A day by the river

Saturday May 1st I had planned to take the kids out to the season opening of a local heritage flour mill, where they would be celebrating the mill’s 150th anniversary with special activities, games, a barbecue, and so on.

But they just weren’t interested. Mustang just wanted to stick around home and play in our woods and fields, or at the most head off to a local park a short drive away where they’d caught some frogs before; Button echoed that. We also had a lot of things to do around the house, seeing as I like to spend at least part of the weekend out and about doing things with the kids, so some of the household necessities get neglected. (Thank goodness for Nanny, or nothing would happen around the house!) Plus now that we have fewer scheduled activities, I’m trying to do some sewing and cooking with the kids on a semi-regular basis.

So in the morning, after getting groceries, I got them each to do a few seams in our latest sewing project, and we made some jiaozi – Chinese pork-and-cabbage filled dumplings (other fillings are possible too, but that’s our favourite). Then it was time to tidy up the house, clean Calico’s cage, and… you get the picture. Finally, in the afternoon, we headed out to the nearby park. It was a cloudy day but not too cold, and though it had been threatening rain for most of the day none had so far arrived. The kids played with Lovely by the shore, tossing the ball into the water for her to fetch. Mostly she cooperated, but after a while she was getting cold and shivering, so I told them to stop. They caught several leopard frogs and even a bullfrog tadpole – huge little critter! Then it did start to rain. At first it was just a light rain, so we stayed out enjoying the fresh air, but after about an hour it started to get heavier so we headed home.