At our Phillips Family campout, we were just relaxed enjoying each other's company. David was reading a book, this time on architecture. He was in a relaxed vacation type mood. Otherwise, it would have been a book on the principles of nuclear fission or string theory.
Jana had gotten bored with the Oreo cookies.
Even Mikey got a little tired of riding his new bike around the campground and chasing the dogs. So Grandma Janene suggested we all go take a hike and look for polliwogs in the beaver ponds nearby.
Everybody grabbed their plastic bags and nets and headed for the ponds, but no polliwogs were to be found.
Isabel caught a whole bag of little fish, and I caught a picture of the amazing junior birdman from across the beaver pond.
Shon found a stash of about two dozen cans of beer that had been hidden for quite a while in the underbrush. Shon demonstrated the technique for shaking up a can of beer and then spraying it out in the stream. We figured it would make the fish easier to catch downstream. Too bad that I snapped the end off my fishing pole on the way up the canyon, or we could have tried out the theory.
Mikey found a particularly peaceful spot to dip his net beside a beaver dam. During the whole excursion, we never saw a single polliwog or even a grown frog hopping about. There was lots of evidence of beaver and a bunch of newly gnawed logs and sticks, but we never heard a tail slap or were able to watch a beaver glide through the water. I did catch a few glimpses of the flash off the side of some very large trout in one of the holes. I will have to go back later.
We headed back to camp where we had a race up the hill. Since I was on my bike, I beat everyone up but Jake. Some of the kids posed on the sign at the bottom of the hill after swinging on the gate.What started out to be a great hunt ended up being a bust, but I don't think the kids knew the trip was a failure. To them and to us, it turned out to be a great adventure, another chance to create memories as a family.
1 comment:
You're right, the polliwogs certainly weren't the important part. I'm still pretty sure my kids don't know there weren't any involved :)
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