Loving Life at Home: Working before the sun came up

Last night we had a cold front come through (though you can't tell by Jonathan's t-shirt and shorts...it's chilly here! Like 55 degrees!) with lots and lots of wind. During the night the wind blew down one of the tree-like things in our yard. I'm not sure it counts as a tree by most people's standards, but by south-central TX standards, it's a tree. Maybe someone reading this could ID this tree. I have no idea what kind it is. But whatever it is, it fell over during the wind last night. Turns out it was pretty rotten, but the boys didn't mind. Jeffrey and Josiah were up out there while it was still mostly dark. What you need to know here is that the sun doesn't come up over the horizon until about 7:45 am. It's wonderful because I can sleep in until 7:15 and still watch the sunrise. My kind of time zone!! :-)

All of the boys were up and out by 7:30, hatchet and saw in hand. One quick OK from mom and they made quick work of the tree. They chopped it down, and dragged it to the fire pit to make an awesome bonfire for another night.

This inspired them to go hunting for fire wood. They wanted to take the big axe, chain saw,etc. and chop some "like Almonzo Wilder", says Jeffrey. Well, I guess the axe would be Wilder-ish, but not the chainsaw! And ummm, NO, bad idea taking heavy, sharp tools into the woods dwhile running on adrenaline from the crisp air and previous chopping encounter. At this point, four sets of shoulders slump and say "OK" (imagine groaning tones). So they decided to try Plan B. They asked if they could go out and collect stumps of wood that are ALREADY on the ground and bring them around to make a wood pile. (We have a wood-burning fireplace for the first time in 10 years! I'm sure we won't need much wood for the two days a year that we'll wish to have a fire around here.) That one I could sign off on. So off they all went. So cute, dressed in boots, pants, hats and gloves (no coats of course, right Kelley!).

They came back after about 1/2 an hour thrilled to tell me that Jeffrey has built a fire pit somewhere on our property in the woods. "Can we take the aim a flame and some water and see if we can light a fire in the fire pit?" Jonathan asks breathlessly with a smile. Again, mom's the party pooper! Do I really want them creating a "test fire-just to see if it lights"??!!That sounds like a disaster in the making. So, I put it back on Michael. I told them to wait until dad gets home and he can look at the pit and assess its "fireworthiness". Man, am I glad they have such a great daddy!