Wir machen ein Feuer!

Everywhere I go--the pool, the park, the beaches, the woods, the apartment courtyard--someone, somewhere there is building a little fire and roasting a small pile of sausages. It's just what they do here.  So I've developed kind of an itch to do some outdoor grilling of my own.  And since Ella's had some fire-building practice on her school field trips, I thought maybe she'd like to show off her new skills.

I decided we'd have our picnic in Sihlwald: hot as it was today (over 80 degrees), I knew the kids would enjoy wading in the river, and I thought the dense woods surrounding the river Sihl had a chance of being cooler than our apartment.  Oh, and it's usually deserted there, so if we failed to make our fire, few would witness our embarrassment. But the train to Sihlwald leaves only once every hour, just about on the hour, so the best we could hope for was a 1:45 arrival.  We'd have a late lunch, but it would do.

When we tumbled off the train, I instantly had misgivings.  It's becoming increasingly clear that the trains here aren't air conditioned, and, at the end of the ride, Joey was clearly inches from falling asleep.  He planted his feet on the dusty path to the picnic area and glared at me, daring me to just try make him move. But I had a secret weapon: a pair of laughing, excited siblings, running ahead, looking for firewood.  Watching them,  he finally decided it might be worth budging, maybe.

Ella importantly issued orders, telling Alex to fan out and look for firewood. It took me a while to notice that the healthy supply of wood chips that Alex kept coming back with was from the yard of some cows that were kept nearby.  Ella came back over and over with small handfuls of tiny twigs: she wasn't having any luck finding anything better.  The woods were on the other side of the river, and there just wasn't kindling around.

I was confused: I'd been told continually that there would always be a supply of free firewood kept near any public fire pit, gathered and chopped by volunteers, but I just wasn't seeing any piles, anywhere.

Meanwhile, Joey was crying for a hot dog.

So Ella did the best she could and built up a tiny mound, lighting it carefully.  She made an awful lot of smoke and seriously diminished the pile of papers that I'll have to tie up with twine come recycling day, but it soon became clear the sticks the kids had gathered were scarcely tepid.

Just what are they teaching kids in those schools, anyway?

I was just about to break into the bag of marshmallows that I'd packed, distributing them as emergency rations, when I learned a brand new word: Brennholzkiste! Firewood box!  There, kept dry in a coffer by the nature center, was a miraculous supply of carefully chopped firewood and starter sticks.  

So Ella sprang into action: "Alex! Go find some dry grass! Joey....uh, okay. Sure. Draw on yourself with old charcoal!"  And within minutes she had a fire that was, if anything, much too big. I started wondering why I chose the hottest day of the year so far to indulge my pyromaniac tendencies. I'm just smart that way, I guess.

We didn't have the patience to wait for the logs to burn down completely, so our food was flavored with light, carbony undertones. And overtones. And the midsection, too.

The kids didn't really care: the hot dogs were merely something they were enduring (the "healthy food" portion of our lunch...hah!) so that they could get to those marshmallows.

Mmm, tastes like summer camp.

The bag of Rocky Mountain American Style Marshmallows that I found at the Co-op was a little worse for the transAtlantic ware.  They were all kind of moist and stuck together.  So we ended up gouging out little globs of sticky sugar to impale on our sticks. It was, in a word, delicious.


After lunch, we crossed the river and headed for the forest. I'd been told that the best trail for the kids--the one that included games and puzzles along the route--was at the top of a steep ridge.  All three kids managed to scramble up the ridge and had a fine old time with the first activity at the top, a game in which you try to balance a stick on top of a buried branch.  Alex was weirdly good at it, and he and Ella had most of the sticks balanced when Joey went into Hulk mode and knocked everything down.

That, combined with the dawning knowledge that trail continued uphill for quite some time more, sort of quelled their enthusiasm for further hiking.  It seemed like a good time for a swim.

I'd heard that, between the Limmat and the Sihl, the latter is much colder, but the water felt wonderful today.  The water was low and slow, so it was great for all three kids.  Joey stayed close to the shore and watched the tadpoles with the intensity of a cat, while Ella sat on various rocks, singing, indulging her mermaid fantasies, and Alex threw rocks.  All true to form.

When it was time to leave, Ella decided to run ahead...but, since I trying to keep the boys mud-free while they dressed, I didn't notice that she ran off in the wrong direction.  When crossed the river and didn't see her, mild-mannered Alex transformed back into Hero Alex, dashing back across the bridge, bellowing for his lost sister.  She was actually just a little ways down the bank, but she was flustered and worried, herself.

But Alex's concern for her weren't lost on Ella, so we had a companionable, if too hot, ride home.