Woodland Behavior...
Your looking at the bringer of hours of diverting fun right here!
I have two kids, a boy and a girl, and my neighbor has four boys. Between our two properties is an amassed forty acres of untold mischief providing land. Now that school is out our spawn have wasted no time pursuing the finer activities of life. I thought I would share a couple of the more interesting enterprises with you all this evening, all in the name of rural research.
The Barrels
One of our close family friends works at a tire and alignment store. He gifted us with three plastic barrels. The original intended use of the barrels was to be of the patterned horse gaming variety, but the molded plastic receptacles have seen far more use as child entertainment devices. Countless hours of lava monster, barrel tag, roll, flip, and fly, and my favorite, barrel busting, have occurred on my vast expanse of lawn. The barrel virus has infected me as well, for I sat on one and grilled hamburgers and brats over an open fire last night. The warm plastic molds into a right nice seat.
Holes
For a couple of weeks last year, all the children did was watch the movie Holes and read the book of the same name by Louis Sachar over and over and over and over again. Granted, it is a great bit of juvenile fiction, however, I don't think that the author realized just how he would inspire the Kohler Road Crew. For two solid weeks the six of them dug holes of massive size (shovel handle deep) around my neighbor's house. Honestly, we were happy that the kids were entertained, but as they knew there was no treasure to be found at all on Kohler Road (aside from bicep and tricep toning), let's just say I began to get a little concerned by the obsession. The Holes phase passed, but I think my neighbor and/or at least one of her goats fell into the depressions. I might be glad that episode took place at her end of the realm.
The Poop Pipe
We winter our horses in a pasture near the house. It makes things easier to have them all bunk together during the snowy time of year, and in the spring we scrape their "offerings" into a manure pile to compost. Who would have thought that the fecal mountain would be a potential bike jump? The kids have been freestyling their two wheeled chariots over that pile with panache and grace ever since my husband formed its recycled hay existence a week ago. And when I say grace I mean that my son wadded himself up in the dung most elegantly this evening as he tried to jump his ten speed in a manner that it was never intended to contort. Wearing slide sandals whilst attempting such tomfoolery only added to the Darwin Award-esqueness of it all. Good thing the kid has his father's Polynesian bone structure and my ability to bounce.
The Sandlot
Last summer the kids discovered the movie The Sandlot. They have been reenacting a Kohler Road version of the movie ever since. As soon as the snow melted they were out in the north pasture, stumps as bases, playing baseball for hours. Tonight we have a couple of young teenagers over staying the night at our house. Their parents are good friends of ours and offered to let the boys came over this morning to help build my round pen for the horses. Great kids. Well, the field that the horses wintered in has been harrowed and it resembles a golf green right now. Tonight's game has been progressing for about 3 hours, and I am impressed, for the kids cut, peeled and stacked pine poles all day in 87 degree heat. They are serious about playing baseball FOR-E-VER!
My neighbor and I comment about how our kids have the best life and don't even realize it. I am so glad that they are able to enjoy being kids and all of the dirt, imagination, and wipeouts that accompany this time of their lives. Now if I can just get them to jump the dirt pile instead of the manure hill....
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's glacier silt soil dusted iPhone.