This morning the wee one and I were left to our own devices. Most of our day is geared towards Thursday. Housework needs to be done. Clean the bathroom, clean the kitchen, tidy up our small cluttered home, hang the laundry up on drying racks. Outside is a big pile of wood that hubby chopped this weekend which beckons to be stacked. I would like to get some bread and muffins baked, instead I follow the siren call of the island of wood in the drive.
One morning, I received a call from a farmer friend who knew someone with a couple extra cord of wood that he would be willing to deliver for a 100.00 each. We have our wood up for this winter. Our plan was to get another cord of dried wood for the end of the heating season which would be 220.oo for a cord of dried wood. So 2 cord for less than one seemed like a good deal. It came in 4 foot lengths. Hubby fired up the chainsaw a couple weeks back and cut up half of it.
We bundle up in our "work sweaters" and our "see-me blaze orange hats" and our muck boots. We follow the bleat of sheep to the barn and give them their morning hay. We fill the kindling bucket from kindling we put aside in old feed bags. Then we tackle the wood pile. The wee one is very willing to help out with this chore. Everyone in some way touches this wood before it finds itself piled up next to the stove. Even the Wee one.
With the perspective of having homeschooled one child who is nearly to adulthood, I realize that one of the best lessons to teach the second child, I hope to homeschool, is to let him be my shadow. So today, Wee one is helping me stack wood. He takes the smallest split logs and carries them over to the stacked wood. He climbs upon the wood to be stacked and perches himself like some Wizened old elf. I think, " Who needs a back yard playground? I have a wood pile!" For every 4 logs I take to be stacked he takes one with pride that he is a "good helper". I listen to his chatter about how many small logs he thinks he can carry, which log is a good log, and which way the log should go on the stacked pile. I listen to him count the slats on the pallet that we will make another stack on," one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight." Finally he says, "Mom, this is fun" as he put another log on the stack.
Finally, I can see that his attention is waning and we walk to the mail box, say hello to the sheep. We have made a good dent in the wood pile. I might try to finish it when he lays down for his nap...or I might clean the kitchen.
Maybe he will find mopping the floor fun:)
4 comments:
LOL reminds me of Tom Saywer White Washing the fence
Great post. My kids help with the wood stacking chores, too. They don't think it's fun. It's usually work, because we usually only have so much time to do it all, and it all needs to be done within that small window, which doesn't leave much time for fun :).
I think you're right, though. Having "raised" two kids and in the process of raising three more, I have to say that the best way to teach them is to let them do what you're doing. Those lessons will be the ones that stay with them the longest.
Great story. And here in southern Massachusetts, I'm seriously envying the $100/cord wood--and even the $220/cord wood. We finally found some for $200/cord, but every other vendor we called wanted $275 and up!
Ah, how I wish I could be the one stacking would with the Wee One.
Post a Comment