Simon catches lots of sunfish and bluegills, but it's always very exciting when he catches a bass or catfish. I'm started to wonder if he's just catching the same fish over and over?
I noticed Simon had neatly arranged his workbench in the garage. I asked him about it and he said it was all the things he's found. He told me about each thing and where it was found, but uh, I forget everything.
When I took the kids to the creek at Umstead a while back, Simon noticed a little sunfish in one of the deeper pools. So when I said we were going to Umstead today, he insisted on bringing his fishing rod so he could catch it. We went to that exact spot, but the creek was much higher from the recent rain. He only fished a minute there, and I helped him realize his bait was way too big for such a small fish, so we went down the creek a bit looking for worms. He found some, and fished quite persistently for an hour or two, mostly just getting nibbles from bait-stealing fish.
As if we don't have enough obstacles in life right now, the kids this morning worked together to create an obstacle course that Zac and I had to traverse. The good thing is they work together and seem really happy making it. The other good thing is we make them clean it all up themselves, which kills some time.
I heard a lot of screaming outside my window when I was teaching class today, so I looked out and saw my kids playing stick ball with each other during their recess.
(Think about how much the sentence above shouldn't make any sense... But six months into the pandemic with schools still closed, here we are.)
My daily commute still just consists of my 3-mile round trip greenway walk. That's the only good thing about this whole mess.
This is my artsy photo from today. I often do a little work on my chromebook at the dining room table in the afternoons so I can supervise the kids.
Zac took the kids on an adventure walk up behind the creek after the rain today, and they came across this pretty impressive fort that someone is building in the woods. The kids were thrilled!
Zac ordered the tiniest hooks ever, so the kids could go minnow fishing with hooks for a lark. Since fishing it the main activity around here, I guess we have to mix it up sometimes.
On Labor Day weekend, we had our 4th annual campout, which thankfully did not get cancelled by Covid. We had fewer families than our peak last year, but the core participants were there: Us, Chris and Lukas, Jess and Anna, Robyn and Franklin and Oscar and Felix and Xavier. Plus, as a bonus, Lindsey and Brent and Grayson and Brie drove down from Virginia to join us. I love this event because technically I am the organizer and so it is my contribution, but all I do is send an email reminding everyone to reserve their campsites and we all show up and do our thing. It's the ideal ratio of minimal effort for maximum reward.
We continued our excellent luck of near-perfect weather.
(Note: These pictures are in reverse order because that's how they uploaded and it was too much work to rearrange them.)
The only annoying thing was that because the beaches were closed, we had a lot more squatters than normal invading our lake-front property. See all those people in the background? Not our people.
Simon continues to be completely obsessed with fishing, but he easily expands his obsession to frogs and anything else that moves and can be caught.
Simon often "gets into character" and likes to pretend he is various animals. He was a cicada for at least a year and would flap his wings wherever he went. These days he usually pretends to be a cow, cat, dog or whatever wild animal he just saw on a National Geographic documentary.
So his fish obsession has been interesting, because other than when he's at the swimming pool, it's hard to act like a fish.
But he sort of found a way. He threads his pasta onto his fork like worms onto a hook. He rolls his bread into little doughballs and pretends he's a carp.
I cannot emphasize this enough: I had no idea how much work this would be for Zac.
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| The fire ring is finished! |
I forget how it started, but the kids now sometimes fish at the creek too. And they actually catch little fish!
