Kyl3

Chores… for kids!

viafrank:

“On Saturday mornings, my parents would announce “weeding orders” for the four children, and we were to set out, in the hot sun, the driving rain, the falling leaves of autumn, and attack. They saw no boundaries. Indeed, there was a stone wall around our property, but should there be weeds crawling past that limit, if natural forces had besieged it, we should follow suit. In our town, these weeds were not seen as heroes, braving the pavement and cracks of the sidewalk. So we, from week to week, were not taught to marvel at the dandelion or clover that sprang forth, spontaneously, without human design or planning, but rather to uproot them.”

— The taxonomy of the invisible - Bobulate There is something to be said of mundane childhood chores. Mine? Rocking, meaning my job, before I was old enough to man the riding mower for our acreage, was to scan the property and toss aside any newly surfaced rocks that could get caught in the spinning blades of the mower and damage the blade deck. I’d miss a few, and there’d be the guttural churn of the rock bouncing around the blade deck, and then the “kepprprrrfffpppt” of the rock flying out the opposite end like some kind of gas-fueled catapult. This is awful for the person mowing the lawn (and potentially dangerous for the windows in the house), but heaven for our golden retriever, Max. Max caught on that if he ran around the yard while it was being mowed, he’d have rocks to retrieve. In fact, more than he could ever dream! Then, later, he realized that I was out for a few hours each weekend tossing rocks around myself. I was slower than the mower. Max could keep up with me. Find a rock, toss it over my back past the treeline. Max, shifting his weight between his front paws, spotted tongue hanging and wagging from his agape mouth, would pivot and bolt past the trees and bring the rock back to me. Back and forth, on and on forever. Every rock I threw, brought back to me, just wetter this time. If Max couldn’t find the rock that I had thrown, he’d just find a new rock in the woods. I think this is some sort of analogy about how there are people who think they are helping but are actually impeding progress. Or, that instincts are more powerful than intent. Or, that progress is relative. Or, maybe, that things go in places for reasons, and the dog understood that and I did not. Later that summer, I said I wasn’t going to go rocking any more. Dad agreed and Max got a tube of bright green tennis balls. You can’t lose if you do not play.