Everyone has gone back to either work or school. This morning, I took a long walk with Teddy at Marymoor's off-leash area. For the amount of time I spent there, I didn't mind spending the dollar it cost. They have it figured out. No Discovery pass. No $5.00 charge even if you're only staying for a half an hour. It was crowded. They're raking in the dough, one dollar at a time.
I let Teddy off his leash with other dogs for the first time since Christmas eve, when he was attacked. He was a little nervous. The hair along his back puffed up more than once, but he played, chased, and jumped on more than one dog today. It was a nice way to make my errands go easier, though it took longer than I would have thought to get everything done.
So this is going to be my lifestyle: do some walking, do some thinking, do some work and walk some more. I'm looking forward to it. On New Year's Day, we drove up to the snow and Teddy got to play in it. We slid into Denny Creek and walked a bit on Asahel Curtis Nature Trail. Nick learned what post-holing was but didn't figure out how to avoid it. Maybe he liked the way his feet stayed on the icy surface of the snow for just a bit before he fell through. Under the trees, there was much less snow and we wandered in and out of old growth trees. They were so big, it would have taken three of us holding hands to wrap our arms around the base. Oh, I know that the Giant Sequoias in California dwarf these trees, but they're still four or five hundred years old. One of them had been cut and left on its side so we could see the rings. There was a sheen of ice over slime that the wetness encourages out here. Nick didn't want to touch it. It just felt frozen to me. The trunk of the tree, lying on its side, was taller than Nick and just shorter than me, a diameter of about 5 ft. That tree was already a large tree, by our current standards, when Lewis and Clark made it to the Pacific ocean. It was a sapling when Leonardo di Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa. Makes you think, doesn't it?
We were there at about dusk. We always seem to take our walks in the afternnon and in the winter, the light begins to fade at about 2:30 pm, especially in the valleys. Then, for about an hour and a half, you can still see, but depth perception is altered. And forget trying to see what's under that root. One of the old growth trees had a huge hollow under it, large enough for me to figure I'd hole up there to stay dry in an emergency. It would take an emergency too, for me to brave the spiders and other crawling creatures that might also like a dry place. The tree looked healthy and I wondered if this shape was caused by a nurse log.
Teddy absolutely loved the snow, but he didn't like getting hit by any snowballs, no matter how soft they were. We got to throwing snowballs near him and making really big ones to bowl across the ice for him to chase. Nick made one about the size of a snowman's head. He carried it in his arms for a while.
"I'm making the biggest snowball in the world," he said.
"Are you now," Mike said.
"Yup, and I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to see if a snowball sinks or floats." With that, he dumped his big beautiful snowball off the boardwalk into a swamp.
"Yay! I was right! It floats!" he yelled. I could tell he'd been out of school long enough for his natural curiosity to be restored. It will be sad that he won't have much time for that kind of thinking until summer break. I'm not a big fan of home schooling, but I do recognize that the way we raise our children these days doesn't allow them time to explore on their own and really get a feel for the natural order of things. I hope to spend more time feeling the natural order of things as I walk with Teddy in the coming days. I'll be glad when it's light enough after school that Nick can come with me, poking his stick into things, climbing over rocks, looking under roots, and generally mucking about in the woods.
Thank you for listening, jb
I let Teddy off his leash with other dogs for the first time since Christmas eve, when he was attacked. He was a little nervous. The hair along his back puffed up more than once, but he played, chased, and jumped on more than one dog today. It was a nice way to make my errands go easier, though it took longer than I would have thought to get everything done.
So this is going to be my lifestyle: do some walking, do some thinking, do some work and walk some more. I'm looking forward to it. On New Year's Day, we drove up to the snow and Teddy got to play in it. We slid into Denny Creek and walked a bit on Asahel Curtis Nature Trail. Nick learned what post-holing was but didn't figure out how to avoid it. Maybe he liked the way his feet stayed on the icy surface of the snow for just a bit before he fell through. Under the trees, there was much less snow and we wandered in and out of old growth trees. They were so big, it would have taken three of us holding hands to wrap our arms around the base. Oh, I know that the Giant Sequoias in California dwarf these trees, but they're still four or five hundred years old. One of them had been cut and left on its side so we could see the rings. There was a sheen of ice over slime that the wetness encourages out here. Nick didn't want to touch it. It just felt frozen to me. The trunk of the tree, lying on its side, was taller than Nick and just shorter than me, a diameter of about 5 ft. That tree was already a large tree, by our current standards, when Lewis and Clark made it to the Pacific ocean. It was a sapling when Leonardo di Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa. Makes you think, doesn't it?
We were there at about dusk. We always seem to take our walks in the afternnon and in the winter, the light begins to fade at about 2:30 pm, especially in the valleys. Then, for about an hour and a half, you can still see, but depth perception is altered. And forget trying to see what's under that root. One of the old growth trees had a huge hollow under it, large enough for me to figure I'd hole up there to stay dry in an emergency. It would take an emergency too, for me to brave the spiders and other crawling creatures that might also like a dry place. The tree looked healthy and I wondered if this shape was caused by a nurse log.
Teddy absolutely loved the snow, but he didn't like getting hit by any snowballs, no matter how soft they were. We got to throwing snowballs near him and making really big ones to bowl across the ice for him to chase. Nick made one about the size of a snowman's head. He carried it in his arms for a while.
"I'm making the biggest snowball in the world," he said.
"Are you now," Mike said.
"Yup, and I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to see if a snowball sinks or floats." With that, he dumped his big beautiful snowball off the boardwalk into a swamp.
"Yay! I was right! It floats!" he yelled. I could tell he'd been out of school long enough for his natural curiosity to be restored. It will be sad that he won't have much time for that kind of thinking until summer break. I'm not a big fan of home schooling, but I do recognize that the way we raise our children these days doesn't allow them time to explore on their own and really get a feel for the natural order of things. I hope to spend more time feeling the natural order of things as I walk with Teddy in the coming days. I'll be glad when it's light enough after school that Nick can come with me, poking his stick into things, climbing over rocks, looking under roots, and generally mucking about in the woods.
Thank you for listening, jb
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