Chip off the old block

I like reading around in the more accessible anthropological literature about primate and hunter/gatherer childhoods; I find it useful when I have drilled myself down into a dark child-development hole to have a few notions in my head about all the extraordinarily different ways the human animal has dealt with its young.

So, knowing about those one-year-old babies who wield machetes, I was at least slightly prepared.

Peter and the boys were doing outdoor chores on Saturday morning. When I stepped outside, here is what I saw:

"WHAT are you DOING?" I cried.

Peter shrugged. "Making artisanal wood mulch," he said.