family hiking

There you go. I was going for the longest blog post title ever. Actually, no, no it’s just my brain is not working so clearly. I’ve been horribly sick with the worst cold ever. There I go again. It’s just a cold. We’re fine. But when there are seven people for a nasty cold to wind it’s way around, it kind of makes it feel like it’s never going to end! We’ve all been sick sick sick. It started in the head, down to the nose, (which is where it seems to get stuck), and on with a cough cough cough. Sigh. Sorrel’s having a tough time. It’s his first “real” cold. Welcome baby to the big worldly abyss of germs. Good news is…every time you let your body deal with an illness all by it’s lonesome, you come out on the other end with a stronger immune system. So, yay! Such an exciting milestone. *insert sleep deprived sarcasm* So for now, we’ve got super breast milk antibodies, sea salt water drops in the nose, and a bit of plantago balsam reigning us through. (I love that stuff. It reminds me of Vick’s Vapor Rub as a kid.)

On another note, I’ve been knitting in small spaces of “invisible” time. A new project. I haven’t knit anything new and big and exciting (to me) for wayyyyy too long. Two weeks ago I started planning. A new BSJ is in the works for Sorrel. His little sweater no longer fits him. So, I picked a crazy colorful contrasting self striping yarn to make sure the funky bends in the pattern show up nice and good. That’s the whole point of the BSJ! It’s shaping up nicely. Arrrrrr..

As I’ve been starting to feel a bit better myself I have been craving kim chi like a wild woman. Kim chi over chocolate? Hmmmm, interesting. Wild Brine is pretty good, although actually, it is SO good. I almost ate the whole container of the miso horseradish one last night. My body understandably needs the boost I suppose.

Yesterday Hawthorn and Lake were downstairs. They had a craft book out and were planning to make Halloween bat cards. Lake needed help. Hawthorn tried to help. Lake got mad, which is usually the way it goes. Hawthorn got frustrated, which is usually the way it goes. Lake pushed Hawthorn. Hawthorn kicked Lake. And away they went to different areas of the house for a couple of minutes while I put Sorrel down for a nap. Back we went, all together downstairs. I gave them a bunch of construction paper and scissors and glue sticks and asked them to make me lots of “food”. They were content for hours. There was paper all over the house. Teeny bits and pieces e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. BUT it was well worth the peace it brought them (and me, of course!). And I got a big bowl of colorful something or other. It was delicious. (No, I didn’t really eat it!)

We have snow, even though these snowy pics are from a couple weeks ago. I don’t think the snow actually goes away up here in the mountains in the winter. We get flurries almost every day at some point and at night the temps have been in the negatives. Brrr… something new to us South Eastern Pennsylvanians. However, I feel like if it is going to be winter there certainly better be snow on the ground, something we never saw until we moved up here. Despite the sickies, the kids have still been out in the snow almost every day. They clearly do/did not feel as crappy as we do/did!

ps~ Just in case you are wondering, if you use an extremely comical t.v. game show host tone of voice, your kids will be sure to clean up almost anything in no time at all as if it is the next best thing to do EVER! Try it. I double dog dare you.

Way back in the spring, a younger couple stopped by our market stand one weekend. We got to chatting and they shared with us a couple of cool places near by to go hiking. I tucked them away in my brain for “someday I want to do that.” However, as nearly 5 months passed I kinda forgot the finer details…like how to get there. Last week Jason mentioned wanting to go for a hike. My clouded memory churned up a place nearby that the couple told us about…something like a left at the red barn, then another right then left…or was it the other way around? I couldn’t remember, but wanted to try to find this place. They mentioned something about rocks and a ledge. Welllll, we drove around looking for this place (that is about 20 minutes down the road from our house) for about an hour. Sigh. Little people wanted out of the car and how disappointing it would be if we didn’t get to go for a hike at all! One road we went down had a little farm at the end of it, and someone happened to be out riding their horse on the road. We stopped and asked if there were any hiking trails nearby. They led us in the right direction and eventually we would up at a trail head. Yay! At the start of the hike we didn’t have any set goals…other than to just go take a walk in the woods together. However, about 1/3 of the way into what turned out to be our hike, I sat down to take a nursing break. Some other folks were making their way down the mountain and we asked about the hike…how far, etc. They said, if you made it this far…keep going; the view is amazing. So, that fueled my fire. I wanted to see what was up there. Our kids are super hikers. They will just go and go and go. Of course Lake needs to be carried for some of a long hike (which reminds me that I should have the Ergo packed in the car for impromptu excursions like this one!), but over all it’s just one giant adventure for them. Up, up, up we went…and when we got to the top, I believe we found one of my new favorite~ist places nearby, definitely a place I want to go back to again and again. The place is called Jensen’s Ledges and it’s off the Bouchoux Trail, a part of the scenic Upper Delaware River Area. I’m thinking we may need to do all the hikes and get ourselves a National Park patch!