Our Picnic Destination

Well I remember we had to do some mountaineering over some wind-falls and after about the ten millionth pot-hole I fell asleep in my trailer. When I awoke there was this great picnic area and playground. Do you know that in Germany one can find playgrounds in the woods? I remember playgrounds in the towns and on some of the sand beaches. My Dad says he has covered many thousands of square kilometers in the Canadian woods and never found such nice playgrounds there.

Fire Bug

It has been raining for several days but our friend Stephan is a fire bug. I had no worries that I was going to have a cooked sausage for lunch.

Second Thoughts

This is my friend Claudia. She is having second thoughts about sliding or perhaps she is just stretching out. She doesn't need to stretch really, she is already very tall and strong. Guten Rutsch Claudia!

My Tractor goes any- and everywhere!

Tractors are where it is at!! I take my tractors everywhere with me. I can spend hours in sand boxes if I have my tractors along with me. We go to get fresh milk at our neighbor's and Festus has taken my Dad and I several times for tractor rides. It is really cool! Too bad my Dad doesn't have his skidder anymore because I bet that was a monster tractor. Hey Stephan, how's the fire doing?

The year's first sausage cooked outdoors

Well here it is the first sausage by campfire this year. There is just something about a campfire sausage that tastes great. Ya, I had to even stop playing with my tractor when these sausages were cooked. Jutta brought some interesting bread and ketchup along. Ketchup is made from tomatoes you know! Yes, my Dad says there is lots of sugar in ketchup but I still like it just about as much as my Dad does.

Stephan knows the art of campfire cooking

Stephan takes a moment to explain to Claudia about how to find the perfect spot to cook a sausage. Ya, it is an art to be able to cook on a campfire. There are so many variables to consider. Did you notice on the previous picture how the flames of the fire can dance around. People spend hours upon hours just watching fires but to be able to use them to cook on takes years of practise. Really, my Dad is also a master cook at the campfire.

Okay, now we've really got to pay attention!

What this picture doesn't show is that I had already done 80% of the cooking of my sausage. My arm got a little tired and I broke a few rules of etiquette about how to cook with lots of traffic. Well you know what I mean, there were so many sausages all competing for the best cooking spots and I figured since I was the youngest cook at the fire I should be given priority. Ya, I may have jostled a couple other sausages that were in my way but they stayed on the sticks, no fatalities.

We had visitors, Audi-Claudi smelled our sausages

Well here is the "Proof in the pudding"! Audi-Claudi had smelled our sausages! How else do people meet in the middle of the woods? I know that the animals in Canada don't like to come close to campfires no matter how good the food smells but Audi-Claudi had no fear to hunt us down. She and her friend said they were just out power-walking but I know that they were out power-sniffing.

Swingsets in the woods

Well what did you notice first? If you are female you likely noticed my dirty pants. If you are male you likely read the caption on the picture. My Dad is starting to teach me about Mars and Venus. Although my Dad says he's still in training I let you in on the secret. Men are looking for the logical and factual information. If there is something written on a picture, that is the easiest place to start and for most men gives enough information to digest. Women scan the picture fully at first. It is the nature of the multi-tasking gender. They stop first at my knees and evaluate how difficult it will be to clean my pants. As they are processing this problem scanning continues and stops next on my smile. Now the first tenative big problem is reduced to "Oh, well." as they see that I have been having lots of fun. Neat eh!

OK who took the towel?

Every time I wanted to go down to this little stream people would hold me back. I knew it was not deep enough to go swimming but I still wanted to play in it. I was given no chance and even Jutta watched to make sure I didn't go swimming. Now look what happens when I turn my back. Jutta jumps down to the stream and plays in it. It is just not fair! I wanted to see Jutta dry her hands on her pants like I do but she just did this fun sort of dance while waving her hands around. Not nearly as effective as my pants method.

Claudia makes a super drink!

Designers of playgrounds here in Germany must all be male. My Dad still has not figured out my Mom's system of doing laundry with so many different temperatures and spin speeds. I don't believe the designers of playgrounds know about these things either and that is just great. They put water-pumps in the middle of large sand-box play areas. Water and sand mixed together, it's great just don't look at my knees. Claudia used a bit of water and several other special ingredients to make a special drink. After all her work no one wanted a drink. I think she had just made it a little too thick.

We met friends

On our way home we met friends of Claudia's. We had a very interesting discussion on how to best train your parents for pulling trailers with bikes. I had noticed that my Dad is a little out of shape this spring. I am going to hide a few more rocks in my trailer so he has to work a little harder on the uphills. If we need speed some time I could just throw the rocks out and it should work like a turbo-charger sort of effect.

I hope you have enjoyed my few new pics. You can E-Mail me at Jascha