Day 43, Nov 2: List (Partial, Non-ordinal) of Stuff I have let the boys do in Late Fall/Winter that I probably should not, but do, cause they had so much fun doing them (and noting, fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc., that none of these has caused more than minor injuries- bruises, scratches). 7. In early winter slide down the sides of steep gullies on layers of thin layers of ice and snow, normally about 20-25 ft drops, nowhere near 90 degrees, and always knowing what was at the end of the fall. We have put an end to this one, ends up feeling a bit too risky for even me to permit. 6. Climb up trees/bushes in order to cut down wasp nests, after they have gone dormant for the winter (and doing quite a bit to insure that this is the case in terms of watching, poking with stick, etc. before making a move), in order to have the trophy of the nest, got one from a pricker bush last wall (after the first of the real deep, deep frosts) that was 3 times as big as N’s head. 5. Allow them to jump over each other on home made snow ramps using their sleds (mentioned in a previous post), but each time they do this, they so love it, and do it with the precision one would hope they use at NASA, private space contracting, when doing a launch, seriously, it is all measured out to a T, with arguments over just how much lift, speed, height, etc, is needed to complete jump without impact, actually, the problem then becomes that they fly so far that the landing of the jumpy is sometimes a bit dodgy. 4. Still on the sleds, allowing them to go down the front wall of Cornell’s Plantations (amazing garden/park to the east of campus), pretty much from the top, hit the jump, and then come to a stop on the small pond next to the road. Never even a bruise from this one, again down with precision on their part, but takes my breath away each time I see them pull it off. 3. No sleds for this one, but involves sliding/jumping and here it is waiting till the day after a huge snow storm and allowing them to then careen around all over on the massive snow piles that get stacked up in a few of our favorite spots around down. No naming locations here, except to say that they are not in parking lots where this is much activity, and I do tend to scope out the situation before giving them the OK to take this on. 2. River walking in Tevas, even though the water is about ice cold, involving, traipsing up one of the many streams, small rivers here in Ithaca, which tend to have rather smooth stone surfaces as so much debris is flushed out of them by heavy rains. For normal people this is very, very much a summer activity, the boys like to push it into trying to do the last, last time of the year. They end up with feet that are little balls of ice, latest we have done this is during brief warm windows in early Nov, we may be done for the year this year. 1.Ice running, only done in deep winter, and only on steams that we know have virtually know water in them, but that ice up when it is really cold, best when there is no real snow to speak of, the boys then see if they can sort of flit their way across the ice without it breaking. I am not so stupid as to allow them to do this anywhere that there is real water, real currents, but, I the ice is so unstable, that they do often go crashing through and come to a wreck on it, which they find rather hysterical. None of these are truly moronic, all have, it seems to me, just the right degree of risk to make them fun, and so far have, again, produced no more than bumps and bruises in terms of a downside, upside is, the kids abs. love all of these activities, and tend to laugh hysterically throughout them, which does make me smile rather a lot.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 11:47:16 +0000
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