All I really need to know...

Today, I was standing in the hallway waiting for Toby to be dismissed from class. I was doing the blank stare at the back of the door across from me, as I always do, when suddenly the poster came into focus. After reading, a lot of things were in focus.

All I Really need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten ~ Robert Fulghum

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Happy Hallowe'en

Whats better than carving pumpkins and lighting them up?

Blowing them up!

Toby and Pappy

Ellie May

Moi

Still No Deer...

The only shooting going on lately is with my camera, here's a few  from yesterday...

The Willow River

The road was washed out, but "only if your a pansy" I'm told.

The Bowron River

Grocery Day

This was the actual and only contents of my purse when I went to pay for my purchases at the grocery store the   other day. I did all my shopping, unloaded my groceries, the teller rang them all up and I opened my purse to pay and all I had was a pink skinning knife and a tray of 270 bullets. Some days I seriously wonder about myself. 

In my opinion.....

Deer[less] Hunting

I took the girls out deer hunting the other day, but all we found was grouse.

We looked high and low,

 

And then we finally found some.... 

 

Standing behind this....

Stony Lake Day 2

Day two of our trip started out a little chillier than day one.

The girls eating breakfast in their snow suits

So we decided against heading up the creek in our underwear again and spent the day exploring Stony lake.

They get along so good when the camera is out

We stopped for lunch on one of the islands and as long as there's rocks, the girls are happy. After they filled all the empty lunch bags with rocks for the aquarium at home, they started building Inukshuks.

The island where we had lunch

Most of the lake shore is lined with stones.

"she ain't even thinking bout what's really going on right now
but I guarantee this memories a big one,
and she thinks we're just fishing"

Escape to Stony Lake

 I have this terrible habit of packing my truck, picking my girls up from school (mid-day) and taking off for a few days. Last week, we did just that!

I'm a firm believer in all kids knowing how to drive, should an emergency ever occur... plus it puts me right up there in the "Cool Mom" category. This day it was Toby's turn for a lesson. Don't worry -- old back road, miles and miles and MILES in the middle of nowhere, it's perfectly safe for a 5 yr old to drive!

I have an aunt that's always up for our kind of adventure, so we met up to explore a chain of lakes. We started out at the east end of Stony Lake. My aunt kayaks, I canoe so the kids can come along too. We go rain or shine, wind or hail - it would pretty much have to be a full on hurricane to keep us home. If there's somewhere we want to go, we get there. EVEN if it includes dragging a canoe and a kayak up a raging creek in our underwear (so we still have dry clothes to put back on before the onset of hypothermia) Now, I did specifically say the words "Don't worry, auntie, this picture won't end up on Facebook" and I completely honor that statement. But nowhere in that conversation was my blog mentioned. My sincere apologies, but that's the chance you take hanging out with a blogger. It's how we roll. We keep it real. Real life is funny, and so are my Popsicle Joe Boxers paired with camo neoprene gumboots and my aunts spray skirt, kayak-bootie ensemble.

We tied a rope on our boats and headed up stream. Sometimes we were on shore, and sometimes we had to walk in the water. The girls alternated between walking on shore and riding in the canoe. 

Ellie-May rode shotgun. It's grizzly country. You don't want to be caught in your Popsicle undies without a gun, let me tell you.

Toby was the Official Complainer. 

We trekked up to where it was wider and deeper and we were able to paddle, and put our pants back on. Creeks in northern BC at the end of September are  freaking freezing and it felt oddly like I was dressing another person, my legs were completely numb.  

The next lake is Rond Lake. Apparently the cold was affecting my brain at this point because I forgot to take a picture until the way back, so its from the wrong direction, but you get the idea.

There's another little section of creek, and then Stefan Lake. As we were coming in, I noticed a bull moose on the far shore. He immediately noticed us as well, and started prancing and throwing his head, and pacing back and forth. We watched him perform the entire trip down the lake, and when we started getting close, he started swimming out. We kept a close eye. I'm no fool. Moose are dangerous. We kept our distance and he eventually swam back to shore, and continued his show of pacing and thrashing around. We parked and watched him for close to an hour and had a snack

The next lake doesn't technically have a name, on a map, but we call it Little Stefan because it's smaller than Stefan Lake. Duh. 

 Once again, I forgot to take a picture, but this is taken from Stefan Lake, looking into Little Stefan.

OK, all this Stefan talk is getting me off track...

Anyways, back to the trip... After making it all the way down to the last lake, we stopped for lunch and a rest before heading back to camp. The trip back down the creek was much more fun than the trip up. It was like a roller coaster! Rapids, twists, turns, a drop off, and some fancy paddling to make it between stumps and other debris in the water. We felt like Voyageurs! Well at least I did. When I yelled that to the girls, they burst out laughing and said "what the heck is a voyageur?!" You spend all the time at school and don't know what a Voyageur is?  What do you do there all day? So I gave them a  little history less right then and there. I think it was much more effective learning about it while we were actually doing it. There's an element added that you just can't get by sitting at a desk - the fearing for you life while you careen a hundred miles an hour down a raging creek in a canoe, getting your face scratched on willows, portaging, and paddling till your arms burn off - it was perfect!

We came shooting out of the creek, back into Stony Lake and headed to camp for some fishing, 

and a beautiful end to the day...

12 dogs. 6 weeks.

For 6 weeks I had 12 dogs.  Two moves ago, my husband and I each loaded our vehicles with the last loads. I got in the car and took off. He was following behind with the truck and horse trailer. By the time we got to our new place, about 25 minutes away, he had a dog the size of a Shetland pony in the front seat of my truck. 

Kuma - after digging himself a bed in the rose garden

We knew the dog, he wasn't a stranger to us. He spent many days at our house hanging out with the kids, eating numerous 18kg bags of dog food, stealing snacks and goodies straight out of kids mouths, (never mind their hands) eating our shoes and when luck was really on his side  - passing out on our couch after eating our garbage can and dragging garbage from one end our house to the other. He was an orphan dog, brought to our neighbors house and left there. They looked after him as best they could, but it was at our house he was really loved. My husband (the animal hater) felt bad leaving him behind, and asked if we could have him. By asked I mean opened the truck door and asked the dog if he wanted to come. The dog jumped in and away they went. 3 days later the neighbor called to see if we had him, I said yes and she said thank you. 3 months later 8 puppies are born to my mastiff -cross female. 

Lilo and her pile of cuteness

Add those 10 to the 2 chihuahua's we have and you have 12 dogs. Do you have any idea how much dog food 12 dogs eat? About and 18 kg bag in about 4 days. We consider ourselves lucky now that the puppies are all gone to wonderful homes and we go through 18kg of dog food in only 7 days. Did I mention the dog is the size of a flipping Shetland pony?

Hey!

Guess how many times I've moved in the last three years. I'll give you a hint.... it's a ridiculous amount of times! There was so little time in between the last two moves that I hadn't even finished unpacking in between!  There was so little time in between the last two moves that the very thought of moving sent me running for my bed where I stayed for 3 days  in a chip-eating, romance novel-reading, pout. I drug my but out of bed long enough to fill may camper van full of my most precious possessions including:

• 11 or my 12 dogs (yikes!! the reason we temporarily have that many dogs is a post for another day) 
• 1 of my 3 kids 
• my 100 gallon aquarium, with all 6 extra-large fish in a giant size tucker-tote that leaked all over my orange shag carpet
• everything breakable I own that i couldn't bring myself to pack YET AGAIN!

...and I headed for the new house, where I quickly unpacked everything that was living or necessary and REFUSED to go back for another load. I have to admit, I am happy we're back, I love the new house, and living in civilization with HIGHSPEED INTERNET is pretty frigging awesome! I have coffee everyday with some one other than the voices in my head! I see friends and family, take the kids to the museum, the public pool, and WALMART - all of which are AT MOST 15 minutes away!  I'm supposed to be job hunting, but for the moment I'm just enjoying life :0)

Hello, again.

It's been awhile since I've been around and I do apologize. I have exciting new projects on the go and in an effort to devote my time more wisely to them and the kids, I have disconnected the internet at home. I know!! Shocking!! I also have more time for disaster's, conundrums, and good fun to happen so in the coming weeks you'll get to hear all about it, I'm sure! Are you ready for this?