Need Wood?

Recently, our boys had the job of splitting a huge stack of logs that were cut down last winter. Ray kept waiting for time to do it himself and I asked him why? Why didn’t he just get the boys to do it?

I am so used to delegating that I can’t believe he wouldn’t think that way himself. To me, delegating is a very important job. If you do not delegate jobs then you are not training your children, and you are setting yourself and them up for them to enter the world with less abilities!

Everytime one of my children learns a new skill I am pleased. It is like a checkmark in an invisible book of life. One more thing that they are capable of.

The boys all vied to run the machine and so they all took turns.

And you should see how strong my boys are.

Cooper Helps Out

Even the tiny ones like Austin! He may be the size of many seven year olds, but he is one strong little man! I was trying to wrestle him to the ground the other day *smile* and I could feel the strength in his arms! Having your boys haul and stack logs all winter long is a simple weight lifting real life activity. And it’s free!

I had a little laugh when I saw Austin’s attire when he was told he needed to have goggles if he wanted to run the machine. Swim goggles!

The boys won’t be very pleased when they find out that Ray is going to chop down a few more trees in the back yard this year!

The Finished Product

I like the free firewood and the labour it produces for testosterone filled boys! When my boys are full of energy, testosterone, or negative attitudes they run laps, do pushups, or haul logs.

And it pays off.

Our boys don’t think anything of running 4-6 km a day. It is routine for them. And the pushups have been happening since they were about five years old. It suddenly occurred to me the other day that Colt, who made it to Para, based on physical fitness that is mainly made up from pushups and running, was training since he was five years old! While other boys might have been jumping on furniture my boys were running laps. Ever since we moved to the country we have had a ‘lap track’.

In our old home there were four trees that created a square. Our boys ran however many times around the track. They’d hear, “Go! Five laps!” And they would come back much more ready to sit and do their lessons. Boys can’t be still. They have so much energy and as they get older it becomes aggressiveness. And not always negative. More often that not they are simply wrestling or rough housing. But not in a house! So now, in our present house the bigger boys hear, “Take a run! Two blocks!” We are fortunate enough to live on a street that borders two ‘circle loops’, so my boys can run in one direction in a circle, check in, and then run the other way. From the air it would look like a figure eight, with us in the middle. Each block run is about 2 km.

And when they learn to cut through the woods to shorten it, you learn to give another block run when you catch them or if you suspect it! *smile* They don’t often try that trick anymore! And when they are inclined to walk instead of run, you put time limits on it to make sure they are back in a reasonable time, or they end up getting given two runs. As it stands, it makes a fabulous PE program, because just our big boys do it. The older boys report their runs to a PE teacher, along with their pushups, and get credits for it. They also get the chance to get in shape by working in construction for their dad when they hit about age eleven. When our oldest son went into school for a year he went up against kids in arm wrestling. He beat them all. Though he is thin, he is wiry and strong.

The younger ones are in training, so when they hit grade 7 and up they will be quite fit. Right now, the middle-sized ones run laps around the perimeter of our property. One of the first things I noticed when we bought our property was how perfect a track it had on the fence line. Of course, the boys weren't impressed that I noticed. *smile* And the littlest two aren't far behind. Their training includes running driveway laps.

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