Frostbite And Other Tomfoolery

This goes down as one of my favorite James stories of all time. On Monday he got off the bus and declared "Mom, I have frost bite on all my fingers on this hand!" Now considering that it was in the 40's when we went to the bus and the temperatures only climbed from there, I knew he didn't have frostbite. I mean really....but it did cross my mind that the boy has watched way too many survival shows and it was getting to his head. He showed me his hand and how the skin around each fingernail was bright red, insisting that it was frost bite. And that's when it all started making sense. You see, the day before we had gone to our friends' house to hang out and have dinner. They always have some sort of interesting Mexican delicacies hanging around and this time it was some chips called Taquis. They are like rolled up tortilla chips coated in some sort of spicy, addictive seasonings, no doubt sprinkled with crack to make them highly addictive. And were they ever! Even James kept dipping in for a few more. And a few more. And did I mention that the seasonings were bright red??? Yep. I broke the news to James that he wasn't in fact suffering from frostbite, but indeed more like a case of an 8 year olds idea of thoroughness as applied to handwashing. At first he insisted it wasn't the chips. After all, he had washed his hands!! But when I asked him which hand he had been reaching into the bag with he held up his poor frost-bitten hand and got a grin on his face. Yep, it was the Taquis!

In other news, we got a frost last week and as we walked to the bus, Tyler declared quite excitedly "It 'nowed! It 'nowed!' He promptly got down and licked the neighbor's grass, declaring that it tasted like snow too. He wasn't as thrilled when we told him it was just frost.

And in other, other news, Katie, James and I are back in Farm Hands. On Saturday they basically shut everything down so that everyone could witness the 'once in a lifetime' event of raising a windmill. Who knew? I never thought about it, but a windmill has to get up somehow. They rigged everything up and we all got on the rope and raised the windmill. It is amazing what people-power can accomplish. The windmill was 30 feet tall and went up pretty easily. I am sure arranging all the ropes and pulleys beforehand was no easy task, but the actual raising of it was quick!