Kids and the creek

Recent experience at Rock Eddy Bluff shows that there are two options for handling grandkids who claim to be bored: (1) Set them in front of a TV with an antimated movie, or (2) take them to the creek or river. Get them wet!

We prefer option two for a variety of reasons. The kids actually get excercise, they connect with nature, and when we bring them home they are tired and ready to rest. Splashing around in the water seems to have a wearying effect on kids. Can I get a halleluya?

The photo shows our grandkids: Declan, Lily, and David.

Chances are you will have to deal with assorted fauna that the children love to collect. Crawdads are a favorite, along with tadpoles and minnows. Here is where we need to be sneaky. Of course kids want to bring home the critters. They have named them and are envisioning a long relationship extending into their teen years. Older folks, if they plan well are able to somehow allow a merciful escape back into the wild before the party returns.

We have two wonderful places for kid splashing here: The excellent gravel bar at Rock Eddy below the bluff, and Clifty Creek, about a mile down the road. At either location the Hired Man and Missus plan ahead and take folking chairs. We are comfy while kids splash. An excellent refinement for hot days is to move the chairs into the water where you can recline partially submerged. On certain occassions it has been known that there was beer involved.

I am quite certain that kids will remember their river and creek time long after the images of the animated characters in movies have faded. Who could forget the first encounter with a Jesus bug? (They walk on water). And how about tadpoles changing into frogs, legs sprouting from their sides. Snake are alway facinating, and when encountered, are an excellent opportunitiy for teaching.

Then there are rocks! Many a throwing arm has seen early developement at the creek. With no shortage of rocks of all sizes, the act of heaving them into the creek may proceed for hours. At a certain stage of youthful maturation the refinement of skipping rocks can be added.

We have had quite a bit of kid time in the water this summer. We hope for more.

The Hired Man

Farm Friends

They are the last of only a few, the tail end of a generation of country folk from hereabouts. They are the keepers of some important things that will soon be lost. In them resides old ideas about hay fields, about where to look for goldenseal near the spring branch, about how to think about things on the porch in the evening when you are tired. So many things.

These are our friends, the last two of a family. They never left home. They never married. They know everything about the farm that they have never left; about a clapboard farm house they have returned to from the fields for all of their lives. There they cared for beloved parents until time took them. Then there were three siblings, two brothers and a sister.

Now there are only two. They are now in their eighties and time is gnawing on them. The years are reducing them, pulling away competences and possibilities with increasing swiftness. They seem to accept this. They have seen it before.

They have animals still: cattle, chickens, guineas, dogs, cats. And they have lambs, and it is well known that grandchildren need to see lambs. So off we went on a Sunday afternoon, kids, parents, and grandparents, to see the pretty lambs and see the farm and visit with our friends.

Oh, the kids had a great time, and our friends got to be near some children, something that has become less frequent for them. And it was a sunny day and we all got along wonderfully and spoke repeatedly about how we don’t see each other often enough and how we are going to start doing thing differently. And the billy goat climbed up high and inspected the children and the lambs scurried about in the barn lot. And there were eggs gathered from the chicken house.

And then we left. We drove down the lane, across the ford of the small creek bed below the farmhouse. And off we went back into a reality that was more contemporary. I think they enjoyed our visit. I know we did. And, looking back on that day at their farm, the thought strikes me that it will not be long until we could be the end of a generation of folks from hereabouts. And how will people think about us.

From the hills, The Hired Man & Missus