With our canoe and our kayak and our surfboards, bit by bit we have clocked hours atop muddy estuaries, shallow grassflats and deep, tranquil kelp forests, teeming with life. Tomales Bay is a perennial favorite of ours for the habitat variety, the seclusion, the creepy tule elk calls during rutting season, the adrenaline in paddling in the open among great white sharks, the playful sea otters, the bioluminescence, and sometimes, when the current is just right (or wrong, depending on who you ask), for the beautiful flotsam.

Sea nettles. They’re all up in Tomales Bay right now. You can’t stick an oar in the water without whacking one of these frilly, painful basketball-sized jellyfish. But there they are, for who knows what reason, and there we were, slackjawed and amazed by their grace and quiet resignation as they drifted there along the lower rungs of the food chain.

Many landed along the beach where we set up camp. Being a lover of transparent layers, I crouched down and poked and stared at the dead nettles while the boys helped their father build a fire. I halfway expected a tentacle to spring up and inject my thigh with a neurotoxin-laced nematocyst, but it just laid there, all those layers of coiled potential energy.

Lest we forget that our beach is subject to tidal fluctuations, this fallen tree at Pita Beach, where we camped, flew the colors of low tide. Naturally, we are used to the blunt edge of the Pacific. California truly dips straight down into the ocean in places, and Tomales Bay is no exception, as it happens to straddle the San Andreas faultline, that deep furrowed brow on the face of California.

During the night, Ford became miserably uncomfortable from a pulled hamstring muscle, and moaned for hours in his incapacity to find a comfortable resting position. In one brief 15 minute interlude when he was able to sleep, I managed to paddle out into the black abyss and stir up some sparkling plankton soup, which never ceases to amaze me. All alone in the void, I feel simultaneously terrified and gobsmacked with joy. Is this how the sea otter feels, always somersaulting and playing on the edge of danger?

Though this boat-in camping trip was ultimately not without its share of headaches, we successfully managed to expose the boys to a little pelagic goodness without leaving the continental shelf.

We also saw  river otters!

That’s one merit badge closer to Eagle, in Boy Scout currency. In the context of parenthood, I’m closer to The Parent I Want To Be. You care about that which you know, and nature is no exception. If I raise engineers or linguists or musicians, they are incomplete before being, first, stewards of the earth. And any wild place, be it the space in the crack in the sidewalk where the dandelions grow or the space on the continent where it is folding in on itself and swallowing swarms of jellyfish and human fear–any wild place is food for that hungry part of our human soul. If the boys aren’t getting themselves lost out there in the thick of those wild spaces, then I make sure it happens. I continue to do this, in all honesty, for myself too.

This year, our annual camping trip to Mono Hot Springs was chalk full of adventures, joyful moments and one swollen San Joaquin River!  The water was so high that the original campsite we had reserved was flooded.  Luckily we were able to sneak in to another site, and enjoyed the river from high ground.  The weather was hot so we spent much of the time in dappled, pine needled shade making bakeries full of tasty sand cookies, washing clothes or other domestic play.  However, we did manage to slip in a few Boy’s Almanac activities, none of which were planned and all of which mirrored the imagination of a child and the discovery of the High Sierra.

ACTIVITIES

Seth spied some concrete along the river from which rocks had been dislodged and exclaimed, “Look Mommy, Ohlone grinding rocks!”  All year long his teacher has taken the kids on hikes, half of which seem to have acorn grinding rocks along the way.  It was nice after a long year of preschool to see that Seth had picked up some useful knowledge that could be applied to his life in the wilderness.  At first we looked for pine nuts to grind, but found that the only way to get them loose from the cones was with the pliers on a leather man.  This proved far to labor intensive.  Instead, we sacrificed some squirrel  pillaged walnuts to the pestle.  The work of grinding walnuts took a long time, all the while the local squirrel was waiting patiently.  Although it is not campsite etiquette to purposefully feed the local wildlife, we did have lot’s of fun watching him scurry and bury with with a fury.

We started reading the Chronicles of Narnia in the spring.  Wither the books have peaked Seth’s interest in swords and weaponry, or wither this is just part of being a little boy, we spend much of our time in sword play.  Drawing seems to be a good way to calmly channel  this energy.  Seth is perfectly happy to stop mid battle to sit down and draw.  He has a “book” he is working on.  Making drawings for the story is great way to give his knight in shining armor some down time, and allow mommy dragon to get dinner prepared.

Last year I wove little reed mats for the kids out of cat tails (rafts).  I stumbled across Seth making this funny thing out of reeds.  When I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was making a raft.  I was mildly surprised that he had made this connection, and it was pleasant to watch him manipulating the reed and getting a feel for the material.  In the end it was a tangled pile, but the process seemed fruitful, and one step closer to understanding the basic principles of weaving organic matter.

WILDLIFE

This year we took the water taxi from The Vermilion Valley Resort on Edison Lake.  I was hoping that we could make it the 1.4 miles in to the John Muir trail, but we only made it about half way (Seth is a binary hiker and that day was a 0).  After the whining abated we spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the streams in and around the mouth of Mono Creek.  This turned out to be perfect, because there was a mama Merganser and babies who were hanging out  too!  There is nothing better than having a legit excuse to use your binoculars for hours of elapsed time.  Returning to view your subjects at your leisure every few minutes.  The babies were having lots of fun speeding along the shore, waddling as fast as possible around the granite, and getting into all sorts of trouble.  The cutest part of all was too far for the camera to capture.  The clouds rolled in and we heard concentrated chatter from across the river.  Mama duck was squatting feathers splayed with all the babies underneath.   All you could see was a cuddly pile under her “floofed” wings that wiggled and chattered while she napped in the breeze.

The Mono Valley is filled with non poisonous water snakes.  The kids kept a keen eye out for them because they seemed to pop up everywhere.  Seth even fashioned a snake “fishing pole”.  It consisted of his pocket knife with the blades out, attached to a piece of twine.  He could be found lowering it into all manner of water “fishing” for snakes.

The perpetually busy Dragon flies were our constant companions.  Other creatures were busy in the midsummer too.   The Violet Green swallows were hard at it on the river dipping for insects or a drink (I could never figure out which).  Swallow Tail butterflies flitted all about the hot spring mud.  We slipped along behind them, examining the wings of those who had expired with relative interest and relishing the joy of those in the peak of life.   The most examined creature of the trip was the lady bug.  For several days there was a swarm of ladybugs at the start of the road to Dorris Lake.  Although we get to handle ladybugs at school, Seth was riveted none the less and grabbed bug after bug from the wild roses for a closer look.

We did a fair amount of casting, but this trip was really about feeding the fish.  Once the kids discovered that the fish liked peanut butter and jelly crusts the frenzy was on.  The masses of minnows provided a super hands on “fishing” experience as the kids tried to catch them with their hands, gleeful in the wildness of the situation.

IMAGINATION

The most sentimental phenomena of the trip was the return of the camping fairy.  Last year the camping fairy had come in the night and left some nature maps and a fishing pole for Seth.  It was supposed that her house was under a Snow plant near our campsite.  This was confirmed by the presence of the Snow plant on the “Plants of the Yosemite Valley” field guide.  This year Seth was quick to point out every snow plant and announce happily that another camping fairy was near by.  In our attempt to reach real back country and the John Muir we saw camping fairy houses galore.  At one point Seth saw a little one and a big one and exclaimed, “look, a mommy and a baby camping fairy house!”  ~ little boys are the best @%#!

Enthusiasm was inherent on this trip, as evidenced by Seth performing his California Grizzly impersonation below.  I hope your summer camping trip is as joy filled as ours was.  Until next year Mono Hot Springs!

I was really interested in being a little boy mom *until* we hit the weapons phase.  Ugggg!  It’s just so boring around here.  Other adults assure me that weapons are a perfectly natural preoccupation for a five year old, but I’m skeptical because the subject matter is just so *dry*.

<end rant>

This particular assemblage was more interesting than usual.  The gear is comprised almost completely from household found objects.  It took Seth a good half hour to get everything gathered and hung in place.  Once festooned, he could not really walk too far because implements of battle kept falling off.  I tired to be serious as he leaned down, clanking to fetch the loosed item.  In fact, I had to avert my face many times because I could not stifle giggles.  Seth was dead serious about his weapons, I don’t think he even smiled once during this whole episode.

Lettuce knife mini sword

Assorted pot lid shields

Ikea stool cushion arm guards

Highlighter light sabers (I tried to tell him that light sabers are not really from the same “period” as conventional armor, but he didn’t buy it)

Mini wrench (for weapon adjustments)

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Kitchen shears dagger

Fireplace poker sword

Fireplace shovel (for cleaning up the dead bodies ~ my personal favorite)

For about a week one of our lower kitchen cabinets (where the pot lids live) doubled as “weapons storage”.  This didn’t last long.  Chef organized  kitchen cabinets won out over junior warrior creative license.  I like to be open to sharing spaces, but lately I have had to draw the line ~ sorry lettuce knife, uh I mean mini sword!