Yesterday I spent the day with my youngest son, Gabriel. He's my baby. (9 years old ) but I didn't think I could have another one, so he was my surprise. We spent the day doing yard work. I love my home and yard. I have spent the last few weeks working on the inside of my home, and decided I needed to be outside.
My grass had gotten to the point where I felt like dragging the 9 motors out of the garage and hanging them in the tress! Good lord this place has gotten bad! Slowly though, I am making it mine again.
When I was a child, I loved being outdoors. My dad had 5 acres at the time in Lk.Stevens, our home was on a dead end road, and we were always in the woods. We always had chores to. Every August, dad would start preparing for winter. He'd fall the big cedars on the property, the ones that he knew would come down in a good strong storm. We used to help him. Our job was filling the wood shed after dad would fall the tree and cut it up. We were taught how to use all the tools! I loved this. Dad was so good about making sure we knew how to take care of ourselves.
One summer, he was cutting wood, and this was back when the chainsaws had no guards on them. He had put the saw down and it was on idle. He told us kids not to go near it, to pick up the rounds over by the tree. Well..... I was all of 6, I remember that, and you KNOW how 6 year old's are. Looky, rounds by the chain saw. Hmm.. they need picking up to. So off I go to do this, and I trip on the blackberry vines. The fall was in slow motion to me. I can remember on the way down, with my hands out to catch my fall, thinking, blackberry stickers... chainsaw.... blackberry stickers... chainsaw.. well, by the time I had decided the stickers, it was to late, so I hit the chainsaw. Yessss... on the blade. Silly me. Nice little puncture that required a trip to the emergency room, 2 stitches and a trip to Baskin and Robbins. *grin* Now, I have a nice little "race car" scar in the middle of my left palm. This was also back when the stitches were done with black thread, not that disappearing stuff like they have now. So the line from the cut has a line across at both ends, and my skin is puffed where the thread was knotted, so it looks like a race car. I show my boys all the time. Especially when they play with the machete and other knives around here.
Yesterday was a blast. Gabriel was a huge help, except for me taking the sledge hammer from him, and having to keep an eye on him with the machete. I did not look when I set the chain saw down and he was hauling the rounds for me. Just because I figured if I did, or said, "don't" go over there, history would repeat itself.
My lawn mowers are broken, so I weed whacked the whole yard. By the time I got the two stroke and gas mix, and bar oil, it was hitting 630pm and I wanted to finish off the rounds of apple wood I had sitting here from last year. It was a great day, and very satisfying!
So my boy is learing how to be a man, and he loves it. Today we haul rocks out from behind the overgrown blackberry bushes, and finish off my pond.
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