Matching Tracksuits

exploring

Winter Exploring

Sunday 12 December 2021

It’s been a while since the Boy and I went exploring behind our house. I can’t recall the last time — I don’t know that we did much exploring during the summer if any.

When we got to the place we first cross the creek, we discovered that our normal method was impossible: the bricks and stones we’d set up to step across were gone, washed away by one storm or another. We had to improvise. We had to make a plan. We had to find materials and rig everything together.

“You’re a scout — this is just up your alley!” I suggested.

In the end, we pulled several sticks together to spread our weight out and used another stick for balance. It gave us both a little sense of accomplishment, but I was just enjoying spending time with him.

When we got to the spot we have to cross for the second time, we discovered it too had washed away. Fortunately, there was a log nearby, and we simply had to put it in place.

At the end of our route, where we always exited the sewer easement (that’s essentially where we explore) into an empty lot, we saw that the house begun earlier this year is nearing completion, which means we might not be able to do this much more — at least exit onto the street and walk back via streets.

In the evening, some cards with K.

Full Circle

Thursday 18 March 2021

A year after the first day of school in quarantine, I got my first dose of the vaccine. A local hospital and the county school system partnered in an impressively well-organized effort to get all teachers who wanted the vaccine vaccinated. The school system had a single-day e-learning break and transformed two high schools into mass-vaccination sites.

But the important part of the day was after everything was done, and the Boy and I headed out for some exploring.

First Spring Sunday 2021

Sunday 14 March 2021

We are creatures of habit and ritual, and I am a blogger of habit and ritual for constantly pointing that out. But sometimes rituals fall away, replaced by others as we outgrow them or simply lose interest in them.

Exploring up the creek, trying to catch minnows, talking about snakes and snapping turtles — these used to be nearly daily events in the spring and summer. Last year, though, the Boy and I didn’t go out to the creek all that often.

But once we establish rituals, they seem to bubble up again from seemingly nowhere. Today, with his friend N over for a visit, the Boy regained his interest in the creek.

They caught minnows and crawdads, talked about the possibility of seeing a snake, discussed where the snapping turtles might be.

And spent a lot of time looking into the net to see what they’d scooped up.

 

A lot of time looking into the net.

Murder Mystery

Sunday 22 November 2020

E and I were heading back down the driveway Wednesday night after taking the garbage cans out to the side of the room for morning pickup when we heard the most awful screaming coming from the woods behind our neighbor’s house. We thought it might be a cat fight, but it quickly became clear that it was only one animal screeching. I remembered when Clover encountered a raccoon on the other side of the fence this summer and the sounds it was making, and I told E, “It’s most likely a raccoon.”

Clearing out the leaves to improve water flow

Today, we decided to go out for a little adventuring in the creek behind our house. We hadn’t been for quite some time. I guess we just overdid it this summer, and the Boy was just tired of it. Still, today I talked him into it. We didn’t get very far before we found out what happened to the raccoon:

“There’s a dead raccoon in the creek!” E exclaimed with a mix of fascination and disgust in his voice. We talked about what could have killed it. “We’ve seen blue herons in the creek, but I don’t think one of them would attack a raccoon,” he reasoned.

“No, they’re not going to do anything like that, especially at night,” I confirmed.

“Perhaps it was a … ” His voice trailed off. He really didn’t know what to think. “It’s the second one we’ve found,” he recalled, and then remembered what we’d reasoned about that raccoon: “Maybe it was a copperhead! Or maybe a snapping turtle.”

“I don’t think it would be either of them,” I explained. “They’re both cold-blooded, and it’s cold these days. They’ll be tucked away somewhere hibernating.”

“But Dad, we’re wearing shorts today — it’s not that cold.”

Day 67: Cleaning, Surveying, Surviving, and Commenting

Thursday 21 May 2020

Cleaning Out

The end of the school year always brings a lot of cleaning and paperwork. We have an entire list of things we teachers have to do before going home for the summer.

  • We have to return materials to the media center.
  • Emergency guides need to go back to an administrator.
  • We have to make it easy for everything to be removed from our room, so that usually means packing up all the books on my bookshelves and storing them somewhere.
  • The plant engineer needs to check our room for any issues that will hamper the cleaning of our room over the summer.
  • We have extensive checks about grades as well as reports we have to print out for the office staff in case there are any questions about grades over the summer.
  • We have to return our keys to the a designated administrator.
  • We have to return our receipt books to the accountant.
  • We have numerous meetings about various things, some of which feel incredibly important and some of which feel not so important.
  • Prepare letters to go home with final grades.

The first year I was a teacher at this school, it took three days to get everything ready because, in addition to all this (and a lot of stuff I’ve forgotten/neglected to mention), we had to put copies of the final report cards in permanent records and then organize the permanent records based on which high schools students were attending. These last two steps are now out of our hands, but it still takes a while to get all this done.

Part of the challenge is getting signatures. At the end of the whole process, we are to provide the principal with a checklist that has been initialed by everyone involved to show that we’ve done all the steps above. Sometimes, it’s a bit of a trick tracking down a given administrator.

I went to the school today for the end-of-year checkout, arriving at around ten in the morning, and by twelve, I was done.

This is just another way that this year is exceptional.

I’m not complaining: I didn’t have to move my books at all because the custodial staff, in an effort to get a head start on the summer’s duties, has already cleaned my room, most significantly the floor (cleaned and waxed). Turns out they just worked around the bookshelves. The curmudgeon in me will forever after complain, “Why can’t you just do that every year? It’s not like I ever move my room around — everything goes back to the same place, year after year.” Still, I would have preferred a regular ending to this year, and for that, I would have willingly done the whole check-out procedure — twice, if necessary.

Surveying the Changes

Every time we have a significant rainfall that results in the creek behind our house rising to food or near-flood levels, the Boy and I like to go out and see what has changed. The surging waters bring new flotsam and jetsom after it washes away existing flotsam and jetsom.

It changes the flow of the creek, too. For example, the spot where we usually cross was just wide enough that I could step over it with one stretching step. Now it’s much wider. As I was wearing tennis shoes during our afternoon adventure, I was unwilling to take the chance of getting them wet. The Boy kindly built a stepping pylon out of the bricks we’d brought down last year to help with the crossing in another spot.

During our exploring, the made a grisly discovery: the raccoon we thought was just inexpertly hiding the other day was in the same spot.

“So it died there?” the Boy asked. “Did it attack something there? What could kill a raccoon?!” He related some video he’d watched in which a farmer explained how raccoons killed some of his chickens. “It would have to be something really big to take down a raccoon!” I could see the wheels turning: he was thinking about what type of enormous preditor could be lurking in that wooded area we explore with seemingly careless abandon.

I suggested that perhaps it was just sick and crawled in there to die.

“Or maybe the snake we saw bit it and that’s where it died,” the Boy intelligently suggested.

That sounds reasonable.

Survival Gear

The Boy is into survival skills. He’s been watching a couple of YouTubers who do survival stuff as their main content. The primitive building of two weeks ago, with plans to build a vast underground bunker complete with swimming pool — forgotten. Completely. Not a word about it.

He used some of his money this week to buy a survival kit.

He just had to try out the saw today.

The Comment

A former student shared a video on social media. I watched about 5 minutes of it. Bill Gates and 5G networks are conspiring to spread the virus. I made a comment: “This is just getting ridiculous.”

“Why?” someone asked.

My response was admittedly a bit barbed: “If I have to explain it, there’s no point. You’ve swallowed the conspiracy theory Kool-Aid.”

My former student took me to task:

You wrote something is ridiculous without explaining why, so it’s normal to ask ‘why?’

What did you think was ridiculous? Which one of the statements that this parliamentarian was providing was ridiculous? I know we don’t hear these statements in MSM but I think that it’s better to check all information available before ridiculing anyone. It’s too easy to discredit something just because it sounds ridiculous. There were many things in history that sounded absurd to many and yet with time they proved to be true.

Anyway wherever the truth is, it’s always a good idea to ask questions and there can be nothing and no one that should be unquestionable.

After the comment, I went back to watch the video, only to find it had been flagged by fact-checkers. I simply pointed them to a couple of articles and left it alone.

What I wanted to say:

  • “What did you think was ridiculous?” The whole thing. The idea that someone could possibly take this nonsense seriously.
  • “Which one of the statements that this parliamentarian was providing was ridiculous?” Every single one of them. Each sentence that came out of the woman’s mouth. They’re all demonstrably false and completely illogical.
  • “I know we don’t hear these statements in MSM” — there’s a reason for that: it’s called presenting facts as opposed to obviously false, idiotic statements. It’s like the old joke: there’s a name for alternative medicine that works — medicine.
  • “but I think that it’s better to check all information available before ridiculing anyone.” Point taken. Now, go check the facts.
  • “It’s too easy to discredit something just because it sounds ridiculous.” At least you’re admitting it sounds ridiculous. That’s a start.
  • “There were many things in history that sounded absurd to many and yet with time they proved to be true.” Other than quantum theory, name one.

I should be used to this kind of nonsense now, but I’m not. Nor should I be. It’s normal now but it shouldn’t be.

Day 61: Fear, Faith, and Fun

Friday 15 May 2020

Fear and Faith

Imagine fear nestled into anxiety burrowed into terror, and all of that is supposed, in the end, to be a source of great joy. “In my beginning is my end” T. S. Eliot wrote, but for some evangelical Christians, it might be reworded, “In my anxiety is my comfort,” for they view their everyday reality through an apocalyptic lens. They post things like this on social media:

The single comment “Scary” reveals the paradox at the heart of this line of thinking.

On the one hand, there is a sense of terror at what’s coming. Such believers look at the Bible as a roadmap for the future, seeing all sorts of ideas that, to those of us on the outside looking in, seem patently ridiculous. They see a coming world-engulfing violent cataclysm that will wipe out wide swaths of humanity and subject the survivors to near-slavery under the rule of some world-dominating ruler known simply The Beast, who will rule in what they call The Tribulation. During this time, there will be mass executions of believers and worldwide oppression.

At this point, the vision starts fracturing. What will happen to Christians, to good Bible-believing Christians who saw all this coming and gave themselves over to the Lord long ago? Some suggest that these poor Christians will have to go through all this; others (most) believe firmly that they’ll all be whisked away to heaven before all this — the rapture.

I grew up being taught that, like the rapture, God would supernaturally protect all his faithful Christians from this onslaught of literal hell on earth, but instead of being taken away into heaven, we would escape to a location of protection, which got the name the Place of Safety. Our religious leader conjectured it would be in Petra, Jordan. There we would spend the three-and-a-half years that the devil, through his Beast, would rule and torment the world, emerging at the end when Jesus returns to put the devil in his place and us in charge of rebuilding the world. Sounds crazy — but not any crazier than being whisked away like the Left Behind book series narrates.

Whatever the belief, though, these groups have one thing in common: the believers — the right-believing faithful — will be saved. This, then, should be a time of joy for such Christians. The end is almost here, and because they believed the right things all these times, they won’t have to endure the horrors coming.

So why the fear? Just look at the thoughts that follow the original “Scary” comment:

These poor folks are genuinely scared about Bill Gates’s supposed plans to use this pandemic and the resulting vaccine, which they fear will be mandatory (which it should be), to implant chips into them.

There is an amusing irony in all this, though:

Such a strange mix of confusion, and it’s driving thousands upon thousands to outright terror.

There is, of course, one thing that these fear-stricken Christians can do: they can pray about it.

Yet what is the effectiveness of this prayer? This verse from the Bible promises that “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray” that God “will heal their land.” If that doesn’t sound like a promise from omnipotence that is directly applicable to our current situation, I don’t know what does.

But we’ve tried this before:

These Christians will point out that there are conditions: the petitioners must “turn from their wicked ways” before this promise will be fulfilled, so that’s probably the problem: America is still aborting pregnancies, fornicating, and tolerating homosexuality (the three biggies), so God is just waiting for that to stop.

On March 30 televangelist Kenneth Copeland must have decided he would not wait for the stubborn, God-hating Americans to repent and simply “exercised judgment” on the pandemic, thus ending it:

But four days later, he realized he had to try again:

And yet it’s still not over.

Here’s where another layer of anxiety enters: these poor souls must be wracking their brains and souls trying to figure out what they’re doing wrong. So it seems to me that this type of Christianity does not relieve anxiety but only heightens it. Instead of these beliefs calming you, they add another layer of anxiety when one’s prayer’s and petitions are either ignored or answered in the negative, and the natural response is to blame oneself: “God promised. I must have done something wrong.”

So by the time we get to this level, we have the following fears, some conscious and some less so.

  1. The end of the world is literally around the corner. If I’m right with God, I’ll be spared. Am I right with God?
  2. Even if I’m right with God, my interpretation of end-time prophecy might be a little wrong and Jesus might not return until after the tribulation. So if I go through this horror, how will I know I’ll be spared in the end?
  3. I know God doesn’t always answer prayers, but his Word says he will if I repent and pray, so if I or someone close to me becomes infected, I’ll pray, but it might not be his will.
  4. And even if it is his will, I might have done something wrong. Or my country might be doing something wrong.

For something that’s supposed to bring comfort, that’s an awful lot of sources of anxiety.

In a sense, these folks have a right to their anxiety. The First Amendment guarantees that right. But some of these anxiety-inducing conspiracy theories have long-reaching effects. They lead people to reject science for religious-based superstition:

Conspiracy theories have been around for ages, and fundamentalist Evangelical Christians have often been particularly willing to believe them. After all, their whole religion is a conspiracy theory: the devil is constantly trying to get humans to do his bidding unknowingly. The group I grew up in went so far as to call itself the only group of true Christians in the world: the rest of the “so-called” Christians were actually worshipping a Satan-created replacement Christianity. These “so-called Christians” were, for all intents and purposes, worshiping the devil himself. But even among the milder, less cultish groups, there is a sense of conspiracy. Indeed, this conspiracy goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, when the devil tried to usurp God’s control over humanity.

I’m certainly not the only one to notice this similarity:

Arthur Jones, the director of the documentary film Feels Good Man, which tells the story of how internet memes infiltrated politics in the 2016 presidential election, told me that QAnon reminds him of his childhood growing up in an evangelical-Christian family in the Ozarks. He said that many people he knew then, and many people he meets now in the most devout parts of the country, are deeply interested in the Book of Revelation, and in trying to unpack “all of its pretty-hard-to-decipher prophecies.” Jones went on: “I think the same kind of person would all of a sudden start pulling at the threads of Q and start feeling like everything is starting to fall into place and make sense. If you are an evangelical and you look at Donald Trump on face value, he lies, he steals, he cheats, he’s been married multiple times, he’s clearly a sinner. But you are trying to find a way that he is somehow part of God’s plan.”

So we’re at the point that we’re all living in different realities. The Atlantic has an article about this now: “The Prophecies of Q,” aptly summarized, “American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase.”

The power of the internet was understood early on, but the full nature of that power—its ability to shatter any semblance of shared reality, undermining civil society and democratic governance in the process—was not. The internet also enabled unknown individuals to reach masses of people, at a scale Marshall McLuhan never dreamed of. The warping of shared reality leads a man with an AR-15 rifle to invade a pizza shop. It brings online forums into being where people colorfully imagine the assassination of a former secretary of state. It offers the promise of a Great Awakening, in which the elites will be routed and the truth will be revealed. It causes chat sites to come alive with commentary speculating that the coronavirus pandemic may be the moment QAnon has been waiting for. None of this could have been imagined as recently as the turn of the century.

Would could imagine a scenario in which a prankster began something like Q and then it quickly gets out of hand. The prankster tries to step forward and point out that he began it all. “Look, I have evidence!” He could have even had the foresight to record everything he did on video and through screen-recording software, yet that wouldn’t be enough once the conspiracy had gained a life of its own. One can only imagine what such a prankster would feel as he watched his creation ravage reasonable — a modern Frankenstein, with the conspiracy theory being his unnamed monster.

Yet Frankenstein could reason with his creation, and in fact did attempt to talk to him. Conspiracy theories are like memes: they’re elements of the brain that are belong to no one and are somewhat self-replicating. In short, there’s no reasoning with a conspiracy theory, and there’s little ability to talk to a believer in one:

Taking a page from Trump’s playbook, Q frequently rails against legitimate sources of information as fake. Shock and Harger rely on information they encounter on Facebook rather than news outlets run by journalists. They don’t read the local paper or watch any of the major television networks. “You can’t watch the news,” Shock said. “Your news channel ain’t gonna tell us shit.” Harger says he likes One America News Network. Not so long ago, he used to watch CNN, and couldn’t get enough of Wolf Blitzer. “We were glued to that; we always have been,” he said. “Until this man, Trump, really opened our eyes to what’s happening. And Q. Q is telling us beforehand the stuff that’s going to happen.” I asked Harger and Shock for examples of predictions that had come true. They could not provide specifics and instead encouraged me to do the research myself. When I asked them how they explained the events Q had predicted that never happened, such as Clinton’s arrest, they said that deception is part of Q’s plan. Shock added, “I think there were more things that were predicted that did happen.” Her tone was gentle rather than indignant.

There’s no reasoning with them because they often don’t even see themselves as conspiracy theorists:

“Some of the people who follow Q would consider themselves to be conspiracy theorists,” [David] Hayes[,  one of the best-known QAnon evangelists on the planet] says in the video. “I do not consider myself to be a conspiracy theorist. I consider myself to be a Q researcher. I don’t have anything against people who like to follow conspiracies. That’s their thing. It’s not my thing.”

So in the end, it’s hard not to be at least somewhat depressed about all this, and that in turn tends to make me just a little pessimistic about our future as a species — yet again. I can help our children develop the critical thinking skills (the painfully basic critical thinking skills) to avoid falling into this trap themselves, but that’s two in a nation of millions. These ideas are gaining momentum, and the alternative cultures they spawn are growing.

Fun

The Boy and I went out exploring again today. He had to try his new gumboots. I warned him about deep water: “If the water goes over the top of the boot, your foot will be permanently soaked.” He stepped in water that was too deep. One foot got soaked. We laughed quite a while about the squishing sounds coming from his boot.

Day 50: Death In the Creek?

Monday 4 May 2020

During the warmer months, the creek that runs through the backyards of our street becomes a frequent destination for us. Of late, this has been because of the minnows that flourish in the small stream.

I find myself wondering how in the world the little fish survive. What do they eat? According to one site, “Bluntnose minnows eat algae, aquatic insect larvae, diatoms, and small crustaceans called entomostracans.” I don’t know if these are bluntnose minnows, but that was the first thing Google turned up when I asked, “what do minnows in streams eat.” That makes sense.

Their presence also solves another mystery: what do the snapping turtles in the creek eat? That and frogs, I guess.

We were in the creek three times today. The first was in the morning, a session that included a bit of minnow netting and some bamboo harvesting.

The Boy has been watching videos on YouTube showing young men in some south Asian country (Malaysia? Indonesia?) who dig vast underground spaces or build impressive bamboo houses using only the most primitive of tools and resources. He has decided that he wants to do the same. This morning, then, we cut down a couple of bamboo canes for this project. The Boy wanted to get more, but I put him off, hoping his obsession with this project would wane a bit when he realized it’s impossibility for a seven-year-old boy. Still, I want to encourage him to try, hence today’s harvest.

After we took down the canes, it was time for a little minnowing. The Boy as a curious and amusing approach that seems counterintuitive but works: he sneaks up to where the minnows are gathering, then leaps into the water, thrusting the net in before him and waving it about violently in the water.

It seems like it would never work, but it does.

Occasionally, the minnows have caused a bit of consternation in the house. The first minnows he caught spent the night in a Mason jar on the kitchen counter. When K went down in the morning, one of the two minnows was floating on the surface of the water. Not wanting to risk the other’s life, K took the jar and sprinted down to the creek to release the survivor.

This prompted a new rule: minnows can be held in captivity until bedtime. When the Boy comes up for his bedtime ritual, the minnows need to be back in their own habitat. That worked for a couple of days until yesterday, when one of the minnows leaped out of the jar as it sat on the deck, flopped about on the deck board, then slipped in between two boards to its death in the leaves and chaos that exists under our deck.

“Minnow murderer!” the Girl exclaimed.

So now the jar stays in the house and minnows are released only moments after they’re caught.

Today, though, we discovered much more than minnows. During our afternoon session, we decided to head to the waterfall that’s just upstream. This means a short jaunt through the woods, approaching the stream from above. E started out toward the rocks and then suddenly started yelling.

“Daddy! Daddy! Come quick! It’s a snake! A snake! And it’s eating!” There was excitement and fear in his voice: he loves snakes, but he’s terrified of the thought of encountering a venomous one. He seems to think they’re conscious of their deadly venom and somewhat maleficent to boot. “What if they just chase me down and attack me?”

I try to reassure him when he says things like that, and today was no different: “Buddy, to him, you’re a huge, terrifying monster!”

“But how? They’re packed with venom.”

“They don’t know that.”

“They don’t?!” The Boy was having trouble comprehending that. How can a snake be so deadly and yet not realize its power?

I’m no snake expert to say the least, but I was fairly sure it wasn’t a venomous snake. The eyes, the shape of the head, its markings. But what about those markings? They’re awfully close to a cottonmouth’s markings except the dark triangles rest fat side on the belly of the snake — the whole pattern of this snake inverted.

Still, no need to take chances. We left the snake to its dinner and headed home.

I did a little research when we got home and came to the tentative conclusion that it might be a plain-bellied water snake, which is not venomous. Still, it got me thinking: what if it had been a cottonmouth and the Boy was bitten? Cottonmouths don’t have venom that kills humans, but it can make one very sick. But what about a little boy? We’ve tromped about those rocks where the snake was eating dinner countless times.

Explaining

It was another one of those realizations that threats lurk around us constantly and we’re mostly unaware of them. Our current global reality is a reminder that we are far from the top dogs on the planet in a number of ways, and yet we’re the only species that could burn the whole thing to a radioactive cinder.

While I was cooking dinner over an open flame in our new fire pit, I listened to The Scarlet Letter again, and once again, an echo of the day:

Much of the marble coldness of Hester’s impression was to be attributed to the circumstance, that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling, to thought. Standing alone in the world,—alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to be guided and protected,—alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to consider it desirable,—she cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world’s law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged—not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode—the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, by the sea-shore, thoughts visited her, such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door.

Two hundred years had passed from the events of the book to the narration of the book, and in the meantime, the country had grown a little less Puritanical and a little more tolerant. Hawthorne seems to see some hope in this. Perhaps we all should

Day 35: The Photographer?

Sunday 19 April 2020

The Boy has been showing an interest in photography from time to time. It’s not an everyday thing, but he enjoys it when I give him the little Fuji to shoot with.

This afternoon, we went out on a photo walk, and he asked me if it would be possible for him to edit some of the photos in Paint.net, a free editing program that I use for quick things like cropping screenshots and the like. I’d taught him how to do gradient overlays with it, and he loved the idea of editing photos like that.

The Boy shooting
The Boy’s shot

“Do you use Paint.net for your photos?” he asked.

“No, I use Lightroom.”

“Can you put gradients on pictures in Lightroom?”

Technically, yes, I thought, but not the way he was thinking. “Not really, but you can in Photoshop.”

“Can you teach me how to do it in Photoshop?” The Boy loves to learn if it’s something he’s interested in — but then, doesn’t that describe us all?

The Boy shooting
The Boy’s shot

“Well, for what you were doing, it’s probably best just to keep using Paint.net.”

“Can you teach me to use Lightroom?” he pressed.

And I thought, sure. That’s entirely possible. There’s a lot less to overwhelm initially on Lightroom, and to be honest, it’s a less powerful program in a lot of ways: there’s nothing you can do in Lightroom that you can’t do in Photoshop, but there’s tons you can do in Photoshop that you can’t do in Lightroom. Still, for most photo editing, bringing Photoshop into the picture is like using a backhoe for gardening.

Some sweet honeysuckle along the way

So when we go home, I installed Lightroom on the computer we have upstairs, and we’ll start editing tomorrow.

Will he love it? At first, most definitely. I look forward to sharing some of his edited images.

Will he stick with it? We’ll see. But seeing how much he loves trying to copy me, I think there’s a good chance we might begin something long-lasting tomorrow.

Freshly cleared land
A newly-created trail
Whispers of vines now gone

Editing isn’t the only thing we’ll be starting tomorrow. Spring break is now over, so we’ll all head back “to school.” I have real reservations about the ultimate efficacy of what I’m doing with students. Are they learning? I doubt it. Are they slipping? I hope not — that’s really the only hope most of us educators have.

Day 25: Chores, a Trip, and an Old Friend

Thursday 9 April 2020

Chores

The kids have one chore that they do together. They have other chores, but one is a co-chore: emptying the dishwasher. If we tell L to start emptying the dishwasher, she will fuss if E is not there to help immediately; if we tell E to start emptying the dishwasher, he will fuss if L is not there to help immediately.

And yet there are things that one would think should be a chore but are a joy — at least to the Boy. That’s right: the weed eating obsession continues.

He has trimmed every inch of the backyard and is ready to go back to the front to start again.

A Trip

We are finally allowed to go back into the school building. That’s not to say school has resumed, but if we need anything from our rooms, we can head back and pick up whatever we need.

Today, I decided I would head over to the school, not for professional reasons (I have everything I need for remote teaching) but for personal reasons: the Girl has run out of reading materials. With the library system closed for about as long as the school system, there’s no chance of getting a new book through the usual channels.

But when you’re an English teacher, and an eighth-grade English teacher at that, you have quite a substantial classroom library to choose from.

I offered to take the kids, thinking that when they heard that they would have to stay in the car that they would be reluctant to go. Not so. They were thrilled just to get out of the house.

Old Friend

A few years before we turned the carport into Papa’s room K discovered a little turtle in the laundry room. “It’s a snapping turtle,” I confirmed. It was probably four or five inches in diameter, and I reasoned it must live in the creek behind our house.

Some time ago, we discovered an enormous snapping turtle living in the creek. It looked to be at least a foot in diameter. Most of the creek is a couple of inches deep, with a few spots probably getting to a couple of feet, so I found myself wondering how in the world a snapping turtle that large could survive in such an environment. What could it possibly be eating?

The same turtle? I don’t really know. I don’t know how quickly snappers grow. According to turtleowners.com,

The growth rate of a Snapping turtle is influenced by a lot of things like genetics, diet, and environmental conditions. But in general, they will grow around 4 inches during its first year, and then around 1 or 2 inches per year.

So I guess it could have been the same turtle. After all, my measurements are guess-timates: I didn’t exactly jump down into the water with a tape measure to determine the size of a turtle that, whatever the exact dimensions, was big enough to separate me from one of my digits.

Today, as we were in one of our exploring modes, the Boy just about stepped on the snapping turtle as it sat on the bank.

“Dad, come here!” I heard. I was snapping a picture of one of the little waterfalls, trying to smooth the water with a slow shutter speed without a tripod — a balancing act, literally and figuratively.

I walked over and there she was, sitting motionless after having climbed out of the creek at a point where the bank seemed prohibitively steep. I took a stick, turned her around, and encouraged her back to the water.

She swam off into a deep part of the creek where the bank had washed out, leaving a tree’s roots exposed and stretching into the water.

“The perfect place for her,” L exclaimed.

On the way back, we stopped for some rocks for the Boy. He’s been collecting rocks and minerals. We’re not sure why.

We’re happy to help.

The day ends with the Boy and me cuddled in the hammock, making each other laugh with silly jokes.

“I love when we do this,” the Boy admitted.

“I do, too, buddy. I do too.”

Day 21: Palm Sunday 2020

Sunday 5 April 2020

Palm Sunday — always an important Sunday for Christians, but it’s especially significant for Polish Catholic expatriates. It’s one of those times when the ceremonies and traditions of Poland shine for a brief moment in our community. What to do when we’re all shut-in like this, though? Continue as usual.

First, breakfast on new, freshly-ironed linen.

Holy Week in a Polish highlander house means the iron is out a lot. There’s all the linens and such, but there’s also much linen in the traditional outfits they wear to Mass, and even though we won’t be going anywhere this year, I fully expect the ironing equipment to stay out for much of the week. (K’s mother always irons on a table: she throws down a couple of blankets and off she goes. She’s tried an ironing board but she’s gotten so used to her table method that she just prefers it, and to be honest, it is more convenient when ironing a table cover.)

First, there’s the palm. K and the Boy went outside to gather blossoms and foliage for the creation, taking some branches from our Leyland cypresses,

some blossoms from our neighbors’ dogwood (surely they won’t mind),

some blooms from the Azealia (same neighbor — surely they won’t mind), as well as a few treasures that grow by our creek.

K picked some fern fronds, nearly falling into the creek in the process, and the Boy discovered a lovely bit of green that he gladly picked to help with the palm background/base.

K thought it was very sweet, his excitement and his willingness to help. Neither of us had the heart to tell him they were weeds. Besides, what are weeds? It’s an arbitrary determination — it’s simply a plant growing where someone doesn’t want it growing. In that sense, even roses can be weeds.

The last element: some of the flowers growing by the creek in our next-door neighbor’s property. K discovered them yesterday when she was going with L and E to see all the work they’d done cleaning the creek.

“Oh, such pretty flowers!” she said. “I shall come here in the early, dew-laden morning to pick some of these treasures.” (Well, that’s not quite what she said, but she’s been listening to the Anne of Green Gables series, and that has a decidedly Anne-esque feel to it, and I feel fairly certain K would have said it if she’d thought of it.)

After breakfast, K leads the kids and Papa through a Palm Sunday service, of sorts, following the directions our local priest sent out. It includes a long reading about Jesus’s trial and crucifixion, at the start of which Papa has to excuse himself temporarily and I head out for a quick walk. When I get back, the reading is still not done. It’s a very long reading.

Lunch, which L and I cooked together, was followed by some outside time, kicking the ball for the dog, shooting arrows and bbs, jumping on the trampoline — the typical things we’ve been doing for years but have done with increased frequency (i.e., almost daily) several weeks now.

After dinner — homemade cinnamon buns — we took K out exploring. She hadn’t been quite the same distance (i.e., to the end of the little woods behind our house, where it drops into the next neighborhood), so we took her for a walk.

Overall, a lovely Sunday. A different Palm Sunday.

Previous Years

Palm Sunday 2019

Palm Sunday 2017

Palm Sunday 2015

Palm Sunday 2014

Palm Sunday 2012

Sixth Sunday of Lent 2013

Adventuring and Exploring

Monday 20 January 2020

The Boy was keen on spending some time with me today.

“I missed you from the moment you left,” he explained, “and I missed you the whole time you were gone.”

“We were only gone a couple of days,” I clarified. “In fact, it was only one full day that you didn’t see me because we left on Friday and came back Sunday, so you saw us those two days.”

“I know. But I missed you.”

So when it warmed up a bit in the afternoon, we decided to go adventuring. We headed to one of our favorite spots, crossing the creek twice on bridges we’d built ourselves long ago, crossing it a third time in an entirely new location.

One of the things I like most about these adventures is the conversations we have along the way. I can’t remember what we talked about today, and that’s sort of the point: they’re just carefree conversations about nothing in particular.

We have been coming to this area for years, in fact:

Exploring

Friday Exploring

Exploring with the Boys

Fossil Hunting

Thursday 18 July 2019

The Boy watched a documentary with Papa about the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. His verdict: “I think I want to be a paleontologist now.” He thought about it a moment before amending it: “Well, I have just been thinking about it since yesterday, so that might change.”

Cleaning our finds

Still, this evening after dinner, he was keen on going fossil hunting. After I told him he couldn’t just randomly dig holes in the backyard — “We have a dog to do that; we don’t need more.” — I suggested we look in the creek. We found nothing, as I expected, but it didn’t dampen his enthusiasm. “After all, we found some really cool rocks.”

That we did.

End of April

Tuesday 30 April 2019

It’s difficult to believe that April is over, and when I look at my school calendar for May, I realize that the year is, for all intents and purposes, over. We have no single week of school remaining that is a regular, five-day, testing-free week, except for the last week, which consists of three half days.

April in a way flew by, but it also crawled. We’re still not done with the renovation: “Two more weeks” has been the eternal refrain. We’re so close now it’s ridiculous: the walls and ceilings primed, ready for painting tomorrow; tiles in the bathroom and shower installed, ready for grout; hardwood floor installed in the bedroom, read to be sanded and finished next Monday. It feels like forever and no time at the same time.

Rain Approaching

Sunday 3 March 2019

A normal Sunday morning: breakfast followed by Mass, after which I took some time to photograph the lower church for Fr. L for the project we’ve been working on. I focused mainly on the altar and the statuary as I only had forty-five minutes or so.

After lunch at Nana’s and Papa’s, the Boy and I headed out for some exploring. Is it exploring if you keep going back to the same spot?

We wanted to head out for a bike ride after the Scout den meeting this afternoon, but the rain began anew. We’re something like seven or eight inches above average for the last twelve months, and it doesn’t seem to stop. Every week there’s a rainy day or two.

When the rain slowed a bit, we went back to our normal exploration spot: the normally-tranquil stream that we can leap across was impassable.