Roasting Wienies

You know winter is gone for good when you have your first wienie roast of the year. While I recycle like an obsessive-complusive, I don't always compost, so I have a nice collection of deadwood I've scavanged from the edge of my yard (technically the edge of the woods next to my yard, but that's merely semantics, right?). We needed to burn stuff tonight--in part due to Evan's request, but also to get the dead stuff cleaned up while we're "making over" our yard. Tonight was so calm and peaceful (and not much like the rest of the week) so I just let it all go and made him happy with a campfire. Our little campfire is approximately 3 and half feet across and lined with rocks, but the seared earth extends a little further out... we take our campfires seriously. (To date, several trees at that end of the woods have died from smoke inhalation, leaving up a few upright dead ones which have become inhabited by beautiful red-headed woodpeckers. Ooops.)

Evan has been around fires since, well, shortly after his birth. He's fascinated by fire. But he's learned to respect it and is pretty good about it, so I watch him but I don't worry. We picked up pine cones and deadfall and got our little pile up to a fairly respectable blaze. Which then concerned me because the wind picked up and headed towards the woods. I kept a close watch on that, and thank goodness the fire behaved... as good "little" fires do.

Then I got the brilliant idea of a wienie roast. Yes I did. We got our food together, dusted off the old crate we use as a table and just went hog-wild. I was so relaxed and having fun with Evan... almost makes me believe that his recent growth spurt is over. (Yes, my friends, about an inch in under 2 weeks). Those few nights of misery (mine and his) and his recent personality change were, thankfully not a permanent alteration nor a sign of future ritalin scrips, so Yay!!! But back to our story.... he ended up eating 3 hot dogs, all on his own. Then he asked for more. Luckily I knew better than to give him all that he wanted (but only from my dear friend and mentor: experience), so I cut him off and we went inside. Yes, it was a campfire, but darn, it was getting cool.

Thought I'd like to share a picture or 2 or more of our very first roast of the season. Summer's almost here! Yippee!!!

He takes his job pretty seriously.

Or, I should say, he takes MY job pretty seriously. What the heck. He just takes my job!

I think I could handle more of his cooking!

My dirty little guy! Awww!

I just went with the mess... I mean, we were outside. Why fight it?!

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