My Little Butcher

 We've been doing a little butchering this week (elk), and the four year old really wanted to get involved.  He asked for my knife, and I told him it was too sharp.  So I had his older brother bring him a butter knife.

He worked for about 30 minutes trying to cut up this meat.  At first he was working on the piece farther from him, but he was having too much success on that piece and it's the backstrap (aka the best piece of meat on the whole elk) so we gave him a different piece.

He was able to cut little chunks off the end and put them in the bucket we had set aside for grinding into burger. Then when we started grinding, he asked if we were grinding HIS meat - he was very proud of the contribution ... but he also thought it was worms that were coming out of the grinder - lol - and he kept referring to it as moose.  After about half an hour, he told me "This knife is too hard.  Can I use that one?" (pointing to my butcher knife ... Dad - it was the skinning knife Rick made - one of my favorites).  Lol.  I hope he's as interested and willing as this when he's 12 ;)

Oh and this morning, he wanted to know what the elk's name was.  I told him I didn't know, but that I was going to call it "Dinner."  :)

I don't have a picture of it, but the two year old was just as interested in the meat as his brother.  He kept coming down to watch, climbing up on a cooler so he could see better.  He was really hands-on too - poking at the meat and checking it all out.  He said, "Holy cow, that's awesome meat!"  I guess "awesome" is his favorite word these days.