Hester is now an official kindergarten girl, and isn’t she delighted! She went off cute as a button in her royal blue flowered seersucker low-waist, a huge white sash tied in a jaunty bow at the side, a big white seersucker platter collar with tiny colored hearts on it and three big blue hearts appliqued on, and a giant blue double bow on top of her head, holding back long streamers of curls which bounced as she walked. She had bright blue socks with white lace and white shoes with little purple hearts and flowers on them--and they lit up with bright red flashes when she walked. So you see why she thought she was absolutely the cat’s meow.
I've just printed a gazillion pictures. I can’t ever seem to do anything in a moderate fashion: if I have a lug of cherries, I make a dozen pies. All at once. If someone gives me a bag of zucchini, I spend the afternoon making twelve loaves of ‘bikini’ bread (Larry's brother Kenny accidentally called it that once), six zucchini/chocolate sheet cakes, and six zucchini ‘apple’ crisps.
Last summer when my Junior Choir kids were having a jolly good time being Secret Pals, I made 47 loaves of bread for each child to give their pal. (That is, one loaf apiece.) (And that was before Larry gave me the bread machine, too!) One time several of our friends gave us many sacks full of apples. So I made 28 deep-dish apple crumb pies, four pans of apple crisps, and four pans of apple/cheddar/raisin bars. Then we loaded everybody into the car, put a pie on each lap, and headed off to dole out pies to all the friends and relations. Cookies? Take the recipe times six. At least.
Anyway, that’s my explanation for the big stack of pictures. Larry laughs at me because if I’m cold, I turn the furnace on 85 or 90°. Hot? Flip it over to ‘cool’, turn it down to 55 or 60°. (He exaggerates.) One thing about it: extremists never find life dull! (Neither do those who must live with them.)
Dorcas is collecting bugs for a science project. We have baby food jars all over the counter with bugs in them. Furthermore, they’re still alive! Oh, s h u d d e r. The kids feed those stupid creepy crawlies more faithfully than they feed the dog, I think. The worst thing is, the katydids (“Why did she?” asked Lydia) and the crickets chirp loudly throughout the night. Disgusting. And you know what? This is the third time I’ve helped collect bugs...and there’s no end in sight. Teddy will do it next year, Joseph in two years, Hester four years after that, ... you get the picture.
Lydia usually stays busy during school hours entertaining Caleb; but one day, after getting up early, he took an early nap and left Lydia in a position she had never found herself in before: all by herself. She looked out the front door: no sign of any kids yet.
Wandering back to the living room, she queried, “Mama? How loooonnng will it be before I can go to school?!”
“Two years,” I replied, “but in just about half a year, you’ll be four: and then you can go to Sunday School!”
That certainly brightened her face. She happily busied herself with her Li’l Tykes’ playhouse, having more fun with it than ever.
In the afternoons, I take Lydia and Caleb for long walks in our new twin stroller. Even Caleb begins to expect it as soon as the kids go back to school after lunch, and he looks anxiously at the door, then back at me, and says, “‘Side?” (outside)
Lydia sings away, the whole stroll; and Caleb has begun to do it, too. Yesterday he sang an entire stanza of “Jesus is the Shepherd,” right on tune! No words, just humming, very high-pitched.
Keith is in Seventh Heaven: he just got a new bike--a brilliant blue Schwinn Sidewinder. He got a little black book rack, a speedometer/odometer/stopwatch, and a black water bottle--the right color, Larry informs us, to heat up his water nicely. (Ah, well. Keep ’im from getting the cold-water cramps.) We looked at those daffy-looking biking helmets, but when the man told us they were $25, we decided that was just too much. Wal-Mart sells them for $10.
So I said, “Never mind. We’ll just let him bump his head.”
You should’ve seen the look that guy gave me. Then Keith snickered and thus disarmed the situation.
Just then, Keith’s good friend Bobby came strolling in with his new bike, to get his 30-day free checkup. And, lo and behold, we’d just purchased a bike identical to his!
“Good grief,” said I, “you’ll be fighting over them like anything!”
“Oh, not to worry,” said Bobby politely, “I’ll put a long scratch on Keith’s so as to tell them apart.”
By that time, Mr. Schwinn Man the Nervous had decided we were all fairly harmless lunatics, and he actually dared to laugh.
Hester and Lydia were recent happeners upon a gruesome crime scene: our cannibalistic dog, who as of this date remains unrepentant, had recently sampled another bunny. There they stood, hand in hand, mouths slightly agape in horror, gazing upon the small bit of soft brown and white fluff.
Then Hester stole a sideways glance at her younger sister, noted the appalled little face, and abruptly clicked her own mouth shut.
“Oh, well,” she said, marching determinedly away from the sight, “it was just an old crow.”
Lydia looked quickly into Hester’s face, but Hester’s small jaw was set firmly; and, after mulling it over for a second or two, she accepted it with obvious relief. “Yes,” she agreed, nodding; “just a nole crow.”
Today the public schools quit early because it was 97°. (It’s midnight, and it’s still 87°!) But our school children learnt steadily on, cool as a breeze in the efficient air conditioning. Our children, who all think school is just fine and dandy, feel smug. The public school children, most of whom dislike school intensely, feel just as smug.
Smug, muggy weather!
Some of the pictures I had printed was from the mountains of British Columbia, one of the most beautiful places we went. The air smelled richly of pine, cedar, and fresh mountain air. Abundant wildlife could be seen everywhere. Small villages, generally many, many miles apart, were made up of snug log cabins with a four-wheel-drive and a snowmobile by the door. At the side of each house was an enormous stack of wood. Many times, no electrical lines could be seen anywhere, and some cabins had small, well-kept outhouses behind them.
It seemed like the days of the pioneers in their horse-drawn wagons, with their stalwart spirits, were not so long past; and we felt a bit like intruders in the quiet solitude as we came rumbling through with our Cummins turbo diesel.
I have a terrible problem: I’m out of coffee, and I’m ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Thursday, September 8, 1994
Thursday, September 1, 1994
Thursday, September 1, 1994...School Daze
School has started--last Monday, August 29--for Keith, Hannah, and Dorcas. Teddy, Joseph, and Hester will start Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.
Hester looked longingly out the door yesterday and said, “Why do they let the big kids go, and not us little kids? We like to go to school, too! And I do have all my stuff!” She peered around the corner toward the parking lot. “Rebecca’s even there!”
Rebecca is her teacher, but she also teaches high-school science.
Oh, our vacation. I suppose you want to konw about our vacation.
Well, we headed out west, going past Jail Rock and Courthouse Rock near Bridgeport, Nebraska; then Chimney Rock near Bayard, Nebraska.
The children loved watching the tiny mountain squirrels of Wyoming, Montana, and Canada; they are only about 5” long, and quite tame.
We liked the Hanging Gardens in Glacier National Park, Montana; they were in bloom and oh, so colorful. Going-to-the-Sun Road was an adventure in itself. Lake McDonald was smooth as glass, reflecting the surrounding mountains, but by the time we got to St. Mary Lake, East Glacier, the water was rippled by the strong mountian breezes.
We were so pleased to find a secluded little picnic area, after accidentally getting on this cow-path of a road. It is exactly between Banff and Yoho National Parks. Thinking no one was near for miles and miles, we ate supper on a picnic table right smack-dab at the edge of the road. Well, guess what: a tour bus (Greyhound-size) came through approximately once every five minutes, whereupon everyone bailed out and rushed madly about, yammering excitedly in French, pointing at signs and our heaping, steaming plates of food alike. I reckon they imagined us to be just part of the animated tourists’ attractions they’d paid to see!
Lydia got out her new ‘bee-noc-lurs’ and stared back.
We saw mountain goats in Glacier National Park, Montana, drinking from waterfalls right alongside Going-to-the-Sun Road. At the top of Logan Pass, the sun shone brightly on the glaciers, and Caleb said, “Bwight! Bwight!”
On August 13th, Teddy turned eleven; Caleb turned ten months. Teddy opened a big pile of wrapped presents in the morning before we started through Teton National Park. We’d hidden them in drawers and cupboards in the trailer. And wasn’t he surprised! That National Parks bag around his middle was one present, the watch another. The watch has a picture of a horse on it, and a horseshoe revolves around the dial once each minute. Teddy thought that was just the ticket!
If you don't care to drive over Logan Pass, there are 25 or more tour buses which young drivers race furiously over Going-to-the-Sun Road in the hopes of giving elderly people heart attacks, thereby alleviating the population crush, and to enliven the lives of the middle-aged, who have a tendency to get in a rut. At the top is Mt. Clements, Crown of the Continent. On the east is the flat-topped Chief Mountain of Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada.
We saw a pasture full of llamas, seemingly all colors of the rainbow. One particularly shabby one, looking like he was going through a bad molt, came to the fence and peered at us.
“I can’t do a thing with my hair!” I intoned.
Another, in patches of black and white, came and looked at us, a quizzical look on his face. "Am I a Holstein?" I asked in a growly, nasal tone.
Those llamas had not before been the cause of such hilarity, I'll warrant.
I took a picture of Lydia in front of Chief Mountain, little pink mug still in hand. A Rufous hummingbird came whizzing out of the trees, whirred around my head, and hovered near Teddy’s red-clad arm before darting several times through the crook of his elbow, making him laugh.
We saw Dall sheep in Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, and a mallard-black hybrid duck in British Columbia.
The glaciers in Jasper National Park were bright, seen from the Icefields Parkway. What looks like piles of sand against the mountainside is crushed rock, left behind by glaciers moving down the mountain, grinding everything in their path to fine silt. The turquoise color of the lakes is caused by glacier ‘flour’.
Immediately upon entering Kootenay National Park, we found ourselves in a rock-walled canyon. The temperature abruptly dropped 10°. I took a cute picture of Caleb that night, fresh from a bath. After the third person asked me, “Boy, or girl??”, I gave him a haircut.
Hester and Lydia trotted down the Forsaken Channel of Sunwapta, following Teddy and Joseph. It was steeper than it looked. I worried, because there had been cloudbursts not so long before; but the channel stayed dry as a bone.
We took ferries across both Revelstoke and Koocanusa Lakes. As part of the Canada highway systems, they are free. We camped at Balfour on an 80-foot ridge between Kootenay Lake and a rushing mountain stream, where the lights of the ferry could be seen every half hour all night long as it neared the shore. Kookanee Creek was at the bottom of a cliff directly behind the trailer. Good thing nobody sleep-walked, aye?
The northern Idaho mountains were so smoky, our throats and eyes hurt.
A tame bird in Yellowstone took peanuts from our hands -- rather rudely, I might add: he jerked them away with all his might and main. He was a couple of inches bigger than a robin, and when he went soaring off, his black wing feathers showed a white feather between each two blacks. I learned from my bird book that he was a Clark's Nutcracker.
There were elk beside Tower Creek, Yellowstone. You should have heard them whistling! We headed south through the Tetons, with Mt. Moran and Jackson Lake on our right.
Well, some friends of ours have invited us for supper, so I’d better go comb hair, wash hands, tie shoes, and that sort of thing. We don’t often get invited for supper; not many people have enough room, enough food, or enough time to cook it all, I think! (Maybe I should feed everybody first, so our friends will have enough courage to try it again, sometime.)
This story will be told in full in my next post, Canada Bound.
Hester looked longingly out the door yesterday and said, “Why do they let the big kids go, and not us little kids? We like to go to school, too! And I do have all my stuff!” She peered around the corner toward the parking lot. “Rebecca’s even there!”
Rebecca is her teacher, but she also teaches high-school science.
Oh, our vacation. I suppose you want to konw about our vacation.
Well, we headed out west, going past Jail Rock and Courthouse Rock near Bridgeport, Nebraska; then Chimney Rock near Bayard, Nebraska.
The children loved watching the tiny mountain squirrels of Wyoming, Montana, and Canada; they are only about 5” long, and quite tame.
We liked the Hanging Gardens in Glacier National Park, Montana; they were in bloom and oh, so colorful. Going-to-the-Sun Road was an adventure in itself. Lake McDonald was smooth as glass, reflecting the surrounding mountains, but by the time we got to St. Mary Lake, East Glacier, the water was rippled by the strong mountian breezes.
We were so pleased to find a secluded little picnic area, after accidentally getting on this cow-path of a road. It is exactly between Banff and Yoho National Parks. Thinking no one was near for miles and miles, we ate supper on a picnic table right smack-dab at the edge of the road. Well, guess what: a tour bus (Greyhound-size) came through approximately once every five minutes, whereupon everyone bailed out and rushed madly about, yammering excitedly in French, pointing at signs and our heaping, steaming plates of food alike. I reckon they imagined us to be just part of the animated tourists’ attractions they’d paid to see!
Lydia got out her new ‘bee-noc-lurs’ and stared back.
We saw mountain goats in Glacier National Park, Montana, drinking from waterfalls right alongside Going-to-the-Sun Road. At the top of Logan Pass, the sun shone brightly on the glaciers, and Caleb said, “Bwight! Bwight!”
On August 13th, Teddy turned eleven; Caleb turned ten months. Teddy opened a big pile of wrapped presents in the morning before we started through Teton National Park. We’d hidden them in drawers and cupboards in the trailer. And wasn’t he surprised! That National Parks bag around his middle was one present, the watch another. The watch has a picture of a horse on it, and a horseshoe revolves around the dial once each minute. Teddy thought that was just the ticket!
If you don't care to drive over Logan Pass, there are 25 or more tour buses which young drivers race furiously over Going-to-the-Sun Road in the hopes of giving elderly people heart attacks, thereby alleviating the population crush, and to enliven the lives of the middle-aged, who have a tendency to get in a rut. At the top is Mt. Clements, Crown of the Continent. On the east is the flat-topped Chief Mountain of Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada.
We saw a pasture full of llamas, seemingly all colors of the rainbow. One particularly shabby one, looking like he was going through a bad molt, came to the fence and peered at us.
“I can’t do a thing with my hair!” I intoned.
Another, in patches of black and white, came and looked at us, a quizzical look on his face. "Am I a Holstein?" I asked in a growly, nasal tone.
Those llamas had not before been the cause of such hilarity, I'll warrant.
I took a picture of Lydia in front of Chief Mountain, little pink mug still in hand. A Rufous hummingbird came whizzing out of the trees, whirred around my head, and hovered near Teddy’s red-clad arm before darting several times through the crook of his elbow, making him laugh.
We saw Dall sheep in Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, and a mallard-black hybrid duck in British Columbia.
The glaciers in Jasper National Park were bright, seen from the Icefields Parkway. What looks like piles of sand against the mountainside is crushed rock, left behind by glaciers moving down the mountain, grinding everything in their path to fine silt. The turquoise color of the lakes is caused by glacier ‘flour’.
Immediately upon entering Kootenay National Park, we found ourselves in a rock-walled canyon. The temperature abruptly dropped 10°. I took a cute picture of Caleb that night, fresh from a bath. After the third person asked me, “Boy, or girl??”, I gave him a haircut.
Hester and Lydia trotted down the Forsaken Channel of Sunwapta, following Teddy and Joseph. It was steeper than it looked. I worried, because there had been cloudbursts not so long before; but the channel stayed dry as a bone.
We took ferries across both Revelstoke and Koocanusa Lakes. As part of the Canada highway systems, they are free. We camped at Balfour on an 80-foot ridge between Kootenay Lake and a rushing mountain stream, where the lights of the ferry could be seen every half hour all night long as it neared the shore. Kookanee Creek was at the bottom of a cliff directly behind the trailer. Good thing nobody sleep-walked, aye?
The northern Idaho mountains were so smoky, our throats and eyes hurt.
A tame bird in Yellowstone took peanuts from our hands -- rather rudely, I might add: he jerked them away with all his might and main. He was a couple of inches bigger than a robin, and when he went soaring off, his black wing feathers showed a white feather between each two blacks. I learned from my bird book that he was a Clark's Nutcracker.
There were elk beside Tower Creek, Yellowstone. You should have heard them whistling! We headed south through the Tetons, with Mt. Moran and Jackson Lake on our right.
Well, some friends of ours have invited us for supper, so I’d better go comb hair, wash hands, tie shoes, and that sort of thing. We don’t often get invited for supper; not many people have enough room, enough food, or enough time to cook it all, I think! (Maybe I should feed everybody first, so our friends will have enough courage to try it again, sometime.)
This story will be told in full in my next post, Canada Bound.
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