My eyes are bigger than my stomach.

Emily and I have careers, so we can support our wild toddler, a needy Labrador  and a cat with IBS.  We have way more stuff to do in a day than time to do it.  Taxes, bills, retirement savings, car repairs, house repairs...  well, welcome to adulthood, I suppose.  This is harder than I thought it would be.  We have an old house, we want a big garden, a mini-orchard, a mini-vineyard, and we want a coop full of chickens.  I want to adventure deep into mountains and canyons to harvest big game animals and I want to wade wild streams to harvest fish.  Why do we want to complicate our lives with all this stuff?  Pretty much so we can cook  a really kick-ass meal, made almost completely from stuff we grew, killed, and gathered (at least one)... and we want to wash it down with beverages we brewed.  Then we want to take pictures of it, and brag about it in a blog.

Goldeneye and Antelope pâté en terrine. I.e. haute cuisine at its best... double I.e. snotty french food made with my game meat.

It is kinda weird, if you think about it.  I am trying to put out homegrown garden/fishing/hunting/cooking pornography.  Hobby farm exhibitionism.  Is it simply a symptom of Millennial narcissism?  Maybe.  My family is well known for their inflated sense of confidence.  But I don't think that is the whole answer.  I think we do it because we want to create something tangible.

For me there are two operative words there: create and tangible.  My career certainly provides opportunity for creativity.  Science itself is a creative process and fishery management is always described as 'an art and a science.'  For me, my career leaves something to be desired in the tangible component.  I have no doubt I will "make a difference" and help "conserve resources for future generations.," but it often takes a whole career to make that kind of impact... to create something tangible.  Sure, spreadsheets, reports, papers, presentations, and the like are satisfying in their own way, but growth in the length of my CV isn't going to cut it for me.  I am more sensual than that, and I need instant gratification.  I want to feel burn when hot oil hits my arm after venison and chilies go in my wok together.  I want to be piqued by the aroma of a freshly harvested elk.  I want to hear nothing but gurgling river water and the banter of family when I fillet a fish for camp hors d'oeuvres.  I want to see ripe tomatoes, fat eggplants, and ripening melons in our garden.  I want to taste all of it.

When I was a kid, my dad used to tease me about my eyes being bigger than my stomach.  I think that logic still applies.

Oh, yeah... I am hungry!  Especially for the antelope kidneys that are en flambé  in my wok.