Green Hour Digging in the dirt box and other ideas

My friend Martha called today to invite us to spend the afternoon at her place in her wonderfully huge backyard playing in the sandbox, or rather, in the dirtbox, as the sand won't be delivered until Saturday. There is nothing the girls like better than digging in dirt. It always amuses me to watch the seriousness and vigor Cheyenne applies to her task, as though she were working on a project and not merely moving dirt from one place to the other.

Isabella and Christopher are not quite as hardcore.

Cheyenne eventually took a break to look for pictures in the clouds with Daddy.

An proving once again that he understands the minds of small children better than I do, Zach spent a full half hour playing fetch with the kids and their plastic gardening tools. That would never in a million years occur to me, but the kids thought it was great fun and ran until they were absolutely worn out.

As Martha and I sat on the logs by the fire pit watching this madness we chatted about some other ideas for getting the kids outdoors to play, both this year and in the future. Some of my favourites:

-Hiding stuff in the sand and having an archeological dig. This was Martha's bit of brilliance. She used to be an archeology student.

-Getting some friends together for The Great American Backyard Campout. We'd have a bonfire, make some of those hobo pies (also known as pudgy pies), toast some marshmallows and sing some campfire songs. We're participating in this event by camping on our deck this year, as the event occurs right around my due date. I'll be keeping solidarity on the couch.

-Backyard ballistics. Martha has a book about this. Of course, this year the kiddos are too small for this, but hey, they grow up fast, and I know in our circle of friends we'd have no shortage of dad's interested in making a potato cannon or a trebuchet.

-Log rolling. Why not?