Fishing With Worms

Last weekend we went fishing. Lil'Bug wanted her own fishing pole, but neither she nor we liked any of the kids plastic versions, nor did we like the prospect of little one flinging a real metal pole with a hook around. While contemplating the dilemma, she discovered the fish scoop nets, the short ones with the wooden handle. Perfect!

She put the worm in the net and submerged it over the side of the canoe. She had a blast! This is definitely going to be a regular activity this summer. I was initially wary of the small boat and a very active tot squirming all over, but she has great balance and listens well. On previous trips we have seen Blue Heron, Painted Turtles, Canadian geese, ducks, more ducks, and oh, then there were ducks. Lil'Bug loves ducks. This weekend, after the flooding receded a bit, there wasn't much wildlife but future outings will undoubtedly add to our catalogue of animal pictures.

Maybe, just maybe, she'll even catch a fish......

Friday Tea Time

I know, everyone else does Thursday tea time, but today is a tea day for me. I will have Chocolate Hazelnut decaf. The last thing I need today is caffine. In fact, I need a nap.

Tuesday a few of my homeschool mama friends checked out local parks. We're looking for a "good" park, but the problem is that everyone has a different idea of what "good" means. Ah, the nuances of words. So good means all of the following: not far (gas is expensive here), modern bathrooms, shade, no water feature, and kid friendly play equipment (you'd be surprised how unkid friendly some of our local park's play structures are). Sounds simple, but its not. Crowd control is also an issue, especially in the summer.

Tuesday's park choice was overrun with public school buses so Plan B was enacted. Park B was ok, but there were mean little boys who were mean to and said rude things to Lil'Bug and that pretty much ruined it for her. Beautiful view though, the bathrooms were the gaping hole in the ground stinky camp toilets kind. Ugh. So we're off to find a better option. Hopefully one on the bike trails. Hear that Mama B? I just thought of that.....is there one that connects to the "park by my house"'s bike trail?

Thursday was much better. The park was awesome: connects to nearby bike trails, is shaded, nice bathrooms, and Lily had fun. Of course there was an encounter with a Queen Ant (neat) and the parking was on street, but neither were so terrible that the park gets a bad grade from me. I think we will go there sometimes for fun, not on a park day. That's high praise!

Baking Bread

When Lil'Bug wakes up from her nap we are going to attempt to make bread (Husband usually does the baking here, I'm just learning!). She's been really eager to help me with cooking lately and she's quite attentive. Today she helped me mop the kitchen, which is no small feat, and after asked if she could help me cook as a reward for helping. We made chocolate chip pancakes. They were not even yummy enough for an almost three year old! Ugh. I need to accelerate learning to cook. How hard should it be to mix pancake mix with water!!!!

It's raining here. She has so much energy that it gets a little wild when we can't go outside to run it off, so baking bread it is. Does anybody have a kid friendly bread recipe that's not banana or pumpkin that you could share with me? I'm going to try the no knead bread that was in the NY Times, but I'll let you know how that turns out. I need something really simple.

Not so wordless Friday.....

This should have been posted for wordless Wednesday, I know. I'm still getting the hang of this blogging thing.

This, my friends, is a Leopard Slug from our garden. My dear husband was moving bricks when he discovered this monster! It was HUGE. Is still huge. We released it back near the brick pile. Lil'Bug wanted to touch it but not really. Finally we convinced her and she thought it was, "awesome." That's her hand holding it (with daddy's help, of course).

Indeed. I took the pictures. Dear husband and child spent quite a bit of time scrubbing Leopard Slug slime from their hands. Not me, I got to play with digital pictures! :)