Forest Kozan

Yesterday myself and Cian took ourselves off into the mountains for a sun-drenched day of communing with nature - particularly small, creepy-crawly nature. The occasion was a once a month outdoor nursery and extreme wilderness survival class for 4 to 6 year olds. So we spent the day admiring the freshly pink cherry blossoms, the clear, sparkling, snow melt water in the nearby river and learning how to catch, kill, gut and skin a deer using only our bare hands and some disposable chopsticks.

Thank God for the clear, sparkling, snow melt water in the river to wash the deer viscera off our hands - man, do those animals ever bleed, particularly, as Cian did, when you sever a jugular while trying to pop their eyeballs out; though it turns out cherry blossoms make for quite tasty seasoning on barbecued venison.

With bellies sated we spent the afternoon after lunch relaxing, rolling around on the grass and honing 10-point antlers into rapier like points, all the better to pin the deer hide to some trees, dry it out and make prêt-à-porte buckskin suits for all the family.

Of course, the one thing I forgot to bring with us was my camera so all you have are my vivid descriptions but there are somewhat tame, PG-12 photos here of the gathered tribes moments before we succumbed to our primeval blood lust and decimated the local deer population.

"Forest Kozan: Cian, son, remember up here you're either hunting something, or it's hunting you."