Pam and I are trying out this grandparenting thing.\u00a0 It comes highly recommended.\u00a0 Levi is going to be two in September.\u00a0 He\u2019s the cutest kid ever.\u00a0 I might be biased.<\/p>\n
Daughter Anna asked if I could watch Levi for an afternoon while she visited friends in New Ulm.\u00a0 It turned out to be the Sunday of Bavarian Blast.\u00a0 Perfect.<\/p>\n
After the parade, I spent the afternoon toddling around the fairgrounds with Levi.\u00a0 Levi\u2019s new favorite band is the Bockfest Boys.\u00a0 He was quite taken by the Narren, especially Gertie the Goose.\u00a0 He ended up following the dance line with them under the big tent, something of a mini-celebrity.\u00a0 I enjoy German music and I enjoy Schell\u2019s beer.\u00a0\u00a0 It was about a perfect afternoon for old grandpa.<\/p>\n
Of course, we were outside all day.\u00a0 That was part of the attraction for Levi.\u00a0 He is that age where he wants to go out as often as someone will take him.\u00a0 Whenever we get together it is my role to take him out to the yard or the park or for a walk.\u00a0 Levi doesn\u2019t care if it\u2019s twenty below or the heat index is 100.\u00a0 He\u2019s ready to put on his boots, sneakers, or bare feet and head out.<\/p>\n
I remember this age with our kids.\u00a0 They were drawn to the outdoors, almost magnetically.\u00a0 One of the first words Anna said was, \u201ctside,\u201d an abbreviated form of \u201coutside.\u201d\u00a0 She walked around all day, demanding, imploring, pleading, \u201cTside.\u00a0 Tside.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t just send them out the door alone at this age.\u00a0 So, I spent hours toddling around the farm with Anna.\u00a0 Their curiosity is voracious at this age.\u00a0 Every rock, bug, weed, puddle, and bird is worth consideration and exploration and play if you can pick it up.\u00a0 There is the temptation as a parent to see this as wasted time, especially when there are a hundred things you\u2019re supposed to be doing.\u00a0 Of course, it is not wasted.\u00a0 This is exactly what parenting is.<\/p>\n
As time passes that urge to go \u201ctside\u201d fades.\u00a0 There even comes a day when you\u2019ve got to kick them out of the house.<\/p>\n
But for most of us the urge never goes away completely.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got friends who are hunters, golfers, bikers, and gardeners.\u00a0 For each of these the chance to be outdoors is a big part of it.\u00a0 I am fortunate to spend the majority of my time outside.\u00a0 Usually I\u2019m glad for that.\u00a0 Even on the worst of winter thirty-below-with-a-howling-wind days, I make myself go out for a while.<\/p>\n
We live in these two worlds.\u00a0 \u201cInside\u201d is generally safer, constant, and predictable.\u00a0 We are blessed to have places to go into that are heated and cooled.\u00a0 Not everyone in the world does.\u00a0 I sure like my home.\u00a0 It\u2019s just not that interesting a place to be if you are two-years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cOutside\u201d can range about 130 degrees in temperature around here with winds anywhere between still and tornadic.\u00a0 It can certainly be unsafe.\u00a0 Most days we can get ourselves comfortable layering coats, jackets, sweaters, etc.\u00a0 But outside is often dramatically different than coming into the house, knowing it will be 70 to 72 degrees.<\/p>\n
I said inside is predictable, and that\u2019s a good thing.\u00a0 The hot water in our shower turning cold is about all the surprise we want in our homes.\u00a0 Outside is filled with surprises if we are paying attention.\u00a0 Many of these can be delightful and even awe-inspiring: a sunset of blazing color, unique clouds, wild flowers.\u00a0 The thing is you have to be out there to experience them.\u00a0 If you put in the time, you will be rewarded.<\/p>\n
This time of year, I walk a lot of soybean fields in my part time inspecting fields.\u00a0 There can be a lot of sameness in a 320-acre soybean field for sure.\u00a0 Then comes a year like this when I am surrounded by small orange butterflies.\u00a0 I found out that these are painted lady butterflies, and they actually lay their eggs on soybean plants.\u00a0 Whatever the conditions are in 2017, they are right for an explosion of them.\u00a0 I have had dozens of them flitting about me.<\/p>\n
Then there are fireflies just before dark hovering above soybean fields, another unique thing to 2017.\u00a0 A week ago, I was finishing my work in a field as fireflies began to surround me.\u00a0 Meanwhile in the northern horizon, there was lightning from a far-off thunderstorm.\u00a0 It was an amazingly beautiful scene.\u00a0 And one I got to see only because I happened to be there.<\/p>\n
(Of course, I can\u2019t talk about the outdoors without mentioning our shared nightmare that was indoor baseball.\u00a0 For thirty years the Twins played in an environment that was as interesting as that of your living room.\u00a0 As a state, we are just now recovering from the trauma.<\/p>\n
I have been to Target Field when it was thirty degrees; that was against the Miami Marlins of all teams.\u00a0 I have been there when it was ninety and muggy.\u00a0 I have been there when it was gorgeous, when I could barely keep myself from singing out the old song, \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful day for a ballgame, for a ballgame, today\u2026\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ll take any of those days over the sterile 70 degrees of the Metrodome.\u00a0 There, I promise never to speak of the place again.)<\/p>\n
If you look at old articles on health, there is often an admonition to go outdoors.\u00a0 It was considered therapeutic and good for all manner of ailments.\u00a0 I suppose houses of long ago would have had wood or coal smoke in the winter and been hot and stuffy in the summer.\u00a0 Today, we know there are benefits from the vitamin D of sunlight. \u00a0I\u2019ve read too about measurable positive effects on our brain waves.<\/p>\n
In speaking with friends about the outdoors, I hear references to seeing God in nature.\u00a0 There is a reverence as they mention being on a lake fishing or in the woods hunting.\u00a0 We know God is in our house and our workplace, but it is not the same as being in his Creation.\u00a0 There is the chance to see how you fit in to that, a chance for perspective.<\/p>\n
Who knows what is in the mind of a small child like Levi?\u00a0 But who knows that he isn\u2019t feeling the Creator\u2019s presence out in that big world that is so new to him?\u00a0 For him and all of us, it\u2019s good to go \u201ctside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pam and I are trying out this grandparenting thing.\u00a0 It comes highly recommended.\u00a0 Levi is going to be two in September.\u00a0 He\u2019s the cutest kid ever.\u00a0 I might be biased. Daughter Anna asked if I could watch Levi for an afternoon while she visited friends in New Ulm.\u00a0 It turned out to be the Sunday …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 20:37:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96370,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96369\/revisions\/96370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}