It turns out that my parents had planned an entire weekend of outdoor activities for us. Let me preface this by saying that this is somewhat unusual. Not that my parents don't like the outdoors, but usually the most outdoorsy thing we do is play mini-golf on Father's Day. So I had come ill-prepared (or poorly packed) for the weekend's activities. The ATVing the day before had been a muddy endeavor, and I ended up having to borrow some jeans while Mom washed mine. Borrowing my parents' clothes was also today's theme. Neither Will, Katie or I had packed our walk-in-the-wood clothes or coats, so in order to take a stroll around my parents' 10 acres we had to borrow coats, hats and gloves; which gave the group a rather mish-mash appearance.
The first task of the day (after eating some of the wonderful candy the Easter bunny had left us) was to purchase Wellies. As none of us had appropriate woods-walking shoes, Mom decided that the muddy terrain warranted some rubber boots, which she had seen for a good price. So we all headed out to the store to purchase our Wellies. It was quite a task, as there were a variety of colors and styles to choose from, but size was really what made the deciding factor for all of us. So Wellies in hand, we headed home to change into our outdoor ensembles for our walk in the woods.
The Wellies turned out to be great fun, as it allowed us to walk IN the stream in my parents' woods. Dad already owned appropriate woods-walking shoes, so he did not take place in the stream walk. Katie also preferred to spend most of her time on dry land. The stream, just like all of the land around my parents' house, is lined with clay, which made the stream walking rather slippery. There were also quite a few moments where one of us would take a step and the stream level would suddenly rise ALMOST to the top of our Wellie! Mom went first and used her walking stick to test the depths.
We had an excellent time on our walk, and got a chance to view most of the property. It turns out that 10 acres of woods isn't as large as I thought it would be, and we were able to see a great deal of it. It was also nice to be outside. Can you tell that it was a tiny bit chillier than we had expected? Dad also showed us a fox-hole he had found and recounted the story of the turkey family he had seen strut across the front yard a few days before, complete with the tom turkey displaying his tail plumage to assert his dominance.
We all thought that Will looked typically Irish with his beard, cap, green coat and Wellies!
Shortly after this photo of Will and I was taken he did his best to dunk my head in the water! I think he just wanted to make sure that I didn't miss him TOO much!
Our walk concluded around the back of the house, and we stumbled upon this site. It turns out that my father was under the impression that he needed to create some sort of "ruffage" in the yard over the clay soil for when the lawn gets hydro-seeded in a few weeks. It turns out after Christmas was over my father too the poor Christmas tree on to the back porch and did a bit of work on it with a machete! This is the carnage left behind (to help give the grass somewhere to grow?). Can't you see how proud he is? I love my Dad, he just cracks me up. Who else would be so "practical"?