Snippets in Photos and Captions: Part One

I was going through some of our photos from the last month or so and found a bunch that didn't make it up here.

There's nothing like a pile of random photos to show what life is like (somewhat).

Baby fern fronds. They're what's for dinner. (Grammar! Grammar!) Seriously, I don't know why we don't eat these in Canada, in BC, where ferns are taking over the woods. Someone needs to do something about those ferns, like EAT THEM. I bet the Haida ate baby fern fronds.

Wait a minute. Let me google it. What the? Answers.com did not help. Somebody said they ate roots and berries and now junk food. Stupid answer. Let's try again.

Okay! That's better. Wow, I had no idea. Not only did the Haida eat baby fern fronds, or fiddlehead ferns, as the more knowledgable call them, apparently they're a hot ticket in parts of modern Canada and the US. Well, we love them. But you have to get them when they're really young, or they taste like wood.

Sweet little house with goats and a cat.

Man herding cows. It always seems like the grandpas and grandmas get this job, here.

Kid A drawing from observation. That day we headed out with sketch books to find something to draw. The kids sat down and started sketching the tents of the lake constructions workers that were set up in a field. They live in those tents for months while they work, little more than tarps draped over sticks.

I love this kid. He is so smart and witty, he tells terrible punny jokes, and he memorizes everything about geography or science that he hears. But try to get him to draw something and he dashes it off in two seconds and says, "Done!" He and YaYa are opposites in schooling. When we learn about science, she gives me this blank stare that means, "My brain. Has shut down Now," while Kid A tenderly and lovingly traces the photos of cells. But they are both excellent at math. And they both love to write.

Here's the YaYa sister making her much more detailed drawing. She just loves to draw. Always has. Kid A never has. It's so funny, how kids are so different. But still, you never know what will develop. I didn't much like drawing when I was a kid, for some of the same reasons that Kid A has. I wanted it to be perfect, and it didn't turn out looking like I wanted it to, so I would quit. And yet I still ended up painting when I was older.

Yum. A BIG pile of litchis. I love how Solo begs for them, calling them Wee chees.

Crowded Nepali town.

Out the back door. They are so beautiful. And so hard to photograph.

Ooooh. Baby fern fronds. They're what's for dinner again!

World's cutest garlic peeler and chopper.

And the world's most incredible, handsome, beautiful, wonderful person. I love him! Currently, he's up to his knees in mud with his banjo at Glastonbury Festival. Only two more weeks... sigh.

YaYa making a tipi. When she got done she stood back and said (with huge satisfaction) "It's a house made of all natural things!"

Oh, look! It's that guy again! The one I LOOOOOOVE. He looks awesome rowing a boat.

And sanctuary. The forest across the lake is SO beautiful.

I'll continue this on Monday. But for now, here's a list of things that I never photograph:

1. Solo refusing to walk every time we try to get out of the house.

2. Me carrying Solo who is far too heavy to be carried.

3. Solo sitting down in the middle of the path, or sidewalk, or street, shrieking because I don't want to carry him.

4. Solo running off because he suddenly changed his mind.

5. Me chasing Solo because now he's too far away.