4/12/08 The Hunt

I took The Three letterboxing today, at a place we actually haven't been to yet. I've driven by the place for years, and had always wanted to go see it, and now we had a perfect excuse. It's a preserve that used to be a horse ranch in the 1930s and 40s, and has a nature museum, community garden, an original ranch house, a blacksmith shop replica, a small barn, plus a nature shop with volunteers to ask questions.

And, a sundial! We started here, at 10:30 on the dial.


We were supposed to go across a meadow, but it was really overgrown. Fortunately, a trail guide from the nature shop helped us piece together the letterbox clues, and we got on track, mostly.

Only a little of our route was this clear.

Much of it was more like this, and often even worse. This was not stroller-friendly! Not only was it overgrown with some unfriendly vegetation, but the "trail" was really bumpy. Also, it appears that the clues were written just after a serious bush-hogging, because it called upon cutting across fields that weren't really passable, and were hard to see across.

Katrina surprised me, and I really shouldn't be surprised by this anymore, in that the bumping and shoving the stroller through the undergrowth didn't bother her at all -- indeed she was making sounds akin to singing on the bumpiest parts. It was the stops that bugged her. I'm glad I didn't invest in an expensive jogging stroller with suspension.

Ultimately, we reached the spot where the box should be found....and didn't find it. We looked hard, in the short amount of time Katrina tolerated this stop, but it was nowhere. Odd, since it was found recently. This might just be inexperience on our part, but we really did look.

Still, letterboxing being what it is, the experience of the hunt was the big fun, and there will be times that the box isn't found. It was a beautiful, unusually warm day, and the boys had a fabulous time on the trail that followed a creek, and went through meadows and bushes and tree tunnels and groves -- and a little log ampitheatre.

After we returned from the futile hunt, we played by the creek for a few minutes. The boys had a great time throwing rocks into the water.


The uneven terrain was a bit much for Katrina, who immediately got down on all fours and went straight for the water (shades of Mam!). After holding her hand a little, she got a little more confident and was happy walking around on the side, looking at flowers and picking up rocks, and mostly accepted my gentle guidance not to douse herself. I tried to show her how to throw rocks into the water, but, nothing doing.


The boys were hot, tired and thirsty when we got home -- I'd sorely underestimated the effort of our trip and hadn't brought any food or drink for them. A picnic lunch, on our little table reclaimed from its tenure as a ladder, was in order!


After Katrina's nap, I had some reason I can't remember anymore to try shoes other than her sneakers (no socks perhaps?). She cried and rejected a really nice pair of brown Stride Rite sandals we'd been handed down (more shades of Mam), but did allow the Crocs that Bonne Maman got her last summer -- and now fit!

She wasn't too happy about an attempted self-time to commemorate the occasion. I'll spare you the pain of the outtakes, you'd think I was torturing the child. She's really been fun lately, but still reminds us clearly and often that she absolutely will not fit the "easy 3rd child" role.

(This is nuts, but I find it weird to see photos of me and my daughter with such different-colored hair. The few photos of me and my mother have us both with very dark hair, and somehow I always thought of that as making me her own. That came back to me when Katrina was born with black hair, like, "oh wow, just like me!" This is all very silly because most of her is different from me, and should be, but for some odd reason it takes me aback when our hair doesn't match, as my mother's and mine did.)

Even though I had to work on taxes this afternoon, I couldn't bring myself to go inside. I just love this warm weather! I spent some time tackling our woeful garage and loaded up some things to give away to Good Will. Meantime, Katrina amused herself with the tricycles.

It cinches it for me -- 18 months really is a milestone of freedom. Last summer, I couldn't go through things in the garage and load them in the back of my car with the baby around. But an 18-month-old can bop around on their own, being watched closely, but you can still move from place to place and do things.

And now, there are the brothers.

I took a moment to bring Julian to the bathroom and wash his hands, since Dave was taking the boys to a music store and had to leave right away to have time before it closed (Julian can pee and wash up on his own but he is SLOW). Gabriel was ready, and I asked him to make sure Katrina didn't walk out to the street while I was out of sight with Julian. Am I insane, leaving a 6-year-old to mind a toddler?

Well, I got my answer. Dave came out and didn't realize that Gabriel was on duty, and told him to get in the car right away to go to the music store -- a very, very important errand to Gabriel. But Gabriel would not leave her side, even after Dave urged him again. Gabriel refused again, and it was about to escalate until I cottoned on and rushed out to release Gabriel, who was standing right next to Katrina in the driveway. I was out of sight for too short a time for her even to have made it to the street, but I was still impressed with Gabriel's diligence.

They returned from the music store with a nifty height-adjustable piano stool, headphones for Gabriel's piano class, and, of all things, a green ukelele. Gabriel is beside himself, wanting to tune the instrument (neither he nor Julian can say it), asking how the frets and octaves work, telling me which note each string plays, glued to a Web site Dave found that describes how to play a ukelele. Really, I'm not making this up. A green ukelele.

A beautiful day, I was able to wear one layer instead of my usual three, and best of all, no foot troubles until sitting down to work on those darned taxes.

4/12/08