Camping and growing up
16/07/24 02:40
OK, for those who might still believe that global warming is not a reality, I have a simple question: How do you take your grandchildren camping without s’mores? Are you comfortable saying that cooking hot dogs over the campfire is no longer an important part of growing up?
We live in one of the more temperate parts of the United States. Our county is filling up with climate refugees who have fled other parts of the globe that have less comfortable climates. Still, the temperatures have been extreme (for us) under this heat dome. I know that 80 degrees is nothing compared to 117 in some parts of the country, but it is hot for an area where many public buildings and the majority of private homes do not have air conditioning. And the high temperatures have combined with lower than usual snowpack in the mountains and lower than usual rainfall in our area to result in an elevated risk of wildfire. The risk is high enough that all of the state parks and the nearby national park and the national forest service areas in our county all have a ban on all campfires and all charcoal fires. No wood or charcoal fires of any type are allowed.
And we are camping with our grandchildren.
So, I did what any sensible grandfather who has a comfortable standard of living would do. I purchased an approved propane fire pit for kids to toast marshmallows. As far as I know s’mores are a requirement of a camping trip. And I don’t even like marshmallows. I’ll toast them for the kids if they ask me. I’ll eat a graham cracker with a square of chocolate. I like the idea of melted chocolate, but I’m no fan of the pure sugar taste of marshmallows. So I don’t actually eat s’mores. But as a dedicated grandfather, I don’t want to deny my grandchildren the experience of campfire cooking.
There are some experiences of growing up that I had that I think are important to share with our grandchildren.
I was pleased as could be yesterday. The big pasture at the farm had been hayed and in this country, bales need to be stacked indoors to keep them from molding in the wet season. So the bales had to be picked onto a trailer and when the trailer was full they had to be boosted from the trailer into the hay loft at the farm. Hay in the hay loft is easy to feed as you can drop bales directly into feeding stalls below the loft. Our 13-year old grandson helped buck bales from the trailer into the barn. The bales were heavy for him. He could get them into the loft when standing on a couple of layers of bales, but when the load on the trailer got deleted, he could not longer lift the bales high enough. However, he hung in with the job, carrying bales to others who would life them. It was hard work for him and he had to push to do it.
However, when they were bucking bales from the field, he was simply too short to lift them onto the deck of the trailer. The kids’ partner had a couple of teenage helpers who were older and bigger than our grandson who could pitch bales onto the trailer. So the partner walked one side of the trailer, with one teen on the other side and one on the trailer to stack the bales. And, if you’ve been hanging out around the farm, you’d accurately guess that our grandson was driving the truck. It was his first time of driving a pickup and he was pulling a trailer. Of course, the truck was in low range and in the lowest gear. So he had to learn to put on the brake, be gentle with the accelerator and steer. And it was taking place in the pasture where there was nothing to run into except the fence at the edges.
He was understandably proud that he was able to drive and to contribute to the process of getting the hay into the barn. I can’t remember exactly being his age, but I do remember my first experiences with driving. Unlike our grandson, I had to be able to work a clutch, but we learned to drive at the airport. Our job was checking the perimeter lights and replacing any burned out bulbs. There wasn’t much to run into at the airport in those days.
I didn’t work on the farm the summer I was his age, but I did work there the next summer. I, too, was too short to buck the bales all the way up to the truck bed, so I got the job of stacking the bales on the truck. Unlike the bale crew at the farm yesterday, we put the truck in its lowest gear and let it idle across the field with no driver. It worked until one front wheel hit an especially big rock or a hole in the ground, which would cause the truck to jerk into a new direction. One of the people bucking bales would rush to the driver’s seat and correct the direction. They had to do the same thing each time we got to the end of a row at the edge of the field.
Our son never had the opportunity to do farm work as a teenager. He did learn to drive on dirt and gravel country roads. Farm kids have special opportunities to learn to drive, and though we didn’t live on a farm, I had enough farm experience in my background to start our kids out with their driving on rural country roads.
I thought of our grandson driving the hay truck later in the day when I was backing our camp trailer into a campsite from a fairly narrow campground road. I learned to back up trailers before there were backup cameras and trailer assist. I’m sure I do it more by instinct than by conscious skill. Each time camping season comes around, I need to park the trailer several times before I get used to the length of the trailer, but once I get that down, I can usually get the trailer to go where it needs to go.
It will be a while before our grandson learns to back the trailer. It isn’t a skill needed to haul bales to the barn, but I can imagine that he will need to learn how to do so at some point. It is part of living on a farm. He can start to learn right now with the small dump trailer that they have for their garden tractor. When he masters that, I may give him an opportunity with my utility trailer. We use it to haul straw from a farm down the road. If I give him the chance to drive the pickup, perhaps he’ll be as motivated to help me unload and stack bales as he was yesterday when he got to drive the truck in the field.
We live in one of the more temperate parts of the United States. Our county is filling up with climate refugees who have fled other parts of the globe that have less comfortable climates. Still, the temperatures have been extreme (for us) under this heat dome. I know that 80 degrees is nothing compared to 117 in some parts of the country, but it is hot for an area where many public buildings and the majority of private homes do not have air conditioning. And the high temperatures have combined with lower than usual snowpack in the mountains and lower than usual rainfall in our area to result in an elevated risk of wildfire. The risk is high enough that all of the state parks and the nearby national park and the national forest service areas in our county all have a ban on all campfires and all charcoal fires. No wood or charcoal fires of any type are allowed.
And we are camping with our grandchildren.
So, I did what any sensible grandfather who has a comfortable standard of living would do. I purchased an approved propane fire pit for kids to toast marshmallows. As far as I know s’mores are a requirement of a camping trip. And I don’t even like marshmallows. I’ll toast them for the kids if they ask me. I’ll eat a graham cracker with a square of chocolate. I like the idea of melted chocolate, but I’m no fan of the pure sugar taste of marshmallows. So I don’t actually eat s’mores. But as a dedicated grandfather, I don’t want to deny my grandchildren the experience of campfire cooking.
There are some experiences of growing up that I had that I think are important to share with our grandchildren.
However, when they were bucking bales from the field, he was simply too short to lift them onto the deck of the trailer. The kids’ partner had a couple of teenage helpers who were older and bigger than our grandson who could pitch bales onto the trailer. So the partner walked one side of the trailer, with one teen on the other side and one on the trailer to stack the bales. And, if you’ve been hanging out around the farm, you’d accurately guess that our grandson was driving the truck. It was his first time of driving a pickup and he was pulling a trailer. Of course, the truck was in low range and in the lowest gear. So he had to learn to put on the brake, be gentle with the accelerator and steer. And it was taking place in the pasture where there was nothing to run into except the fence at the edges.
He was understandably proud that he was able to drive and to contribute to the process of getting the hay into the barn. I can’t remember exactly being his age, but I do remember my first experiences with driving. Unlike our grandson, I had to be able to work a clutch, but we learned to drive at the airport. Our job was checking the perimeter lights and replacing any burned out bulbs. There wasn’t much to run into at the airport in those days.
I didn’t work on the farm the summer I was his age, but I did work there the next summer. I, too, was too short to buck the bales all the way up to the truck bed, so I got the job of stacking the bales on the truck. Unlike the bale crew at the farm yesterday, we put the truck in its lowest gear and let it idle across the field with no driver. It worked until one front wheel hit an especially big rock or a hole in the ground, which would cause the truck to jerk into a new direction. One of the people bucking bales would rush to the driver’s seat and correct the direction. They had to do the same thing each time we got to the end of a row at the edge of the field.
Our son never had the opportunity to do farm work as a teenager. He did learn to drive on dirt and gravel country roads. Farm kids have special opportunities to learn to drive, and though we didn’t live on a farm, I had enough farm experience in my background to start our kids out with their driving on rural country roads.
I thought of our grandson driving the hay truck later in the day when I was backing our camp trailer into a campsite from a fairly narrow campground road. I learned to back up trailers before there were backup cameras and trailer assist. I’m sure I do it more by instinct than by conscious skill. Each time camping season comes around, I need to park the trailer several times before I get used to the length of the trailer, but once I get that down, I can usually get the trailer to go where it needs to go.
It will be a while before our grandson learns to back the trailer. It isn’t a skill needed to haul bales to the barn, but I can imagine that he will need to learn how to do so at some point. It is part of living on a farm. He can start to learn right now with the small dump trailer that they have for their garden tractor. When he masters that, I may give him an opportunity with my utility trailer. We use it to haul straw from a farm down the road. If I give him the chance to drive the pickup, perhaps he’ll be as motivated to help me unload and stack bales as he was yesterday when he got to drive the truck in the field.
