Why don't people preserve basic skills in their families and pass them on to their children? I was the only kid in my family who would work hard to gather wild foods, prepare them, and learn cooking and baking skills from my mother and grandmother. My 3 sisters couldn't be bothered, and nobody pressed the issue. That was a LONG time back, so I can't hang that laziness on the current generation, but it is disappointing to see basic skills falling by the wayside.
One of my neighbors loves to hunt, but when he shoots a deer he calls me so I will go down to his place and gut it out for him. The last time, the non-hunting neighbor between us (he used to hunt, but he stopped eating meat) asked me to wait a bit so he could take his grand-daughters down to watch. They were 4 and 6 at the time, IIR. As I gutted the deer, I explained what I was taking out of it (intestines, stomach, liver, kidneys, etc) and explained what all the parts did. The girls were thrilled. Their grandfather chimed in with extra information whenever they had a question. As usual, I was all blood practically up to my elbows, but the girls weren't put off by that. That summer, my neighbor had bought a bunch of broiler chicks and raised them in a portable rolling pen. The girls were there to see the broilers slaughtered and cleaned. He's a good guy - he just wants the girls to know where the meat on their plates comes from, and they are better-off for it, IMO.
