Rocketing through the Harvest Season

The end of summer has brought to us a bounty of harvest as the new school year starts for everyone. Merrick is officially a pre-schooler while Sophia has started 3rd grade. In our neck of the woods the beginning of fall really just signals that the roads are clear during any Packer's game. With Thursday being the season opener for the Packers, Sophia's classes ended about noon to prevent any traffic delays before the 8 pm game and Merrick spent most of the day tailgating at preschool with all of his friends. I think kids are born with jerseys on over here. We did find some time last weekend to get out for a hike along a nearby creek and although it was cool on Monday, it certainly has heated up again for this weekend. We continued to pull tomatoes and potatoes out of the garden and have frozen about ten pounds of tomatoes and filled a good part of a five gallon bucket with potatoes on Friday night, killing several voles as we moved around in the straw. Saturday was a fast paced day with a couple of thrift sales, in which Sophia scored a new book, as well as a trip to the meat market. The meat market trip was really for Merrick. He has been doing so well at eating slices of pepperoni cut from a whole stick that I thought we would take him to the 60 foot meat counter and try some spicy beef sticks. He ate about two or three bites before becoming satiated from the bovine delight. The highlight of Saturday morning was a trip to buy our first model rockets. We built them in the kitchen and then took them out to the soccer fields to launch them into space. It was pretty awesome and I think the kids are hooked. They have each spent a good amount of time perusing the mini-catalog that came with the rocket kits and are both talking big about the size and height of their next rockets. Merrick's second lift off actually peaked and started heading back down before the final engine burst to send the parachute out. The parachute didn't come out so instead the rocket just accelerated straight down and stuck into the ground about two inches--it was awesome. Merrick's Rocket was called the "FireHawk," but being a Green Bay kid he kept calling it the AJ Firehawk. We ended the day with a campfire and some smores in the back yard after a gourmet supper of little cesar's (intentionally in lowercase). Throughout the weekend, Mitch ate very well. The kids caught cicada for him, a summer goal of ours, as well as several crickets and grasshoppers. He has yet to finish off one of the large black crickets and as I type the cricket is slowly chirping out his own funeral tune. Sophia spent Sunday between our house and a friends and Merrick and I walked around the neighborhood chainsawing some of the down limbs from last week's storm to replenish for the fall campfires to come. It must have been a good weekend because I just had to roust Merrick from a sunny spot in the middle of the living room floor. He had nodded off without covers or pillow with plenty of Oreo drool to show his contentedness.