Monday, October 2, 2006

It's good to be home

Just had a wonderful, wonderful camping trip with my homeschooling group at Portola Redwoods State Park. Now that the kids are growing older, we had drama, angst, love, danger -- and not all among the teenagers! For the first time on a camping trip that I can remember, I got to go on a hike. Be very clear, however, I didn't get to go on the planned hike. On that one, Thing 4 dropped off to sleep on the first hill, and I decided not to haul sleeping baby around.

By the time it became clear that she wasn't going to stay asleep if I tried to set her down, the hike had gone on without us. So we followed at a distance. And saw things! A banana slug, a newt, some unidentified (but interesting) scat, a dead mole. . . leaves of Big-leaf Maple . . . redwoods galore. It was awesome, in the nicest possible way.


The children loved the creek, and spent a lot of time getting wet despite the chilly weather. Bug kudos go to my sister and brother in law for supervising my middles so I could watch the little one. They do such a good job of taking care while letting them play, and I usually have no complaints at all.

That said, I did have a minor bone to pick with them when I came back from something (the hike, maybe?) and put down a sleeping baby so I could knit a little bit. I pulled open my bag and found this:


Two library books, some killer hand lotion from my friend, a skein of KnitPicks Merino Style, and a deceased crawfish/crayfish/crawdad. However you name it, it's nasty to find. This was a nice, freshly dead one, and didn't smell or anything.

With my sister's help, I found the culprit and had her carry it back to the stream so the omnipresent omnivores, the raccoons, could eat it there. I didn't think I needed to brown-bag for them. As long as Thing 2 is around, nature comes to me!

I even got to knit a tiny bit. So although I'm not as far along as I'd like to be on the ISP3 scarf, I'm hopeful that I will be done in two weeks, which is my self-imposed deadline. I decided not to get the lifesized banana slug refrigerator magnet to include with it. I think they're an acquired taste, so to speak.

Oh, and today, I made the cutest pair of sweater-arm pants for Thing 4. My sewing machine parts came while we were gone, and it works again! Not enough time for all I want to accomplish, that's for certain.




11 comments:

sewingsuzee said...

My GOD those pants are cute.

Loved the crawdad...and the phrase "bug kudos". I'm going to use that. If anybody deserves bug kudos after that trip, it was Uncle S.

Stefaneener said...

I only wish it had been on purpose, as appropriate as it was. Yuck.

Anonymous said...

Cute, cute pants! And the scarf looks lovely. Now, the dead crawdad...hmmm, not as nice :)

jen said...

Ahh, camping at the end of September? You lucky, lucky woman. It snowed in Calgary yesterday.

Loved the scarf and the pants, but as a morbid lover of critter corpses, it was the crawdad that really spoke to me.

Rain said...

It sounds like you had a fab trip despite the deal crawlies in your bag.

Thing 4s pants are so cute, she looks adorable in them.

Anonymous said...

What is thing 4 looking at?

K

Charity said...

It sounds like a really wonderful trip! Although I would happily do without the dead crawdad, too :0)

Anonymous said...

Ewww, ick- Mama doesn't do crawly things! Good thing you kept your head- I would've headed for the car & said "I'm done for today!"
The scarf looks great & the pants are adorable.

Samantha said...

It sounds like an AMAZING adventure.

I love the scarf and the pants. Too cute. Thing 4 is adorable. :)

String Bean said...

Aww, dead things. Aren't children sweet?

K said...

At least it was the crawdad in your bag and not the slug! Sounds like great fun for all.