True to my word, once home I gave Laoye $50 to pick up some more fishing equipment. He found a nifty collapsible rod and reel set for only about $25 at Canadian Tire, and a second set for even less at another discount store. Since then, at every opportunity Mustang has wanted to go fishing. We spent one Sunday afternoon at a park down along the river an hour’s drive from the city, where we camped one weekend last summer, and took in a pretty good catch. But we’ve also just spent the occasional hour along the banks of the canal, dropping a hook with a bit of bacon as bait. The fishing has been plentiful – in one evening the kids caught 13 fish, on another occasion 11 (those are the ones big enough to keep; it doesn’t count the little ones we tossed back)! We’ve had several rounds of fish chowder and a couple of fish frys as well. Mostly they’re catching bluegill and yellow perch, with the occasional pumpkinseed, rock bass, or sucker thrown in for good measure. I even found a slough of recipes for bluegill on the internet – apparently it’s a great sport fish in the US!
We’ve made occasional trips to the dog park with MoMo, as well as jaunts to our neighbourhood field and forest. Oh, and we took in the Shrine Circus with some young friends
Button has played soccer again all summer, including three weekend tournaments in June, August & one yet to come in September. (We missed the July tournament.) He enjoys it and we’ve missed very few practices other than when on holidays, as the weather has been quite good.
Another past-time has been fox-walks through the forest at night. A family (or two?) of foxes inhabits the neighbourhood urban forest, and if we walk there around sunset, wearing dark clothing and being as quiet as we can, we often see them wandering rhrough the meadow or along the paths as they head out of an evening’s hunt.
On the days when we’ve had time to kill, Nanny has done crafts with the kids and gone bike-riding with them, taken walks to the library and just hung out around the house. Or Laolao has engaged them in various activities, from shopping to iced caps at Timmy’s.
All in all it’s been a good summer – though never long enough.
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