Keep Chopping Wood

We spent the weekend in Bloomfield, CT, at Claudia and Walter's house. It is a 19th-century farmhouse (circa 1875, I believe), down the street from where Claudia lived as a little girl (and where Claudia's father also grew up). It is a very rural area, though in the past decade it has started to succumb to a lot of new development. Claudia and Walter have about six acres of mostly-wooded property that abuts a state park, so unless you venture out to the street, you still feel like you're in the country.

We drove up Friday night. Both kids fell asleep in the car, but Max woke up upon arrival at the house at 10:30, and he didn't fall asleep for another two hours. Claudia got Eliza when she woke up at just after 6, so the rest of us could sleep in. Eliza, apparently, spent the morning praising Claudia and Walter's German Shepherd, Tatum: "Booboy, Tatum." She, of course, spent the rest of the weekend terrified to be on the same floor as Tatum, and needed to be picked up if he was visibly within the house.

I went on a 4.5 mile run in the morning. I love the run up there in cooler weather because so many people have wood-burning stoves or fireplaces; you run along in the cool, crisp air with the distinct smell of firewood smoke mixing in. While I showered and ate breakfast, Cathleen, Claudia, the kids and the dogs went for a little hike through some surrounding meadows. We then hung out, had some lunch, played some more, and then Eliza went down for her nap.

I then set about splitting wood. My subject heading, of course, refers to Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, and his backfired motivational ploy in 2003. I was not actually chopping wood, as I was splitting it, using Walter's wood splitting machine: you lay a log down on the machine, and it slowly pushes the log against a stationary blade which eventually splits the log along the grain. It is far less effort than weilding an axe, and you can split about five times as much wood in equal time. I worked for over an hour and, despite the machine's efficacy, I worked up a real sweat. Max hung out with me for the first 20 minutes, wearing an oversized pair of ear-protecetors (the machine is rather loud) and sucking his thumb while sitting on a big log next to the machine. Finally he told me he was going inside.

After Eliza's nap was over, we drove to Gramby to pick apples at a local orchard. We picked Cameos and Jonagolds, but for some reason none of the apples were particularly sweet. I think this is because there hasn't been a frost yet, which for some reason is needed for the sugars to come out. Nevertheless, we took home a full bushel, and we pounded some yummy cider donuts before hitting the road. Kick-ass grilled steak dinner, with roasted potatoes, creamed spinach and broccoli. That meal and the wood splitting made me feel rather testosteronic, which was nicely offset by the fruit-gathering interlude in the mid-afternoon.

During the night Max woke up with a croupy-cough. I took him into the bathroom and sat with him during a steam bath. As his throat cleared, he was suddenly all a chatter, and I was like, dude, its 3 am and I'm sweating like a fat man at the local sauna, please give me a break. There is something about bathrooms that brings out the contemplative side of Max. He'll sit on the can at bedtime and begin to engage you in these deep, thoughtful discussions about life, or death, his plans, his friendships, his ideas for the world. He stops making corny jokes, or interjecting the word poopy into every sentence (ironic, no?), and he even gets a little serious look on his face. I absolutely love those discussions (but for the inevitable odors that accompany), but at 3 am, in the moist heat no less, even I have little capacity to appreciate my child on that level.

On Sunday Mike and T and their kids drove down to spend the day with us. We brunched outside in the glorious sunshine (mid-70s on October 21st!), and then set off for a hike through the State Park up to the not-really-a-tower Fire Tower. We put Eliza in a kiddy-backpack that Mike and T had borrowed from neighbors. It sucked, and by the time we made it up the mountain my body was killing me. The one that we own (an expensive model that old neighbors gave to us, having never used it themselves) is so much better, I will never leave it at home again, even when my kids are full grown. The view at the top of the hike was gorgeous -- lots of trees beginning to turn color, the town of Simsbury (where we were married!). I am never going on a hike with my nephew Jacob again, unless it is at sea level. The kid has no fear whatsoever, and he was not only walking along the edge of cliffs, but jumping from one cragged rock to another. Had we spent another five minutes at the top of that mountain, it would have been a race to see who died first: he from a disastrous fall, or me from a heart attack.

Before and after the hike, all five kids played together around Claudia and Walter's barn, far away from where the adults were hanging out. When Claudia went over to check on them at one point, Eliza proudly proclaimed "I playing!" Playing with the big kids; how cool is that? When they packed into their minivan to go home, a very tired Max burst into tears, explaining that he wanted them to come back so that he could play with Jacob, Ryan and Kelsey some more. I felt sorry for him, but those kind of tears make you feel good, to know that your kid loves his cousins.