The boys read a great book for May called "The Sign of the Beaver".
It was about two boys, one an Iroquois, and one a young English boy, who become friends.
Matt has to learn all about how to survive in the wilderness and his new-found friend Attean, helps him learn the Indian ways so that he can find food and protect himself.
The two boys spend a lot of time fishing in the book, so the mom who was organizing this particular month chose a fishing trip to a little stocked pond at a park. A pizza dinner(delivered to the park), a discussion about the book, and making Indian Fry Bread over a fire completed the evening. The boys had a great time!
John has a fishing pole that he got with his allowance and he has been dying to use it.
Brendan and Paul, not having their own poles, borrowed a couple from our friends, The Beyers.
Ryan Beyer was along as the official "Dad who knows about fishing".
Now this pond is very interesting. It's really not a place you would want to fall into, but the fish are VERY happy there. They swim happily amidst the green slime, sharing the water with turtles, ducks and the occasional goose. It has been stocked with baby trout and they are very enthusiastic, but most of them are so small that they can't get the hook into their mouths. One boy, who was not in our group, caught a very respectable Catfish and a lot of the kids were catching the bigger trout. It's all "catch and release", unless you are a Heron, then it's "catch and digest".
Brendan caught the first of the fish in the Merkel family. The little thing was jumping all over and Ryan had to get ahold of it and take it off the hook. NOT my job! Brendan just can't abide the killing of any live creature and he wanted to make sure that this fish got back home safely. He got the hang of casting really quickly and didn't even lose any tackle!
Paul is a pretty scary guy when you give him a pole and a hook. I don't think he quite gets the whole concept of the hook being a sharp object. The first thing HE caught was Brendan's finger.
He just flung out that line and that's where it ended up. Brendan was surprised.
So we sent Paul over to the other side of the pond, where he could cast with abandon, and he was just as happy as could be. And he caught a little fish! He was quite surprised. Just after he caught it, Tim arrived and we wanted to show it to daddy, so we had to let it hang around a bit while I took pictures and Tim came to the side that Paul was on. They did get it off the hook though and it swam away, probably promising itself never to be tempted by anything that doesn't look natural.
It was so interesting how the evening turned out. I had been to this park with the boys when Paul was about two. It was horrible! I hated that pond because it was just waiting to swallow my boys into it's green, slimy depths. Last night it was the most fun they have had in awhile! I enjoyed it too and I didn't have to worry about them the way I had before.
They really have the "fishing bug" now. John and Tim went to a favorite spot of Nina and Johnny's and might have caught something if they hadn't gotten rained out. I had tried to take the boys to the pool earlier and we had to leave due to thunder and rain as well.
We got a couple more poles and now Paul and Brendan have something to take when we have a chance to fish. I may have to learn how to take the poor things off the hooks. We are a "catch and release" family. I can tell you I'm not going to eat anything that comes out of either the Bay or the River.
Tim is now hard at work on the wainscoting. I may have a picture or two of the room before the weekend is out. The floor looks so nice and I drove to the ends of the earth this morning to get a nice big overstuffed chair from one lady, and a nice recliner from another. Craig's List been very,very good to me! Still on the lookout for a china hutch (cheap) and a couple of small tables.
Well I have to go check and see how the oven is doing. I put it on self clean and it is so hot that it's scary! I only do this once in awhile because it really sucks the juice but our rates are going to skyrocket next month so I thought I'd better do it now!
