The Snow, the Skis, and the Farmboy Trio

We finally have snow that is staying on the ground!  This can only mean one thing at our farm-it's time for winter activities to begin!
The favorite activity this year appears to be cross country skiing.  The Keeper of the Flame (oldest of the Farmboy Trio) is finally big enough to wear the boots and actually move the skis where he desires to go.
He's been waiting a long time (2 years), because the boots we have are the Wife's and she wears a woman's size 7...as the Keeper of the Flame is shorter than the Wife, it was a wait he did not know if he was going to endure alive.  Who cares about being taller than your mother? The Keeper of the Flame wants his feet to fit into her ski boots!
This new freedom he has comes with strings...he has to share the skis with the Wife(who actually owns them, so she gets first dibs) and all the Older Farmer's Daughters.  But wait!  There's more...
The Pied Piper wants to ski also.  Because "anything that the big brother can do, I should get to do too", is the Pied Piper's frame of thought.  The Pied Piper didn't want to believe the Wife when she said his feet weren't big enough for the boots, or that the skis were too big and he was too small, or that he had to wait a couple more years to grow a little older....these were all mute points.
So no less than three times in the day, the Wife has rescued the Pied Piper from death in cross country ski-related activity.  First he was well stuck on the ground with skis all discombooblated and poles sticking and pointing in dangerous positions.  Then he was precariously balanced betwixt tree and poles with skis dangling in the air(note: skis do not make you fly).  The Wife's all time favorite was the "hill" he created down the slide and was attempting to ski down it (the skis are almost longer than the slide).
The Wife introduced snow shoeing(we have a pair for every family member), skating (a black pair fit him perfectly), but who cares about all of those?  The Pied Piper was born to cross country ski!
Don't forget about the Keeper of the Flame, however.  He has been patiently waiting for this moment to come in his life, he gets dibs before his disobedient brother!  So upon waking every morning, in order to assure that the Keeper of the Flame gets the skis, he is the first one up and dressed with chores done and he's out the door and on the skis, blissfully enjoying the serenity of a crisp winter morning on the farm...cross country skiing.