This is my last cabin post, but there was something else I really wanted to mention. Uncle Don. Uncle Don was at the cabin this week too. (Sort of.)

Many of you will recall that I come from a long line of avid hunters. Outdoors-men and -women who take their time in nature (with gun to shoulder and bow or fishing rod in hand) very seriously. I grew up eating trout, bluegills, venison, rabbit, and the occasional bear, grouse, and squirrel. As a small child I once said in delight as we ate pork, "Oh! I wish it was pig season all year!"

My grandfathers hunted, one grandmother hunted, I hunted (pre-vegetarian years), my dad and husband and a long line of uncles and cousins all put "hunter" first in the description of who they are.

 

My great Uncle Don was one such person.

He was near the top of the list of avid outdoorsmen. Uncle Don died last year. His request for after he moved on to bigger hunting grounds – so to speak – was as follows: he asked for a party at a northwoods bar (not a stuffy funeral), and he asked to be cremated. Here it gets interesting. Uncle Don asked to have his ashes packed into shotgun shells (with live shot) to be given to his friends and family and taken hunting. He specified who got the shells and where to hunt them.

This pair of shells (labeled U.D. for Uncle Don) is going to Lake Erie with my dad next summer on their annual fishing trip. Others will be taken on various hunting trips by other hunting partners in the coming months.

 

I thought this was brilliant. He chose an end to this body as true-to-himself as the life of the man.

What are your plans?

 

My mom (now in her late 60's) and I have discussed her wishes for green
burial and I have committed to seeing it through. For me the more
simple and real the better. Home-birth, home-school, home-death,
home-burial is how I see it. Like home-birth and home-school, the latter two are legal in most states.

Okay.

Enough death.

Back to the crafty business tomorrow!

xo