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.