dad was still working or something, I just remember he wasn't there and my Mom was using her wheelchair/arthritis as an 'excuse' to get out of the drawing ;) So it was down to the kids. Straws were made... to make the long, straw drawing ceremony short, you all know who ended up with the short straw!

I was really sick to my stomach now and probably turning pretty pale to boot. Someone 'bagged' up the turkey in the big burlap bag and took it out to the garage where the 'execution' was to take place. I can't remember who did it because by this point I was turning pretty numb with nausea setting in. I thought back to all the pigeons I had to kill and how hard it was and I asked if the pellet gun would kill the turkey. They informed me that I had to use a different gun...probably told me a .22 or something. So, now I was scared of having to shoot a big gun as well.

Here's where the 'killer instinct' of mine kicked in ;) I had a new plan, and to this day, I can't believe I thought this was going to be 'better' lol. I told my Mom and everyone that I wouldn't shoot the turkey only offering a 'because I don't want to' as an excuse. But instead, if they give me a bat, I would go out to the garage and kill it. I'm laughing right now as I type this thinking of what my Mom must have thought of me. Now any other Mom probably would have stopped the joke right there and more importantly, stopped me from going into the garage to bludgeon a turkey to death or at least ask why I thought that was going to be better. But no! This was 'humor' remember. She told me we didn't have any bats, but we had some golf clubs and asked if I'd use that instead. Sure, a driver should suffice I thought and she told someone to go get me a club.

So I start marching towards the door and out to the garage like an executioner walking to the guillotine, thinking of how I'm going to kill this turkey. Like I said now, I don't know how I could have ever thought this was going to be better/easier than shooting it, but somehow in my mind it was - probably because I didn't think there was going to be a lot of blood. Boy would I have been wrong. That's right 'would have been', thankfully, my family came bursting out the door in laughter stopping me from performing an act that would have scared me for life probably - not that I'm scarred now or anything ;) All along we had a turkey cooked, this was just my Mom's way of getting a little holiday entertainment on the schedule. It is pretty hilarious when I think about it, I probably laughed about it at the time as well, and unfortunately, this is one of the milder forms of 'humor' that I was used as the primary prop in.

What does this story have to do with 'The Other Hammer'? Mowing the other day, Josh on my back in a backpack, we spotted a mouse by the side of the house. We've had a few get into our garage and they are driving me nuts. Anyway, I think I hit it/stunned it with the weed wacker when I was trimming by the house, so it was kind of motionless as I ran to the garage to 'figure out what to do'. That sick/anxious feeling was creeping into my stomach again fearing I may have to kill the mouse, lol. Ann was outside at the time and I told her to get me the 'Kitty Catcher' (long story, but basically just one of those extension rods with squeeze grip that closes a 'vice' on the other end). I ran back and tried picking up the mouse by the body but of course it wiggled out of that, but I did get luck an got a hold of its tail in the vice grip.

I went back to the garage, Josh on my back screaming "We got the mouse, we got the mouse Mommy!" I was thinking, "Yeah we got the mouse but now what?" Anyway, I figured if I could change shit diapers, I could kill a little mouse, I just had to keep thoughts of its Mommy out of my mind and figure out how I was going to do it. I needed something that would do the job quick! "Ann, get me the hammer!" I figured that was the best method :) Ann gave me a look of shock..."You are going to kill it with a hammer?!" Then reality set in, knowing my 'limits' as to what I can pull off ;) "You're right, maybe I'll just let it go". So I started back towards the field with the intention of 'throwing' the mouse via the Kitty Catcher into the field 'thinking' it would just leave. I'm sure it wouldn't have, but I never got that far. That poor mouse's tail broke off on the way back and it got away.

So the point to all these stories...Josh now gets his hammer (play one) daily and goes on 'Mouse Hunts'..."Got my hammer! Yep! Gonna take care of mouse!" It makes me laugh every time and like my Mom before me, I have this strange sense of curiosity to see what would actually happen if Josh did come across a mouse during one of his hunts. lol Come to think of it, it is pretty comical and a good form of 'humor', maybe my Mom was on to something :).

PS - The mouse is now gone via glue traps, so no death blows by Dad or Josh were necessary and I've succeeded in sheltering Josh a bit longer from inflicting/seeing death onto animals for the time being. Hammer wielding or not, that kid's a chip off the old block - he couldn't hurt a fly!

PPS - This post got 'lost' in telling stories about bludgeoning, but the camping practice was a disaster :) We lasted about 1.5 hours in the tent and then Josh started demanding that we wanted to go home. I told him we had to wait until we get up in the morning which of course prompted him to ask me every 30 seconds - "Time to wake up yet?" It was fun though and Josh is eager to try again, I just don't know when that will be.