Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Momma Wants!

As LD gets bigger... and more and more active, I've pondered things that I can provide for him which would allow him to burn off some of this energy he seems to accumulate throughout the day. Often, just going outside and running does the trick. Sometimes we ride bicycles. It's not that there's really a shortage of things to do, but it's the seeming lack of variation. Run, ride, walk, swing, slide, lather, rinse and repeat seems to be how it goes.

We're spending time in Chico this week, before coming back and working on our fence.... The one project that is going to be a whole lot of physical labor - more than moving the concrete blocks and painting them, more than remodeling Dad's room. And really, I don't see the fence as something that is going to add a whole lot of beauty to the place. But, it will add functionality so I guess I have to be happy with that.

At any rate, I wanted to share what I ran across today because I thought it was just too cool an idea not to share.

It's an IN GROUND trampoline! Now, for those of you who've seen these or thought of doing this - you can go back to whatever you were doing before you came here. However, if like me, you'd never thought of a trampoline as something that could sit flush with the yard around it, read on and find some inspiration.

We've talked about getting a trampoline... a lot. We've kind of put it off for several reasons though - the wind in Sierraville during the summer would pick a trampoline up and send it flying around town like a kite. We'd have to stake it down and even then I don't think it would work. Then there's my fear that LD would bounce right off the top of it and go sailing across the yard and land on the ground - most likely breaking something that would require a trip to the hospital. I know there are enclosures designed to prevent this from happening. But, if you're a mom or dad (Ok mainly the moms will understand this one) you can't keep yourself from thinking about all the ways your child could hurt himself with something like this: he could bounce and get a foot stuck in the springs, or worse yet, slip between them on the downward side of the bounce; he could secure a future as a soprano singer (and at the same time prevent grandchildren for you) by coming down hard on the outer edge of the frame, not unlike a cowboy jumping down from the roof of the saloon to his trusty steed; he could get a case of whiplash, or any number of other similar injuries.

Yet somehow the idea of a trampoline has always appealed to me. Today I found this blog post:

In Ground Trampoline

After reading it I know it is just what the doctor ordered.... Well... sort of. We'll have to address the issue of our high water table if we want to install one of these. I did some reading about the process, all the suggestions were to use a french drain to allow the basin under the trampoline to drain. Unfortunately I don't think that would work for us because the drain would be under the level of the water. Even during the dryer summer months our water table is still quite close to the surface of the ground and I'm not sure we could dig down 3 to 4 feet and NOT hit water. Clearly more thought needs to be given to this idea before we could successfully implement it.

But... until then, I will still dream about an in-ground trampoline!

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