Backyard Track

I spent a ton of time outside yesterday, and for an hour+ of it I was barefoot digging in the dirt with Katharine. I'm experimenting with "grounding", so figured I'd do silly stuff like this before I buy a grounding mat, pad, or sheets. I also left my phone inside, so I wasn't listening to podcasts and I wasn't getting any notifications or calls - it was just me, my thoughts, and the kids. It was good for my soul. If you've seen Ethan's video "The House" (7:45), you know that if I get inspiration, it can turn into a project. Well, we went to the wedding reception for a friend on Friday night (the Moons) and Mary has put so much work and love into her back yard, it was beautiful. I was definitely inspired as we walked around and tried to take it all in. And it was simple things too, like a bench made out of rock slabs. I loved that so much of it was NATURAL. I came home and started pondering what we could do to make our back yard more inviting for ourselves and for the kids. I brainstormed and made a list of things I'd be interested in: Sandbox, Tree house, Cargo nets, Logs, Bridge, Boulders, Stones, log table, stump stools, Climbing wall, Ninja warrior stuff, Zip lines. Yesterday I went to pinterest and searched "yard natural children" and found a few more ideas that I liked thanks to this link, I added a few: Mud kitchen, Music center - tin can drums, Toy truck quarry, Erosion River (boat races), Endor Forest , Miniature play treehouse, Log step pillars, Natural play space, Wilderness imagination (ropes, climbing) Green tent.

I worked on it a little Monday, raking pine needles (our never ending pine needles...) and walked around a thought. Didn't get too much done before it started to rain, It rained a lot Monday and again yesterday. This morning I started a bike ride up the canyon at 8am after making sure the kids were up and at it for their first day of school. I drove to Lisa falls and did Techy twice, then a climbs up to the ruins, techy again, ruins and techy... for a total of 2 Ruins and Techy 5x. After the rain yesterday it smelled sooo SOOO lovely. Wow, I wish I could capture the smell in a bottle. I wanted to get back up in the mountains again. My bike got a little muddy, so I went in the backyard to hose off my tires, and then I had to finish loading the garbage that I had left there Tues night with pine needles and took that out to the street for garbage day, and then I filled up another bag of needles and hauled that out, and we found a cute little mouse in the process... it was so tiny!

Mel and Daniel wanted to keep it. 

We let it go, hoping that I hadn't disturbed it's habitation too much and that it won't relocate into our home! And one thing led to another and I ended up doing one more thing and "Katharine's poopy" and I change her then take her diaper out to the street and get pulled into the backyard again. Peter was hungry "Ok, just a minute..." and I stayed out there until 1:20! Like I was thirsty after my ride and still hadn't paused to take a drink. I started moving a table to make a quiet secluded corner, and I thought the pinterest idea of a mud kitchen would be fun, so Mel helped me get Lily's broken gate down from a tree - it was a door she had put up there (used to be the gate between us and Felix's, and it was hard to get down, I have no idea how she got it up! But with Mel's help I got that down and then moved some cinder blocks that we still have from Corey's ice rink, and those are the legs of the table. So I was out there digging and hoeing and clipping trees and branches for a few hours, and as I was making a path I somehow got the idea of making a biking track! I was like "well duh! Of course!" and was a little surprised that I was searching for ideas and scratching my head about what to do - this will be perfect! I've wanted to clean up the basement so we could have a track down there like we did 4 years ago, but in the back yard... it can be way bigger back there! And then I kept thinking about it and was like "oh this is gonna be good...) and started hoeing like crazy trying to get the track connected and cleared off enough so I could go call Owen and Daniel to come try it out. My back was hurting and I was tired and thirsty but I kept wanting to just do a little bit more. I got it cleared off enough, hurried in to get O and D, showed them what I had been working on and what the idea was, and then I passed the baton to them cause they took a few laps and saw where it needed work, and Owen went to it! "Trial is closed for work! I'm the worker!"

Daniel waiting for the worker to finish. Ha, Daniel helped too - 

Earlier he was helping a lot when it was just path, they liked the idea I had for a bike trail. 

We were thinking earlier of havign pine needles as our walls and barriers, but hopefully we'll be able to clear those out in garbage bags or at bulk clean up, which I think should be happening next month. Daniel helped me set up the table for "mud kitchen" by the shed, but then I decided I wanted that to be part of the track, so I moved it - 

I like it! Katharine does too.

Her face was so messy from a chocolate chip cookie that she bought from a neighbor for 2cents. Zach came knocking on the door selling cookies for 50 cents, Katharine seriously went and I think found Daniel's pennies and gave him 2 cents and he took it and gave her a cookie. Peter was sad he didn't get such a deal. So K had chocolate on her nose, pb and jelly on her fingers (she likes to slowly finger and lick off all the toppings on her pb&j and leave the bread for the trash) and she was walking around barefoot, so I did too (my feet got totally dirty in flip flops anyway). Owen had dug a "mine" for minecraft but it was where the track was going to be. He said "I worked so hard on that..." and he did, but he was willing to let it go for the track. I have a vision of it being a dip before a jump/climb over a rock, but we'll have to wait for things to smooth out and get packed down. Today Owen's mining hole was a slide for Katharine. She called it "my slide!" and "my hole!" 

We both had a good time. We were out there again from 2-6, until I had to come in and make dinner. I washed my feet and started dinner prep, K sat at the counter eating, then she started to fall asleep, but she was so dirty... I didn't have the heart to wake her to give her a bath, so I laid her down on my floor with her dirty pants and feet...

And she threw dirt in her hair too, of course. She was not happy when we woke her and put her in the but. The boys weren't outside with us, I was hoping they were not watching a movie in my room. I came in and my room was locked, yay, so where are they? The house was so quiet... I found Owen and Peter both asleep in their beds! 

I guess working outside wears kids out! I woke them for dinner too, Mel was the bad guy and woke K for a bath, dinner was rice salmon teriyaki bowls tonight. We're out of bread again, I think I'm going to do more rice... After Corey got home and ate his dinner, the kids called for him to come outside and showed him the track. Mel got everyone to working on it some more and we tried to clear out weeds around the playground. Owen wants us to get woodchips for the ground there. That is a good idea buddy. There are 100+ things we can and should do to improve the yard. We'll put that on the list and will see what we can do. Corey watched them do loops and thought Peter's challenge with "the hill" was pretty funny. He'd come up to it, like it's an elevation of maybe 12 inches and he'd grunt "uhhh!!!" Cute boy. I thought the boys did great taking the corners around the trees. I bet I could do it with a smaller bike, but as it is, mine is too big. It's like biking through a door frame. Possible, but a little too tight to do quickly, so I kinda walk it between the trees and around the corners. It's fun though, I think it's going to be a good thing. I'm just kicking myself that we didn't do this until the last week of summer break! They could have been busy with it all summer. But it got us going and maybe we'll be thinking up improvements over the winter and then will get excited to get out in the spring and summer next year.