canoe trip

our neighbor tom took us canoeing sunday. the kids loved it. the water was a little low and we scraped bottom a few times but mostly it was a nice easy float. the kids loved the rapids and giggled the entire way through them. they even renamed them "the sillys." happiness abounded. when tom and i went to retrieve the trailer to load the canoes we saw our other neighbors john and pam on their bicycles. we stopped and talked they expressed an interest i accompanying us on our next canoe excursion. later that evening tabitha was talking to john and pam and decided that we needed to go again the very next day.
we borrowed the canoes because tom already had his fill--a wise choice. our new plan was to take a slower trip and fish along the way. tristan was much braver this trip wanting to hang off the back floating in the water. he made it difficult to maneuver or make any progress while he was in the water. tabitha had the fishing pole and was fishing like crazy.
tabitha caught a huge small mouth bass. it out classed the rest of our mess four fold. she was the fishing queen. we had a few snags and had to canoe over to the hook snag origin. this made extra paddling for me especially with my sea-anchor-tristan slowing all maneuvering.
the kids ran out of patience after about three hours. there were long periods of kids complaining but they mostly loved it. when we got home we cleaned the fish, picked beets and chard from the garden. we had an ozark dinner--fresh caught fish, fresh steamed vegetables from garden and fresh milk to drink. that is what life is all about. we experienced great satisfaction from that dinner being completely from our recent efforts.
i have sore muscles today and plan to take it easy.