Smokin' Dogs and Toastin' 'Lows

This evening we set up the fire pit and ate camping food for supper. It was a beautiful evening to be cooking with a stick and dripping ketchup in the grass, what could be better than an All-American hot dog charred to perfection over a maple-wood fire? Well, probably a lot of things.

Kenrick said he didn't really like hot dogs, but ate two anyway - one with and one without a bun.

Anthony would rather just have the bun without the hot dog.

Paxton laid on the blanket and spit up all over himself.

But everybody likes toasted marshmallows, even Paxton, and we burned through half a bag for dessert.


The wood for the fire came from a rather large pile of sticks and branches that we have in the side yard as a result of giving our big maple tree a haircut. The tree trimmer came this week and cut out some big sections that had died a while ago and were looking more and more unstable. The tree was looking bad enough that I was wondering whether we could trim it out or if we would have to cut the whole tree down, but the the tree dude thought the base was fine and so just cut it back to solid wood. I'm kind of glad we didn't have to cut it down. Now we hope to keep the mass of ants that were filling some of the hollow limbs from taking up residence again.
(Can you spot the squirrel on the wire?)

Anthony had fun watching the "perry-chicker" truck.


And I've spent the last couple of days trying to get some of the longer limbs cut into manageable pieces. We should have enough campfire wood for a few years.

Kenrick and Anthony spent some time learning the fine arts of hatchet-craft and fire building.