After Saturday Pancakes

(Cheryl writing)
After Mike's wondrous pancake breakfast, topped off with good Canadian maple syrup (thanks Mom), Mike mapped out my morning walk. He wants to get a deer for Hostetlers. He got one for us already. I was to leave 5 min. after him. He would go to his tree-stand and I would hopefully scare up some deer for him. The instructions were, go past the old car in the woods, follow the gas line down to the upper main path, turn left, go the drive, out the road past the blue house (which has been red five years now but looked better blue), right into the woods, take the second path to the left and down to the tree-stand. I get a bit confused in the woods, well really I get confused in a lot of places. But I made it. I saw three oval patches of glistening red and brown leaves in the snow, last night deer beds. Later Mike showed me bear prints in the snow. Giant bear prints. Still no deer for the Hostetlers.
I canned some of our venison for the first time. Cooked the meat in a roaster at 400 degrees for eight minutes, then did a three hour boiling water bath. Still my dietitian friend made her Oh dear face after I told her. She believes in pressure caners and thinks we will not die but just may wish we were dead after eating our meat. I don't know how real woman who preserve most of their own food for the winter do it. I did 5 pints and 1 quart of venison and afterwards was almost too tired to stay awake for The Simpsons. Minnette says she has to believe that real women don't have jobs.
Last night was the Philippi Christmas parade, we took the Drooger kids, let them pick where to eat first. Chinese. What kids pick Chinese over McDonald's? After supper we choose our viewing spot. Eli wanted to be closer to the start of the parade, fearing they'd run out of candy near the end. It's five blocks. He filled his left glove full of Tootsie Rolls and chocolate kisses and dollar store hard candies, twice. Sarah said she was cold and Mike told her to do jumping jacks. She did three, concentrating on what opens and what closes and when. She said they made her warm. When the high school bands came she bobbed to the drums. Santa waved from atop his firetruck ladder, wishing Merry Christmas to all, as we do to you.