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.