Cool Night Campfire

5:00 AM will come early tomorrow. We've had a full day, mostly outside. Kris had a campfire going by early afternoon, plus he grilled smoked pork chops from our local meat market. Those were tasty.

I fried up, in lots of butter, some of the squashes that had collected on our kitchen counters. Let's see... a large quantity of butter, garlic, salt. Fry that until the squash is squishy and browned. Then I added whipping cream and Parmesan cheese.

It looked like something to chuck right into the garbage, but it tasted great. Even Kal, initially a naysayer about this squishy squash, thought it was good.

That campfire has been going for about 11 hours. Kris has burned all kinds of yard junk, which is plentiful where we live.

The kids hauled more of the patio bricks over to their new home at the fire pit, the patio we didn't know we had when we bought the house. Kris is using this as a way for them to earn money. Kara also earned a no-whining bonus.

I guess I'm a little stingy. I figured they were getting a good deal by having food, shelter, and clothing provided by Mom and Dad, and we'd require actual, physical labor every once in awhile, along with daily household chores--you know, the ones they claim nobody else ever has to do.

But Kris does have a good point: while they have some chores around here they're expected to perform as able-bodied members of our family, receiving no monetary compensation except the value of the aforementioned benefits of living with Mom and Dad, the valuable lesson to be learned otherwise is that work is how money is made.

Work hard = get paid. Don't work hard = don't get paid. Do a sloppy job = do it twice or thrice, get paid once. Complain = loss of other rewards. Screens is the major card right now for when we have to revoke rewards.

The house is finally quiet after our fried biscuit-egg-bacon dinner, and a drive out in the country--which, by the way, is becoming a regular occurrence to soothe the feathers that get rumpled over here.

We drove out again to Pipe Creek Falls. A great blue heron was standing there in the still water farther away from the falls, and we happened to be looking as he flew away. A very graceful bird.

Another campfire

Once the kids were in bed with a story, I went back out to the fire that Kris was enjoying with his buddy at that point.

I'll never tire of campfires. Each one is a mesmerizing way to decompress for the day as I watch either the flames dancing or the deep reds and oranges playing around in the embers.