Return to Overlook Mountain

Wow, it's hard to keep up with this blogging thing and still accomplish everything else I need to in my life. Two kids, coupled with the need to earn a living, are exhausting!

About a month ago we all headed back up to The Inlaw's house outside of Woodstock for some more exploring in the woods. One of our favorite things to do is to climb the trail up to the fire tower at Overlook Mountain. It's about 2.5 miles each way on a wide trail, and the views from the top are awesome.

Happy Family on the trail.

Though FBS was carried much of the way, I wanted to make sure that he had a chance to do some walking on the trail as well.

Two-year old on the trail!

He particularly enjoyed it when I pointed out and picked some wild raspberries for him to snack on. Of course, Mini-Man came along for the hike as well. Interestingly, he was not the only infant on the summit!

Mountain Baby

It was a beautiful day on the mountain, capped by the fact that FBS amazed everyone by climbing all the way to the top of the firetower!

Almost to the top!

The ranger on the summit remarked that FBS made it higher up in the tower than most of the adults who try to climb it. I guess he has not yet learned fear!

The next day we spent more time in the woods, this time on Peekamoose Mountain, where some distant relatives own some land. FBS had a great time exploring the grass.

Then we headed into deeper woods and came across our destination: a woodland stream.

They call this The Bathtub

We found a nice shallow spot for FBS to splash around in, and he did his best to explore everything he could get his hands on.

Cool, a wet stick!

All in all, a successful weekend of getting a city kid out into nature. I'm a very happy dad!

More adventures to come, including a story about talking to sheep!

Bugs

"I think I may have set you back on the bug issue." - Mrs. Packman

My wife has an irrational fear of stinging insects. OK, maybe the fear of stinging insects is not irrational, but somehow she is convinced that every bee or yellow jacket in the neighborhood exists solely for the purpose of following her around and stinging her.

One of my goals is to keep my sons from developing this same phobia.

Unlike many apartments in New York City, our current apartment has no cockroaches. It took me a little while to figure out why (obviously it had nothing to do with my great housekeeping skills), but eventually I discovered that we shared our home with a colony of House Centipedes. I'll admit that they're a little scary looking at first, but I've grown attached to them as allies in my fight against roaches.

About nine months ago, a centipede walked out onto the floor as Mrs. Packman was getting FBS ready for bed. She screamed, and FBS refused to go to bed for months until I had searched his room for bugs. He would not go into his crib until I had authoritatively pronounced, "no bugs!" Kids are impressionable that way.

Thus it was my fear that Mrs. Packman's phobia of bees would rub off on the kids. So you can imagine my enthusiasm when last Wednesday FBS' preschool was visited by "The Bee Man." This is a guy who actually keeps bees and makes honey on the roof of his Brooklyn brownstone. He brought a small hive with see-through walls into the classroom and helped the kids search for the queen bee. I was kind of sad I could not have been there to see the kids reactions.

FBS has been drawing pictures of bees and eating honey ever since. It makes me proud.