tree planting

Sean's Cub Scout Pack went tree planting on a day when he couldn't attend, but he really wanted to get the tree planting segment. Luckily, our Lions Club also planned on doing tree planting as a service project - and with the same group the scouts did - so he gets to count it for the segment! We decided to make it a family outing, and all four of us went...

Stream Team - the group responsible for this project, had other days and other groups that had prepped this area for planting.  They had scientifically figure out which trees to plant where for maximum advantage - quick growing trees mixed in to provide early shade and protection. and slower growing bigger trees to grow through them and provide shade and choke out weeds further down the road.  Some of the hillside already had the holes drilled and flags for each kind of trees all lined out and ready.

Here Kayl & Mary work on getting a tree out of its container.

Some of them were pretty root-bound, and it took a bit of strength (or weight) to get them free.

Kayl working with a Lion's wife planting.

Sean gets a (muddy) grip on the container...

...and pulls up while Robb pulls down!

Kayl working with a stake to make sure the soil is down solid and there are no air bubbles - which can kill the tree start.

That's kind of a 'smarmy' smile...

Here a hole needs a little more out of it, and Kayl gets to use the post hole digger.

Sean had a harder time with the actual planting, but was a great asset to the group by using his boundless energy to run down the hill and get the proper tree, then bringing it up to the planter.

And the best part?  They had snacks!!

building a better bird house...

One of the Cub Scout Pack's "Go See It" activities was a trip to Home Depot for a short tour about housing material, followed by building your own bird house.

First the Home Depot employee took the boys on the tour, asking and answering questions about home building.

I think she was amazed (and a little over-whelmed!) by all the questions the boys came up with...

Next they all sat down and she went over the instructions on the bird house kits.

Finally!  It was time to open your kit and get started.

Sean followed the instructions exactly - even if it meant taking a nail back out and re-doing that step.

And while it might have taken Sean just a bit longer than a lot of the boys, he only put the glue where he was supposed to (which turns out was not a common factor among the boys).

And, unlike some, Sean screwed his base on (rather than gluing and nailing it).  As he pointed out (by reading to me from the instructions), that was so he could 'at the end of every season remove the bottom and take the old nesting material out.'

Since there was no vise to hold the project upside-down, dad had to step in and hold.

Here's Sean displaying his bird house and his certificate.

And here's the whole Pack!

bowling

Sean chose to work on another beltloop for scouts - this time a sports one on bowling. So... A family bowling trip was needed to give us the opportunity to learn about and experience bowling. Both kids have been bowling before, but not in a couple years, and had no real remembrances of technique and rules. Sean still needed a little help holding the ball...

Kayl was now able to go by herself. Of course, we still use bumpers for both kids!

Mary - who has almost never bowled - started off with two gutter balls in a row, so ended up using the bumpers as well.

While Robb is not a great bowler, he does have a bit of experience from his youth and early adulthood - so no bumpers. Just one strike, a couple of spares, but plenty of 8s & 9s...

Sean was getting the hang of it more and more as the game progressed.

Kayl started to have a little style as well!

The end results? We all had fun, learned a bit, and Sean earned the bowling beltloop!!

setting up the Christmas tree

Each year since the kids were little, we set up our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. We chose to go with a fake tree for a number of reasons: can't die, less dangerous with babies, costs less (and you only buy once), etc. Our original though was that once the kids got about this age, we would start going back into the forest to find a Christmas tree like Robb use to do. However, now that the kids are a bit older, they want to be the ones to set up the tree, so we stay with the fake one (and a bottle of tree smell) for now...

Kayl got things started by getting the base and core set up.

Then they started putting on the limbs.

The kids worked nicely as a team getting the limbs out, sorting them, 'fluffing' the limbs so they looked right, and putting them on the tree.

Row by row the tree begins to 'grow'...

...with occasional 'snuggle' breaks!

And finally the top set goes on...

...and it's done: ta-DA!! (Now it just needs to be decorated...)

on go the lights

Another of our post-Thanksgiving traditions is to start decorating the house for the Christmas/New years holidays. This starts with hanging the lights on the outside of the house.

While we enjoy some of the homes that have lots and lots of lights and displays, we don't live in a neighborhood we would feel comfortable having a lot of expensive decorations in the yard, and we don't really want to put up a lot of lights outside, so when we re-built the house we wired some outlets under the eaves in just the right places to hang a single row of blue lights around the roof edge.

Kayl helps get the strings straight before Robb hangs them from the gutters.

This pic shows one of the fun spots - hanging above the bushes. The really fun pictures that are missing? Watching Robb shimmy up the roof next to the chimney to pull the line over that part of the roof up high!

leaf raking

One of our annual traditions is to rake up the leaves from our Japanese maple each fall - usually around Thanksgiving.

Fortunately, for us, that type of tree generally drops most of its leaves in a very short time-span. This year a heavy rain helped it along even more...

So we start out by raking all of the leaves into a big pile near the gate to the back yard...

Kayl rakes with style!!

Sean rakes with precision!

Anyway - once the leaves are all stacked up into a great, big pile...

...it's time too...

...have fun!!

Leaf-throwing is a great time!

The kids like to make it seem like it's raining leaves.

This is a public service announcement on the dangers of leaf-throwing with long hair...

The kids decided to bring our dog Tagalong out to the leaf party.

"These guys are crazy - I'm outta here!"

So you might be wondering - what do we do with all of the leaves, after we are done playing and re-rake them into a pile again (or maybe for the third or fourth time...)? Most go on our garden as a mulch and compost! Here Mary is prepping our strawberries for the winter, just before we bury them in leaves.

A small side-note for you strawberry growers out there: what we do is cut away all of the old, big leaves and stems (like you see in the center of the box with Mary), as well as the runners from between plants, leaving just the fresh, new growth the plant put out before winter (the way the rest of the box looks). Then we bury the plants about 3-4 inches in mulch. this only works with the very small leaves of our tree - big leaves (or grass clippings) would create a heavy sludge-like area that would kill the plants. Instead, consider straw. This works very well for us, and our plants have been giving us tons of great strawberries for years now.