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Sat, 17 May 2008

Fathers and Sons Campout (Berkeley, Age 5)
The annual Fathers and Sons campout was last night at Ensign Ranch. We left from home after Berkeley got back from school yesterday afternoon. Like last year, we met up with Rich and Fox at the campsite and shared a tent and campfire together. Not only are Berkeley and Fox friends from church, but they are also kindergarten classmates this year. They have been talking about this campout all week. Berkeley has been especially looking forward to it; every day this week he has asked "how many more days 'til the Fathers and Sons campout Dad?"

Berkeley and Fox spent all of yesterday afternoon playing together. The Howeys showed up at around 7pm and set up camp next to ours. Tucker is the third musketeer to Fox and Berkeley; the three of them played "Indiana Jones" in the evening and then watched a DVD in the tent before we finally put them all to bed at about 11pm.

I rolled out of the bag at about 8:30am this morning. By the time I woke up, many of our "campsite neighbors" (such as the Olsons and the James) had already packed up and were gone; the Howeys were just pulling out. Per tradition, the breakfast was served by the EQ presidency: pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, juice, and hot cocoa. I wandered over to the EQ chuck wagon to get a bite. I realized that they were cleaning up and were almost out of food. Oops. It seems that Berkeley (who didn't wake up for another hour) and I were the last ones to wake up... by a long shot. I guess my temporary hearing loss does have some advantages. I grabbed a couple of plates and went back to the campsite, sat down, and read a book while I waited for Berkeley to wake.

After we had breakfast and packed up, we went to other parts of the ranch to do some work erecting temporary living quarters for girls-only campsites and split some firewood. There were only 4 of us splitting firewood, including Berkeley. Berkeley operated the log splitter while I held the logs in place. He just had to move a lever up and down to operate the hydraulically-assisted splitter. At the beginning I would call out "up" and "down" as I rotated the log around to split one round log "trunk" into 6 or 8 smaller logs suitable for a campfire. After about 5 minutes I no longer had to bark out the "up" and "down" commands; Berkeley was a quick study and the two of us worked together silently for about half an hour splitting logs and stacking wood. His little forearms then gave out and I worked about another half an hour longer.

We worked about 2½ hours all told and then drove over to the horse barn. Berkeley had a ride on a horse and then we set out for home, stopping for burgers on the way back. It was a good time.

:: Posted by rus on Sat, 17 May 2008 11:41 pm
:: Filed under /daily_journal/2008, /traditions/fathers_and_sons



        

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