Dream Job...

For a little boy who lives to see if 'it' can be broken - this is heaven!

Now he wants to trade in all his chore money to buy more 'cause I told him $4 a bag (that I'm pretty sure was less than a pound) was just too expensive for me to provide him with a full time job of hammering.

Mr. Nutcracker.

'Makes me wish, for a minute, I was little again... sitting on the fireplace hearth with a 50lb feed sack full of walnuts to crack... persimmon cookies (made with the mushy persimmons that no one in the stores around here has ever heard of)... So many pomegranates you could juice them and make cases of jelly (instead of choking at the thought of shelling out over $1 each!). Rain at last... grass turning green...mud boots... new calves... fresh milk... waiting for somebody else to get up and build a fire before getting out of bed and making a mad dash to get dressed in front of the fire... walnut pie... churning butter... dancing by the light of a single gas lamp, on the braided floor rug... walking on pineapple juice cans. Yes, the memories of Fall - they could be a post by itself!

So Fun While it Lasted!

Last week it was cold! Some of the days never got above freezing even in the afternoon sunshine, but it was pretty. And fun. Today I looked out the office window just in time to see PC's feet go whooshing out from underneath him as he attempted a spectacular slide across the driveway on what was left of the barnyard ice rink. So I grabbed my camera, pretended I didn't notice his sopping wet pantleg, and asked him to show me what he could do on the shrinking patch of ice between the house and the barn. He didn't need me to ask twice!

The running start...


Side Slide!


Back for more...


Front slide.


Homemade hockey stick.


Happy boy!

On Wednesday, while the big kids were at school, I took the little gang out to explore the wonders of ice. Hal, all bundled in blankets, observed from his stroller as Ricka and Butler had a blast slipping, sliding and crashing across on the ice. The pictures I took of PC on the ice today, show about a quarter of what was frozen before the temperatures returned to normal. Butler would have stayed out all day if I'd have let him. There was ice to whack, ice to stomp, ice to try eating, ice to throw, ice to slide and ice to slide on. I doubt he could have been much happier. After that, he tried every possible reason to need to go outside every single day. I would have taken pictures if I didn't have to be continually picking a child (or myself a few times) up off the ice. Actually, I don't think the camera would have survived that day, so I'm going to let myself off the hook this time.