GD is a kid that always wants to know "how," especially how things are made. And then he wants to make the things himself. A few weeks ago he came out to the kitchen with a spool of thread and started cutting lengths of it and laying them out on the table, announcing that he was going to make his own fabric by weaving thread. He said then I would never have to buy fabric ever again. Sometimes his ideas get a little grandiose.
This led to me getting out my old loop weaving loom and an all-out investigation into weaving. While perusing YouTube for weaving videos we stumbled upon the How to Make Everything Series, watching a segment where they showed how to hand-weave threads made from natural materials into fabric for a men's suit. GD is now hooked on the "How to Make Everything" channel and he gets to watch an episode every night before bed. In this series the host, Andy George, attempts to make everyday items like a book or a sandwich completely from scratch, even collecting his own raw materials.
It's an interesting series. I have been enjoying watching it with him and it is educational. We've learned how to collect silk from silk worms and that silk worm moths can't eat because they don't have mouths so they just mate and die (something he found very disturbing). We learned that acorns are actually not poisonous to humans and you can make flour out of them (we haven't found any acorns to try it yet, much to GD's disappointment). We leaned how to make our own cheese and butter, how to bind a book, and how to tan a deer hide.
GD has also picked up some new vocabulary. In the episode showing how to collect hemp to weave into pants, GD was introduced to the word "marijuana." I hadn't expected Andy George to go off on a tangent about how legalizing marijuana would be good for the hemp industry, and I thought GD would just gloss over it, but evidently the word "marijuana" has a ring to it and he started letting it roll off his tongue, trying it out in different voices. We had to pause the video to discuss what marijuana is, why we can't grow our own hemp, and that it's not a word we should go around saying for fun.
That's why he doesn't watch these thigs by himself.
That's why he doesn't watch these thigs by himself.
Recently we watches the series on how to make Thanksgiving dinner from scratch in preparation for Thanksgiving. We were kind of disappointed that there was only 8 episodes because we were hoping it would last us until Thanksgiving. But Andy used a lot of leftovers from when he made his sandwich and his root beer float so we watched those too.
A few nights ago we watched Andy go wild turkey hunting. If I had known how much footage there would be of the turkey flapping around after getting shot in the head twice I probably would not have shown this at bedtime, but in my defense I thought the video was going to be about Andy raising his own domestic turkey (Yes, maybe I need to pre-screen these things). Fortunately GD fully understands and accepts where meat comes from and has been inspired to hunt his own wild turkey.
The next day he and GE set up a turkey blind out of some kitchen chairs and GE's security blanket "Bee" and proceeded to hunt stuffed chickens with air pumpers. While GD instructed GE to aim for the head, KM took a more hand-on approach.
While they were setting all this up I realized that when we made the "our kids do not play with pretend guns" parenting decision, wild turkey hunting had not been a factor we considered. I texted G at work asking what our parental position was on using pretend guns for hunting and if that decision extended to using pretend guns for hunting if your brother is pretending to be the turkey. His opinion was both of those were ok, but I'm still not too keen on pretending to shoot turkey-siblings.
After that GD hauled the chicken-turkeys to his kitchen and plucked and cooked them. He then proceeded act out the other 6 videos in the series, collecting cranberries, sugar beets, acorns, and potatoes.
By the way, Andy George does not include pie in his Thanksgiving dinner. It just seems wrong.
By the way, Andy George does not include pie in his Thanksgiving dinner. It just seems wrong.