Worth a Grin

Today we spent the afternoon winterizing. Joerg winterized the camper while Patrick, Katherine, and I raked up the leaves and then hauled them into the forest. Patrick, who now drives the tractor and can run the leaf rake trailer, lets Katherine sit on the tractor with him and I keep raking until he comes back to the dumping pile to unload the rake.

Eventually we had raked the entire yard and were ready to start moving the leaves into the forest. So we unhooked the leaf rake and drove into the forest to get the wagon. Patrick was content to sit in the trailer with Katherine, but eventually I offered him an opportunity to drive the tractor. We picked up a load of leaves and I drove into the forest (with Patrick and Katherine sitting in the leaves) and then Patrick would drive out of the forest and Katherine and I would sit in the wagon together.

Now, this all sounds fun, I know. What you have to realize is that when we finished building the house we had our excavator come back with some extra rocks to help build a bridge of stones from where our yard ends into the forest. At the point where our yard enters the forest we have an area of soft ground where water can stand. This area is typically quite wet unless we are in drought conditions (which we are not). So, every time the tractor passes that area the ground gets chewed up and the tractor gets muddy. Our hope was that by adding rocks we could create a more solid area that would not sink down into the mud and destroy the yard. The rocks they brought are HUGE (many are larger than my fist) so driving over them with the tractor is like going seriously off-road.

So I turn the tractor over to Patrick so that he can drive us out of the forest, and Katherine and I sit in the wagon. Patrick drives nicely through the forest and then guns it right before he hits the rocks. I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose, but as you can imagine, the ride was quite bumpy. The first time through the rocks I was caught unprepared. The second time through - and every time after that - I wrapped my arms around Katherine, leaned forward (so the trailer sides wouldn't hurt my back) and put my head down with my eyes closed. Each time we would hit the rocks the ride seemed to go on forever. If I didn't know we were 'just' going over rocks I would have thought the end was here...it was SOOOO bumpy.

Anyway, I was struck by the torturous nature of this activity and had to grin; is my little angel driving fast over these rocks ON PURPOSE? Is he *trying* to kill me? Or is he just having fun? I did, after all, tell him he could go as fast as he was able to still control the tractor without hitting anything. He didn't hit anything.

Oh well. Some day this tractor will be traded in for an actual car, but I have seven years to work up my nerve for that. For now I think I'll just bring extra padding for the next ride.