Pushing Spring

Mark took the kids on a work day at Ted Stone Forest, one of the Cook County Forest Preserves near our house and now near and dear to our hearts. There were many, many people working, burning brush, clearing brush, hauling logs cleared by contractors. They worked hard and warmed up by the fire, eating hot dogs. Hot dogs cooked in the woods on a brush pile taste better than regular hot dogs!

I stayed home with an organizer lady I know who helped me with the kids crafts stuff. It was equally as exhausting and rewarding. That's another post...

We went back to Ted Stone the next day, and also to Pioneer Woods, further south in Cook County. We mapped out our frog monitoring route, which was great fun. But also much colder than we wanted it to be or dressed for! Pushing spring, Little Missy and I went out in fleece. Everyone went out without gloves. What were we thinking? It's March, not May!

We learned a lot of things on our mapping trip. We learned how to use the GPS unit, or sort of. We learned that bringing the children along on our frog monitoring sessions will be impossible. And we learned not to jump to the conclusion that every sound you hear is a frog. I'm so anxious to monitor these little critters, I'm practically making them up!

We can't take the kids to monitor frogs because the walk will be too long for them and because it will be dark. Some of the stops on our route are off path, through brush. Frog call monitoring start one hour after sunset, so we need to get there in the light, hike out and walk back to the car, listening for frogs along the way. The kids would likely be miserable and it's difficult to carry the youngest in those conditions.

On the bright side, we'll have date nights for the first time since we went on our debt-free life change almost a year ago! And as the kids get older, their legs get longer and their eyes are out of the brush, they can come along to help. The frogs will still be there, hopefully even more of them.