Survival Through The Eyes of a Four Year Old Girl

My fourth birth daughter, little almost 5yo Polly, can be SO funny! I simply have to share this moment with you!

My dd Missy had spilled a paper bowl full of Turtle flavored Chex mix all over the kitchen floor. She was busy sweeping up her mess when she began to say "Uhhh...Uhhhh..." Polly went to see what was bothering Missy and announced, "Mom, there's an ant on the floor!" So I came in from the living room to see the extent of the ant invasion and found a lone tiny ant, squashed by Polly's chubby pointer finger, on the floor. I said, "There's just one?" To which my precious hazel-eyes blondie remarked, "Well, there were two, but I ATE one!" I gulped and said, "Did you *really*?" She looked as if I were the silly one and said in the perfect smart girl tone..."I squished him first!" (like, DUH)..."Of course she would squish him first...otherwise he might bite her tongue!", she explained later!

Oh, these homeschooled kids! I had been explaining to the children a few days before that, during our time in Search and Rescue (back in Oregon, a million years ago), Daddy and I had been trained in many different areas including outdoor survival. How to make traps, fires, capture dew for water, build survival shelters, what to eat etc. Ants were one common thing that you can eat in a survival situation. You are supposed to squash them or bite off their heads so they don't bite you! You can also stir many of them into water and boil, and the water will be faintly lemony. And, in case you wanted to know, slugs are also a safe food source, as are snails, of course! Beware of some berries as 90% of red berries are poisonous, but many blue and most black colored berries are not. Nibble a tiny bit and see if it makes your tongue tingle. A tingly tongue means no good!

So anyway, our well-fed blondie thought she would practice her outdoor survival skills in our well-stocked kitchen and eat an ant...hopefully it was the first time she had seen an ant since that lesson!