Smell that?.....Smells Like Canada

The weekend was a lot of time spent indoors, like everyone else we had a lot of snow and nasty-cold winds. We did play in the backyard a little bit on Saturday. Played some field hockey on the tundra, no actual ice but the shoveled off grass works pretty well for boot hockey and tennis balls. There was enough snow to also break out the snow shoes for a romp around the back yard. Sophia's snow shoes fit her well and we found out that Sophia's snow shoes don't fit Merrick that well--however he was convinced that he was uber cool when he had them on--even if he didn't say as much. Sunday started off by feeding DVD's into the TV like Ritalin at an elementary school but then ended with some ice time for both kids. While it is Sophia's practice, Merrick too brings his stick and helmet, and loves to crash into the glass. This weekend was no different, although he seemed to get more compliments on his helmet this time than normal. Trucking two kids across a desolate parking lot to go to a Sunday night hockey practice did indeed seem very Canadian.
Sophia (orange #3) doesn't have an actual team but as the one picture shows apparently the yellow team used a textbook strategy of mini-mites--skate towards the net and then slide at the goalie (Sophia was the goal tender). They rotated her out of net and she is really skating well and even had a nice backhand goal. The day ended much as it had started with TV on, although the evening was permeated by the temperature induced requirement of the chicken noodle soup--with homemade noodles

From Snow Man to No man

Saturday was great weather for playing outside with the temps in the low 30s. lisa and the kids built a snow man. Initially Sophia and I made two snow balls that were too large to hoist onto one another. This lead to two snowmen as I could not convince her that we should just make a snowman that is taking a nap. In the end she enlisted the help of her brother and mother to deck out a full sized snow man complete with scarf and carroted nose. Merrick also was able to get some 'ice time' in with his hockey stick. What a difference a day makes as it started to rain Saturday night and judging by the amount of water in our sleds we must have gotten a quarter inch or more rain. By Sunday morning, the ice rink was gone as was the majority of the snowman's face. The rain has continued all day, and everything is just sloppy enough to make the outdoors uninteresting for the likes of my little troopers. Lisa entertained them with baking and frosting of sugar cookies, a project that burnted up most of the afternoon as well as the kitchen counter space. The weather for tomorrow is predicting an arctic blast that is going to freeze all of the melt water and wreeck havoc on the streets--we are going to try to get in Sophia's hockey practice before that next change in weather befalls and befouls us.

there's No day like a Snow day

The official record will show only a little over 6 inches, however in our yard it was much more like seven or eight inches of snow. Regardless of the details, all metrics indicated that the snow fall of late Monday and early Tuesday warranted a snow day for both Sophia and me (as well as countless others). While my work day was called off Monday night, Sophia's anticipation dragged out until the early morning hours before her snow day was proclaimed. I recall my own youth, listening to the radio in the dinning room for the school closing updates every fifteen minutes and inevitably missing the alphabetized schools because of someone talking. That has all changed as now you just pull up the local media website and find your school, or as Lisa did just sign up to have the TV station email you if your school is closed. At any rate Merrick, Sophia and I had a day in the snow. Our actual outdoor time is limited due to Merrick's unwillingness to recognize the benefit of wearing mittens, but we still got a couple of hour long romps in the wonderland that was our backyard. I even convinced Sophia to take a break from working on her multi-colored snow mound to shovel out the back of my truck. Merrick eventually gave up on getting the shovel to himself and became content to push his dump truck around and carry his hockey stick around and continually show it to me, just in case I forgot about his new prized posession. He has also taken to wearing his hockey helment when ever a game is on the TV--this is the old white hockey helmet that must be about 40 years old. We did occupy our inside time with naps and baking bannanna bread. You will notice in th pictures that even though it is after eleven Merrick is still in his pajamas. Lisa was not impressed with my fatherly fashion decision to keep Merrick in PJ's all day--I however thought it was great for napping and when outside he was covered by his jacket and bibs. After I had both kids using Crisco and flour to prepare the bread pans I didn't really see any reason to change him into a new clothes for the rest of the day. We shoveled, we ate, we napped--It was a great snow day. I just don't understand why snow days always caused so much parental stress when I was young--I think it was mark that lost the key in the snow :-)

Hush you Muskies

Well winter was here for even the most ardent supporters of autumn. With about 6 to 8 inches of snow on the ground and winds recorded at 30 mph gusts on Saturday there is just no denying that December 21 is not really the first day of winter. Friday night we played in the back yard which really means I drag the kids over a three foot jump we made of piled up snow. Of course the real problem of piling up snow in your back yard around here is that when you have exposed grass in your back yard, people tend to give you ten dollars, leave their cars and walk over to 'the field." By Saturday the kids had bored of the bunny hill and we drove a couple of blocks from the house to a larger hill behind an elementary school. Even in the gusts there were about 30 people milling around while the hill was not large it was large enough for about a 200 yard run out. Merrick would barely stop when he would start saying more, although his voice was ridicously muffled by the 4 feet of scarf wrapped around his head in the same fashion as the kid brother from "Christmas story." Merrick still has the good life and gets to sled both down and up hills--Sophia on the other hand has reached the rite of passage and is required to walk up the hill. The wind was enough of a factor that we were only out there for a little over an hour.
Much of the weekend has been dealt with the Sophia's growing excitement at the small number of wrapped gifts that are starting to arrive under the tree. She is also very concerned, and to my chagrin continually asks Lisa, as to why there are not any presents for Mom under the tree. Lisa just replies "ask your father."

Oh tanenbaum, oh tanenbaum

Traditionally the day after Thanksgiving Lisa makes me put up the Christmas tree. She is very adamant about this, something Mark can attest to. This year she decided that it would be fun to cut our own tree down, so we found a tree farm a little north of us and drove up with the truck. With the kids bundled up and rosy-cheeked we walked between the rows of balsam and douglas fir with two different deer stands in sight. I worried not about the deer stands even though it was the WI gun season, because if those teenagers in the slasher movies are protected by a dim flashlight then certainly I could protect my little troop of lumberjacks with the saw I borrowed from the owner. We choose a nice shaped 6 foot balsam pine and dragged it back to the truck (the only thing I have had to drag all week). I did most of the cutting although Sophia also had a good attempt at lumberjacking. She also helped me drag it back to the truck, during this time Merrick was practicing for a new world record of glove removal, and I am a little surprised that he didn't have chaffing from the number of times his gloves were on and off.
With the tree home and decorated, Sophia subjected Merrick to some story time while she was wearing her 'teacher shoes." This is why I try to find outdoor activities for the kids.
Saturday morning we drove around some dirt roads in the Oconto county forest and Sophia donned a blaze coverall and ran behind the truck just like the other guy we passed was doing with his dogs. After 2 days in the house both Sophia and I thought this was a wonderful idea.

It's a Ringer

Pretty low key weekend even by our standards. Lisa is heading out around noon on Sunday and will not be back until Wednesday. As she is in the "morning parent" much of the weekend has been used to figure out how I am going to drop of the kids in the morning and still make it to work on time--the conclusion is that I will not. At any rate on Friday night we raged against mother nature shook our fists in defiance, donned out rain coats and took a walk in the rain (yes this all sounds more dramatic than the 20 minute walk really was). On Saturday Sophia and I spent a little time indoors at the grocery store, ringing the bell for the salvation army. Even though it was early in the season I think it was hard for people to fight against the double dose of guilt; red kettle and a cute girl. It was good for Sophia too as it was her job to tell all the adults in an audible voice "Merry Christmas." Merrick and Sophia spread grass seed, that will never germinate, on the leveled off mulch pile that used to be our stump. This pile was considerably larger than first estimated and was near 3 cubic yards of mulch dirt mix. I don't think it will be necessary to add any additional mulch to the flower beds next spring. There were plans to have an accompanying photo of Sophia in her red apron, bell and Santa's hat alas gang aft agley.

This evening we will be back at the hockey rink for Sophia's practice, she is #3 on the Orange team. Fear not you will all see as much of her practice as I will, as Merrick needs a lot of attention during practices.

Timber

Well the yard had five large trees and then there were only four. We had to cut down one of the large silver maples (Acer saccharinum--I can't use that tidbit of knowledge very often). The tree had a bark inclusion at the base of a trunk that was comprised of five large beams. The lumberjack spent the last two days here cutting up the tree and will finish up the clean up and stump presumablely tomorrow. The tree was a little bit like the Silversteins giving tree. It gave us shade and privacy in the summer as well as hiding places for tag and perches for the song birds. Now most of it has been carted away. I did split up about four wheelbarrow loads for camp fires and smores. You can see in the picture that the tree is gone and the back yard 'park' is a little more open. We will give some thought about what type of tree to plant in its place over the winter--or consider leaving it grassy for our soccer and kickball games in the back yard. As an interesting note the picture of Sophia on the stump also shows one large beam/trunk of the tree remaining---that is the beam that was cracked but the lumberjack left it for the end.

A very "Sweet" weekend

Halloween is easily going to rank in the upper three holidays for kids. You get to go door to door and collect candy. This is also when even the youngest of children begin to realize that their parents are liars--a trend that is likely to last them into their late teens. Parents continually tell their offspring, "don't talk to strangers, don't take candy from strangers, strangers are bad people" then of course we as parents ruin all of these good sense precautionary warnings in one fell swoop of Halloween. Where kids go to random houses just because they have lights on and collect gobs of candy. These strangers give them candy even if there are partially decomposed skeletons hanging from the trees in front yard. At any rate it was a very good Halloween weekend for the kids. Their grandparents came over to trick or treat with them and we were all grateful for the unseasonably warm October weather. The kids made a haul on the candy, probably about 8-10 pounds between the two of them. Merrick could barely carry his pumpkin bucket and had to lean heavily to one side as he carried it. Bob and Nancy also got to join in the season with a little nostalgia and instruction for sophia as to how to trade candy with your siblings to get the best deal.
On Saturday we played around with a new wood stove and we cooked some eggs and hot chocolate on the stove in the back yard. Later in the day we went for a small hike on a ski trail on the edge of town and saw two deer, multiple scrapes and rubs and three of the biggest garter snakes that Dad or I can recall seeing. Bob spotted the first one as Merrick stumbled off the trail and almost landed on the poor snake in its ectothermic stupor that the cool weather had brought. Mom chased Sophia down the board walk and Bob tried to hide behind trees along the trail until Sophia pushed him out of the way so she could hide--apparently she was unable to find another tree as suitable in the woods as the one that grandpa was already behind.

Sunday was a recoup and rake day day as Merrick and I cleaned up the back yard and then spread all the leaves in the garden to breakdown for next years vegetables. Sophia also started hockey, while it is actually an indoor arena it is still enough activity to discuss here. She was a little tentative but did have a friend that she found in the locker room and appear to have fun. She skated pretty well and is excited to go back again next week. Merrick also enjoyed running around like a complete maniac in the large arena space and crashing himself into the glass (there is an elevated viewing area) as if he was checking somebody--this was alternated with just kicking the glass and eating 'stuff' from undr the bleachers.

Zoo Boo

Friday night began what is the week-long Halloween season. We took the kids to the Zoo Boo. The Zoo Boo is a trick-treating event at the local zoo. The zoo is a pretty nice facility with lions (and two new cubs), penguins, giraffes and all the other expected zoo animals. These animals are a wonderful thing to see--but of course we are there at night, which means you can see them and it costs more to get in. Actually some of the nocturnal animals are active which is nice to see. Merrick was able to say "trick-or-treat" and thank you at all of the candy stations and walked the whole zoo route--behold the power of candy. This year the Zoo Boo was graced with a heavy fog which added to the spookyness that surrounded the 'lake monster." This is really a guy in waders that has invaded the penguins pond--but still freaked Merrick out. We were there with another couple and their kids and everyone seemed to have a good time. Sophia was/will be dressed as Jo-Jo a cartoon character on the Disney Channel and Merrick was dressed up as a mouse. Given his subtle rage towards tree-rats it should have come as no surprise that when we showed him his reflection that he shook his fist and growled at himself.
With the threat of rain all day Saturday we stayed close the the house and Merrick and I spent the afternoon transplanting perrienal flowers and moving bird feeders away from our death-row maple. One of the large maples is coming down in the next few weeks. This does mean that I am holding off on the raking at least. The cooler temperatures also meant that it was a baking and cooking day (bannanna bread and chicken dumpling soup). Today we are thinking about a little geocaching and then likely bake some apple dumplings to use up the last of our apples from the orchard trip.

Pumpkin Carving

With the T-Zone hunting taking place in most of the area woods we are hanging close to the house. Saturday we did continued the traditions of carving pumpkins. Which of course means itchy skin, pumpkin fibers mixed with hair and sharp knives in slippery hands--maybe it is this frontier cavalierness that allows this tradition to persist as part of our national fabric. At any rate, the temperatures were beautiful and Sophia dug into the pumpkin's inerds with glee. Merrick on the other hand was much more standoffish towards the vegetable offal, and preferred to take the pumpkin tops and kick them around the yard. With all of the seeds tossed into the garden to self plant for next year, we moved the gorgeous gords to the front of the house for all to see our creative cutlery skills. In the past the pumpkins have lasted beyond the holiday and have been granted a stay of execution from the older neighborhood kids--although this time around those kids are a year older too.

Another Early Morning

Last night begged the question as to whether you can get up early if you don't really go to sleep at night. Lisa and I took turns all night long dealing with Merrick and he finally won at 5 am and I just stayed up with him. We started our day very early, and with the moon nearly full we headed outside to look at the brightness of the moon and as I was showing him the constellation Orion we had the great pleasure of watching a shooting star brightly cross our line of sight. I made my standard wish that I bestow on all shooting stars and then we headed off for some early morning grocery shopping. He and I learned several things about grocery shopping at 5:30 am. First the cashiers are not that happy to be there. Secondly trying to buy a twelve pack first gets you a hairy-eyeballed look from the grumpy cashier and then a refusal to sell until eight o'clock. The other thing we discovered is that us and the cashiers were not the only ones doing some early morning shopping. There were also two other guys with very 'mussy' hair and huge bouquets of flowers--Merrick didn't think they made it home last night and I didn't think the flowers were enough to prevent what is likely to become a very long weekend for them.

The weekend outside time will be a limited to the yard, as we have spent so many of the last weekends out in the woods that it is time to give attention to the domestic chores required by a yard in the fall. There is likely to be some yard raking and garden preping followed by a small campfire and hot chocolate.

Weekend Camping Trip

Brad, Bob and I took all of the older kids (Evan, Sophia and Jacob) out camping this weekend. The weather was gorgeous in the 70’s during the day. The leaves were at full peak revealing a wealth of colors not normally seen without the aid of LSD. It was a youth hunt in Wisconsin so we had to keep the blaze orange on the kids at all times. Brad and I also gave them whistles in case they wandered off too far. Between the blaze orange and the constant blowing of the whistles it was unlikely that the kids were going to get shot—on accident. Everyone was able to show up on Friday and those little blaze wood elves couldn’t have been happier to see each other. They spent time hike with us but also a lot of time at camp with Grandpa shooting the BB guns and making forts. Under the direction of Grandpa Bob they made a nice lean to as well as a pretty good teepee. He also was in charge of keeping their sugar levels up and starting them off in the morning with a good infusion of Sugar Puffs, Sugar Smacks, Fruit Loops etc. The kids of course loved this and it was only slightly more unhealthy than my breakfast plans of oatmeal and chocolate pudding. Molly the dog came too, as all camps need a camp dog. It worked well because she kept the ticks off the rest of us. By Sunday she was ready to go home and just kept climbing in Brad’s van while he was trying to pack up. We never did see any other hunters but did hear wolves on Saturday night—although we did not see it as a wise idea to wake up the young ones to listen. Sophia and I shared a tent and all the other boys were in Brad’s new tent. We also found a dog skull near the camp site so the kids were able to ‘play’ with that and check out the teeth in it. In many ways the weekend was a prelude of the pending economic depression: eating soup out of the can, beer out of mason jars and a lot of Dylan, Prine and Gutherie sang around the camp fire at night. We had orignally planned a geocaching trip on the other side of Hwy. H for Sunday. But in the end we figured that three kids and only two GPS units would lead to a fight Brad and I weren't interested in refereeing. All in all it was really cool just to watch them all run around in a woods that has so many fine memories for me as they offer a prelude of so many more memories to come. Jake also contacted me to add the fact that the kids spent about an hour throwing glowsticks into the woods and then running into the dark woods to find them--shockingly nobody lost an eye or twisted an ankle.

Big Woods and Petting Zoos

Another busy weekend with the kids. On Saturday we again ran up to the Nicolet and hunt/hiked around a new area. Beautiful this time of year and even flushed a couple of grouse, although I didn't shoot. I am not actually sure how well Merrick will tolerate me shooting a 12 ga. while he is in the back pack--but I take the gun anyways. On Sunday we spent the late morning at a nearby apple orchard that allows you to pick your own and has a nice petting zoo as well. The kids are good about not eating the apples as we pick them (cortlands and honey crisp), in fact Merrick hardly eats them at all. The petting zoo portion also sells ice cream cones filled with mixed grains to feed the animals (goats, sheep, shetland ponies, donkeys, peacocks, llamas). Merrick ran around and practiced both his animal sounds and his manners. Telling each animal "thank you" after he fed them and hollaring 'BaaBaa" at each animal that was remotely sheep like. He is also convinced that even the llamas are named, Cleo. We were following an ignorant collection of humanity that wasn't sure if the potbellied pigs were goats or not, and at one cage when Sophia pointed out to us that there were peacocks this group asked her if she was sure they were peacocks, because they were calling them turkeys. At any rate Sophia looked at them with all the confidence in the world and said "they are green aren't they." I do think that she gets her sarcasm and intolerance of fools from her mother.
Then it was a quick shopping trip to get Sophia some missing hockey equipment as she starts a mini-might type of program in a few weeks--more to come on that.

Little family in the Big Woods

I called it hunting but the reality is I was just taking my gun for a walk in the woods. The whole family went up to the Nicolet National forest. Beautiful pine forests, although we were just inside of the forest boundaries. We had a nice 2 mile hike along easy to walk dirt tote roads and snowmobile trails. Stumbled onto on bow hunter out there and spent a lot of time looking for areas to camp. We hiked off of Daisy Rd, although I don't remember the forest road designation. The weather was perfect for a fall hike, cool and overcast. Merrick was pretty content to just ride in the backpack, rather than walk--the little "lazy bump." I suspect his view is just a lot better when he is up higher and might have a preference because of that. On the way home we even hit a Taco John's as we listened to the Packer game on the radio--pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I have since ordered a large map of the area from the forest service and with the drive up there being easy and realtively quick we plan on spending more time up there. sophia said her legs were tired, but finding a couple of turkey feathers and some deer bones seemed to help

A Tree-rat Trio

Took Sophia and Merrick squirrel hunting this morning. we hunted for about an hour and half and shot a squirrel right away. Sophia said "cool" when it fell from the tree quickly followed by "can we eat it?" intermixed with Merrick in the back pack shaking his fist and growling at the squirrel. I had been looking forward to hunting with them all week. Sophia had her new clothes on that we bought for an upcoming camping trip with Brad and the two older boys. Merrick was wearing his camo crocs, camo pants and hat. it was really enjoyable being out there with them. Merrick said "geese" when a flock flew overhead even though it is still too "leafy" to see through the canopy. Both the kids hunted really well, Sophia moves through the brush like the mist. We also saw 4 or 5 chipmunks and she wanted me to shoot them too. while I thought about it, I instead used the opportunity to tell her that we only shoot what we eat. She persisted that I shoot them so the dogs could play with them. I was able to convince her to sneak up on them instead She was able to get about 15' from the chipmunk and later about 3 feet from a pair of downy wood peckers. the squirrel we shot was exciting as it is the first thing I have shot when either kid was around and Sophia hear it in the brush and suggested the direction we walk to find it. I took a nice picture f them holding the squirrel when we got home. Merrick was pretty tired and went to sleep, while Sophia and I cleaned the squirrel in the garage. I also told her about fur-traders and we decided to stretch and salt-cure the hide. I am hoping to give her a leg up in school and make as much of our history real and tangible to her and Merrick as they age.

Squirrel tonight for supper although Lisa has already remarked that we are just going to 'feed it to the dogs." Fried it up in corn meal and bacon grease (what doesn't taste good when cooked like that?). the hunt also gave me an opportunity to discuss directions and proper hunting techniques. we found our shadows going into the woods, so I explained to Sophia that if we keep our shadows to our backs on the way our we can get back to the truck. there was also another hunter in the woods, a friendly Hmong squirrel hunter that shot several times but didn't hit what he was aiming at. I was able to explain/remind Sophia that I only shot once and was sure of my target before I shot, rather than taking several shots. we were coming home by 11 am and it was already in the upper 70s--almost 80. Too warm and buggy for hunting but I am glad we went. I needed and wanted to get my kids out in the woods as it seems most of my day dreams are about a future of woods-time with them.