Getting ear plugs in. 
The view
The dredge
Suiting up
Who is that guy? He looks familiar.
Dad swimming to the dredge
Getting air
Little Man watching
Googles on
In the water. The black blob in the back is Dax underwater already dredging.
Bye Dad!
The boys hard at work
What's on the Menu?What a blessing that has turned out to be! Best.Purchase.Ever. Plus, freezers seem to be a precious commodity out here (it’s cold enough at night that for the most part people just place their milk or whatever outside to keep cool). We’ve now become the neighborhood freezer. We are currently housing the neighbors’ sheep meat they just brought back after a fruitful hunting trip. As a thank you, on Sunday we enjoyed some of that sheep as a roast. Don’t knock it until you try it.
So with that freezer comes the possibility for frozen meats, veggies and of course all of the fish Chase can catch. Right now we will not starve as there is an endless array of Grayling, Dolly Bardon, Pike, and Salmon tucked safely away. We enjoy eating the fish quite a bit, but I’m still worried we won’t go through it all before we return home.
After the first initial few weeks here, the boys set up our much-needed cook tent. We were blessed with floors, a wonderful camp chef stove, and a pantry to blow other camping pantries away.
This meant more constructive meals, the ability to bring the babies into the tent with us, and of course- more dishes to do (truly a never-ending job out here!). Chase and I have loved experimenting with the dutch oven set I got him for his birthday. I think if I could cook every meal (including cereal) in them, he’d be happy. Some of our favorites have been:
Chicken & Dumplings
Chili Verde
Lemon Chicken with Capers
Even the baby has loved eating more lately. As you can see, he is breaking in three top teeth all at once. 
This has made him want to eat EVERYTHING! It’s sad because, just a few weeks ago he was quite content with the baby food I made him. He loved carrots and peas and green beans.
He especially loves sweet potatoes and zucchini but sadly that is a rarity for us right now so we settled for what we could get out here. Only now, I’m finding that his taste buds are clearly changing. I’ve puréed some of our meals (like the chicken stock and veggies from our chicken and dumplings) and he LOVES it! Unfortunately for me, he likes it so much that he turns up his nose when I try to go back to the simple carrots and green beans. Oh well, we’ll keep trying. He thinks he’s something else now that he can use those big man hands to direct the food into his mouth.
He even just started signing “More” after every bite. It’s really come back to haunt me as anytime he sees me munching on something, he starts signing “More! More! More!” Every once and a while he throws a “please” in there, but right now they’re very few and far between. The only down side to this learning to eat thing is that he now thinks anything in those cute little hands of his is eatable. I frequently find him investigating intently the palm of his hand with a quizzical look that I swear says, “Why isn’t there any food there?” I’ve even had to stop him a time or two when I see him try to put something (like rocks, sticks, or my shoe) in his mouth and want to eat that too.
The other day while I was sweeping, he was rolling around on the floor like he does. I usually keep him kind of barricaded up so he can’t get to things like the garbage can or the dog food (it’s a bit of a daunting task trying to baby-proof a tent). As he rolls, he talks and gabs. His new word is “Buh”. He was busy rolling, I was busy sweeping when I suddenly realized that he was quiet and that couldn’t be a good thing. I haven’t been a mother for very long, but I know the sound of when my little man is into something.
Sure enough, he had rolled right over to his little exercauser. Not a problem. Then it hit me- he was eating something off the exercauser floor! Now, at home in a regular, controlled environment I probably wouldn’t have minded. But out here, where the dust and dirt flow in droves, I panicked. Because of all the dirt, I have to clean that darn exercauser almost daily. Well, I will be denouncing my title as Mother of the Year today because sadly, I had not done that one simple chore. There he was, right in front of my eyes, eating the fallen cherrios and crackers off of that dirty-filthy-no-good-very-bad excercauser floor. I figured since I wasn’t getting the Mother of the Year award anyway, I might as well run for my camera as opposed to remove the little monster from his buffet table.
Oh the things we learn. I guess it’s true: If it doesn’t kill you, it’ll just make you stronger.
I may just have the strongest little guy in the world.
Click here for a video of Baby Kurt signing "more" and "please"
Bon Appetite!
We’ve all had our share of bruising, scraping or injuring ourselves in one way or another since we’ve been up here.
While out salmon fishing, Chase was caught in the head by a low hanging tree branch and barely made it back alive (or so the story goes; it changes every time).
At least he was still able to see well enough to bring home these lovely beauties.
Each person is only allowed to take two salmon home with him and let me tell you, these beasts are going to go a long way!
On the other hand, try as I might, I am unable to completely protect my little man from all harm. It’s a hard lesson to learn as a mom when you realize they’re going to get hurt (many times because of something they do to themselves) and there’s not much you can do to stop them.
For some reason Baby Kurt seems to get all kinds of bug bites. There’s the occasional mosquito bite (those are mostly on his face), but every once in a while a strange bite shows up that sends me just about into a complete panic. I show Chase and his usual reaction is, “Oh it’s just a spider bite.” Or “Probably some weird bee stung him.” Uh- not helping the panic! Poor little guy. I take solace in the fact that he doesn’t seem to be bothered one bit by these bites. He doesn’t scratch or cry when you touch them. He’s still one happy little camper!
Take for instance, the other day. With our new floors (i.e. rugs) he loves scooting and rolling all over the place. We practice crawling many times throughout the day. When he’s on his own though, he’s a rolling fool. He’s up. He’s down. He’s doing pushups. He’s scooting backwards. Over and over, time and time again. He was playing on the floor and I saw him kind of do a small face plant. I waited to see if he’d cry. He grumped a little (I could only see the back of him), but got up and went on his marry way.
When he turned around again, it took me a minute to realize something dark was on his nose. As I got closer, I realized it wasn’t just on his nose- it was smeared all over his face, his hands, and his hair (he must have smeared it while doing the “sleep” sign). When he did a face plant, apparently, he did a little more than just hit his head. I couldn’t see what he scraped his little nose on. The only thing I could think of was it must have been a nasty little carpet burn.
Was he bothered by this at all? Why no, no he wasn’t! I had to pull him away from his toys (an act that had him a little miffed at the time) so I could hold his hands down and so Dad could take a picture. My little man is one tough little cookie!
I’ve lived in hot.
I’ve lived in Southern California and Mesquite, Nevada almost all of my life.
I however, have not lived in a tent among those terribly hot days. Darn that greenhouse effect!
The locals here (all 10 of them!) have been stewing over what a hot summer it is. Apparently, this is usually the rainy season and it hasn’t been this blistering for over 30 years. When they first said the temperature would get over 25 degrees I thought, That’s hot? When you convert it, it’d simply be a cool 80 degrees to us. Not bad. I can do that.
However, I did not take into account the before mentioned canvas tent with no central air, and our little pocket of land that for some reason is packed in around a set of trees as to virtually never get any wind or breeze. That means sure- it’s 80 degrees outside. It’s also a baking 90-100 degrees in our tent. Outside isn’t much better without a breeze.
I remember in high school and jr high trying to devise ways to stay cool. Sprinklers under trampolines, water balloon fights, washing the car. Now it’s doing laundry (Lucy and Ethel style while standing in a bucket with your pants hiked up and stomping on the dirty clothes like they were a bushel of grapes), giving the baby a cold washbin bath, taking drives, or walking to the lake.
The lake is my favorite. No real shade and nowhere to sit, but I don’t mind.
If Chase is done working while it’s hot, he and I take drives around the lake. On one particular day, he rescued a little bird that had a bit of cotton stuck in its foot and couldn’t run. He picked it up and the baby didn’t quite know what to think.
After that, Chase tried testing the water- but with the baby instead of his hand. By the look on his face you can tell it was too cold!
We settled on just driving the rest of that day.
Another thing I’ve tried is sitting outside in a small patch of shade with the baby in his pack and play, covered in mosquito netting. It worked for, oh-about 5.2 seconds. That was until that small patch of shade kept moving and the only good spot was directly behind the pile of trash waiting to be burned. That, and the baby was so enthralled at the bugs caught in his mosquito netting that a nap was simply out of the question.
The only thing that seems to work for us is the lake.
The boys love it! Dad packs the boy on his back
And I pack the camping chairs, water and snacks. The baby loves the rocks on the shore. It’s taken us quite some time, but I think we finally trained him to give the rocks to Mom or Dad instead of putting them in his mouth. That is until tomorrow when he forgets what he learned today.
The best is when you time it just right and the water is warm. I’m talking comfort bath-warm. It’s fantastic! We strip the boy down his little tiny birthday suit and set him down. No squirming, no protesting. Just giggles and grins. He plays with the rocks as Mom and Dad sit close and watch him like a hawk. It takes both of us to make sure he doesn’t put those darn rocks in his mouth.
It’s times like these that I think, I’m almost glad it’s too hot to sit inside the tent.
Almost.
