Well if you blinked, you probably missed spring, because the heat is here. And we fast forwarded to mid-season, summer heat. We hit 100 a few days ago for the first time, and now 97 degrees looks like a cool front.

Luckily, we like the heat, and we refuse to let the sun laugh at us by staying indoors. 

It seems that we live in a community that shares our, laugh-in-the-face-of-heat mentality, because this weekend, our library had a festival, where the boy got to bungey jump, among other activities…

And then we found that every other person in our neighborhood was at the community pool, which was pretty cool.

If that wasn’t enough taunting of the sun, we decided we were missing more track days in our lives. So the kid got on his bike and lead us to a local, extremely unshaded, running track.

Here is where the tiniest little trainer schooled his mother and I on how to forget about the heat, and play through the pain. 

We couldn’t hold our mark for very long, because the track was about as hot as a fling pan, and by my estimation the field conditions were about 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

And we are off…

And he smoked us. 

Has attitude is to push it until he drops, literally. I guess we could all get more out of workouts with that mentality. He has insane endurance, he ran about 6 laps, with some breaks in between. But those breaks included, pull-ups, box jumps, and pushing a sled from side-line to side line. 

But since he was doing all the work, he decided, his dad needed to get another rep in on his own, but he still felt the responsibility to encourage me through my turn.

Our day at the track mercifully ended. And there is little as refreshing as fresh fruit to help replenish the sugar and water that your body has lost. So, on this day, we picked up one of our little play gourmet’s most favorite fruits. 

A jackfruit.

I am curious how mainstream the jackfruit is. We can get them at our normal grocery store, so it seems that the popularity is probably growing, although I don’t think I ever saw one for at least the first 20 years of my life.

Just in case, you are unfamiliar, we’ll walk you through prepping one of these fruits for consumption.

It starts with the knife(s) and your cutting surface. You need to prep your knife handle and cutting surface by wrapping with cellophane. And then on top of that, massage your knife blade with coconut oil.

Let the cutting begin!

And then we pull it apart….

And we reveal the fruit.

From here, we continue to cut into quarters, and begin to eat as we cut. My guess is we ate about a pound as we went.

“Dad, you finish cutting, I will take the pictures.”

Now back to why we oil up our knives and cover all other surfaces. These fruits have an unbelievably  sticky substance that comes from them. It is called latex, and it can not be washed off with soap alone.

The latex is the white gooey substance seen in the photo. First, I have to massage the sticky stuff on the knife with oil, and then with soap, and the rinse. Repeat this process until the knife is clean. It takes a little getting used to, but everything is eventually clean.

Finally, we pull all of the little yellow seed pods out of the fruit and discard the rest.

This leaves us with a heap of wonderful tasting fruit.

Perfect for taking on the go… likely for the next round of outdoor activities.