lacerated by beef knives

I made delicious organic beef jerky yesterday. It has been marinating since Saturday afternoon. I bought the meat already sliced, a lucky find that saved me hours of labour. It was sliced very, very thin and I think I left it in the dehydrator a little too long though, because now that it's all dry, they have become terribly sharp little tasty shards of meat.

So sharp that in the process of packaging it for the trip, I got my right hand covered in little gashes, like paper cuts. Forget bringing knives to clean the fish we catch. We will be able to gut fish, fend off grizzlies, spread peanut butter, and cut rope with the jerky.

My left hand, well, I crushed the fingertips in the garage door yesterday. So my hands are not feeling great.

The other thing is, one of the women backed out of the trip at the last minute. I think I went a little Don Corleone on her on the phone in response (but I don't think I said anything mean, cruel or otherwise inappropriate) -- I just couldn't believe that she was backing out like this so close to departure -- shafting her paddling partner (no pun intended), and putting all of us in a very awkward position.

She says she doesn't feel comfortable with the risk factor introduced by my sister and her broken/healing leg. Even though my sister's surgeon and physiotherapist both said it was completely fine, and my sister is walking and biking everywhere, and the trip is two weeks away, by which time she'll only be more healed and mobile. We will have a satellite phone and that puts us within one day of rescue in an emergency, no worse than paddling on a daytrip.

It makes me think this woman was just waiting for a reason to bail and was never that committed, which is a really bad game to play. Now she's going to miss an incredible trip in a really beautiful area with some really fun nice people.

But in the meantime, my sister and I may be doing it just the two of us -- and we are still looking for person #4 to come along! Or for a solo boat that we can take turns paddling, and go just the three of us. Any takers?