Tall Ships

This past weekend began with a frantic call from Eric, informing me that he and his mountain bike had parted ways at 20+ mph and he was headed to the emergency room. Luckily (and it is luck), he and the tree are both fine. The tree is finer, of course, not having ribs to break and elbows to bleed into.

In spite of that, the weekend turned out pretty okay. The Tall Ships came into Duluth and while Daddy was in a Vicodin-induced haze on the couch, Tammy and Bella joined us to tour the ships. Tammy was kind enough to allow me to use her camera, which is like mine only better. That's right. I'm officially coveting the newer model.

I, along with 200 000 other people who visited the event, got this requisite picture:

No, you're a dinghy!

Look closely at this next one. The name of the saltie is "American Integrity." Mmmm...delicious, delicious irony.

And, my personal favorite from the weekend:

And, yes, Mother. As soon as I post this one, there will be one chock-full of tasty children. I promise.

Pinchworm

Nora made a new friend this weekend. He was hitch-hiking on some greens that I brought in from the garden and narrowly avoided being washed down the sink. She was tickled by him and his mode of locomotion. She also couldn't understand why something called a "pinchworm" wasn't hurting her.

After letting Nora torment the poor guy for about an hour, I made her release him back into the yard. She wanted to get pictures of him first, just like with Karist. I thought that sounded reasonable.

She begged me to print this picture out for her, so that she could show her friends at school. She also has an elaborate plan to put up pictures of various things (pinchworms, moths, seals, pandas) on her walls. I see a bulletin board in our future.

The Edge of the World

I went to the Boundary Waters recently with a group of women. It was the first time I have ever vacationed without both my husband and child since they came into my life.

It. Was. Awesome.

It was so awesome, in fact, that I had time to take some pictures of things other than [cough] my husband and child. Looking those pictures over made me rethink my previous assertions that we don't in fact live on the verge of the tundra.

Exhibit A: A Plethora of Lichens

Exhibit B: Sunset through the Mossy Trees (at 10:00 pm)

Exhibit C: Moose Skull

Shall I go on?

OK, so maybe it is Canada's distal phalanx. But it's magical. And then, there is always this.

Go ahead. You know you want to click on it. (Thanks, Cindy!)

Northern Summer Begins

The summer has arrived! The Lauer family just returned from a camping, canoeing and fishing trip into the North woods with friends. It was a whole lot of good times. It was our first camping trip since Nora was born. In fact, it was our first camping trip since medical school. For those of you who are counting, that means it has been six years since I slept in a tent. Sad, but true.

Nora in particular was delighted to sleep in a tent, not take baths and play with leeches. There were also a number of other kids, far more seasoned in camping and fishing to teach her the ways of the woods.


Each girl had a whistle to blow in case they got lost in the woods around camp, saw something dangerous or fell in the lake. The adults tried valiantly to explain this concept to Nora.

Adult: Would you blow your whistle if you are hungry?
Nora: No.
Adult: Would you blow your whistle if you get bitten by a bug?
Nora: No.
Adult: When would you blow your whistle?
Nora: If I see a panda bear!
Adult: Ummm, no.

We tried to educate Nora on the natural history of the panda. No luck.

We tried to tell her about the lack of large bamboo forests in Northern Minnesota. She was skeptical.

We tried to compromise and teach her about black bears, a reasonable alternative that does actually live near there. Nope.

We finally gave up and told her that if she sees any big, scary animal, she should blow her whistle.

The one time that she probably thought she should be blowing the darn thing was right before we left and it was nowhere to be found. This event was captured in the following picture, involved a large amount of shrieking and will henceforth only be referred to as The Great Poop Incident of 2010. (There was another picture of this, but it would get me kicked off of Blogspot.)

They did make up once Nora was in warm, dry, clean clothes and in her car seat. She got nice and sleepy on the way home and right before she dropped off to sleep, I looked back and she was contentedly looking out at the forest and lakes going by outside. It was a gorgeously clear day, I was with my family and we were headed back to a home we love. Suddenly, Nora sat straight up and said...

"I see a panda! Where's my whistle?!?"

Amity Creek

Today, we decided that we were not going to let the late snow (Three inches! Really?) stop us from getting outside. It's May and even if we aren't getting a tan and playing beach volleyball, we aren't staying inside. So we bundled up and went for a hike at Amity Creek.

It's good that we didn't let the weather stop us. The snow was gone by the time we hit the trail and it magically looked like spring again. We started out in coats, hats and boots, but by the end of the day, even I had shed a few layers.

At the end of the day, Nora turned to me initiated this conversation.

Nora: You know what's awesome?

Me: What?

Nora: You.

Me: Awwwww...I think that just made my day.

Nora: Yeah. You know what else is awesome?

Me: What?

Nora: The counter.

Me: Oh.

Hey, chickie!

Duluth is a cool city. I know I've mentioned this before, but seriously, how many U.S. towns do you know that have specifically made a point to write legislation allowing up to five chickens on any given residential city lot? So, a lot of my friends have chickens. My friend Tracy does not live within city limits, so doesn't have to abide by the five hen rule. A couple of weeks ago, she accepted delivery of 32 baby chicks. That's right. Thirty two fuzzy adorable balls of peeping fluff. How do you not take your kid to see that?

She did get to hold and pet the chicks. And we had to work hard on being gentle. No, gentle! Gentle!

She also got to collect eggs and bring them home and eat them. We've been eating a lot of eggs since then. I haven't had the heart to tell her that the eggs she collected were gone the first morning.

And then there is this.

Karist

Last August, Nora and her daddy went to the Minnesota State Fair. For $6, they bought a caterpillar in a plastic house. They were told that it would spin a cocoon and then overwinter before hatching. It did spin its cocoon and Nora talked about the sleeping caterpillar all winter.

When April rolled around, I began to have my doubts as to whether it would ever actually become the luna moth that had been predicted. I brought a lot of cocoons inside as a kid, none of which ever amounted to anything (probably because I had found them on the ground...).

Eric and Nora never lost faith and moved the moth house into our kitchen so that they wouldn't miss seeing their friend emerge. This morning, I heard a shriek from the kitchen and, you guessed it, the moth had hatched. We watched him hang upside down in his house, drying off his wings for about 45 minutes. Then, Eric moved him outside to acclimate.

A few hours later, we released him. But not before checking him out thoroughly. Nora decided that his name is Karist and that he is her new friend.

Here she is getting a closer look.

Guess what she thinks of her dad for orchestrating this whole experience.
Yeah, we'll do that again next winter.