It's Kite Flying Weather

Life in Germany... The Rural Life... Another Trip Down Memory Lane...

We haven't done much kite flying for several years now, but when the kids were younger, they enjoyed it. This photograph is one I scanned today from a group of kite photos taken in 1996, here in Kentucky.

We first started flying kites with the kids at the end of the time we lived in Berlin. The Wall between East and West Berlin was opened and much of it was torn down while we were there. Most of what was called The Berlin Wall was actually two walls with a no-man's-land between them. We lived within easy walking distance of a section of the Wall that had a no-man's-land that was at least a hundred yards wide. We walked there often to fly kites since there were no overhead obstructions of any sort. The land on the East Berlin side in that area was a big farm field, so it was a great place to fly kites.

Keely was about 4 at the time, and Isaac was about a year old. One time we were flying kites there in the no-man's-land and we had to walk out into the field to retrieve one that had taken a nose dive. Keely stubbed her toe as she was running along, reached down, and pulled up a strange-looking thing. She announced excitedly that she had found a dinosaur bone! As it turned out, it was an old, rusty horseshoe which we still have. It is hanging outside along with an assortment of horseshoes that we have found lying around our yard here.

Here, we have too many trees in our yard to fly kites, but we can go out onto the road during the spring, fall and winter and let the kites fly over the road and our neighbor's field. This is not a good plan in the summer because we don't want to be walking out to retrieve a kite in a field with crops growing.

Not too long after we moved here, we ordered a couple of nylon kites and a mylar kite from "Into The Wind". If you have any interest at all in kite flying, I think you'll enjoy looking at the kites this company has. Our kites were from the "easy-to-fly" category, and we've had a lot of fun with them. One of the nylon kites is flying high above the neighbor's field in the photo above. The mylar kite has bit the dust permanently, but both nylon kites have survived a lot and are still in good flying condition.