the squibix family blog

The kids, of course, aren't vaccinated, nor do they have any immediate prospect of so being. At schools they're now letting the elementary kids have mask-free outdoor recesses, but most of our friends are still more cautious and we're mostly staying masked up for playdates. Which makes sense, since there's a lot more wrestling at homeschoolers' play dates than at your typical school recess. But bike rides are now unmasked. You may have noticed Zion unmasked in the photo heading Sunday's post; as soon as I took it I told him to put his back on. As hard as that is in a water fight. Confusing times.

The other difference is that I forgot that carrying thirty or so books is hard work. Last time we did this I had the cargo bike! I didn't even think about how much has changed in our family cycling setup in the last 15 months, and I just brought my backpack like I always do now. Well, it didn't really matter: the boys had their doubts, but I managed to get all of mine and Elijah's checkouts in the bag, plus our lunch tupperwares (Harvey and Zion brought their own backpacks). Well, they weren't actually all in the bag: four ended up strapped to the outside. It worked.

Of course, before we packed everything up we had lunch at the playground, and we all read right through lunch. Then I dragged them away from books for a little climbing, but when we got home Harvey and Zion read straight through til 5:00. Some of the time in the hammock! Life is good.

We left early on Monday morning. Not as early as the boys wanted, but it wasn't so easy to get everything ready and packed as a single parent (Leah was already on the Cape for her conference; we were going to join her). It was especially stressful because I was worried how all the plants would do: the extreme heat that made a trip to the seaside look extra appealing was also a threat to my poor seedlings. But we got everything squared away in time to hit the road before 9, which I think is pretty respectable. And with lunches packed, we had plenty of time to stop along the way!

Our first side trip was just after the bridge over the canal. All the years we've been visiting the Cape we've gone over it—and noticed the bike paths running on each side—but never stopped for a visit. No more! On the spur of the moment I took the exit after the canal and then followed the signs to the Canal Visitor Center. Which, it turns out, was both closed and not contiguous to the bike path, but it did have a parking lot and a gravelly path along the last little bit of canal to a beach, which is probably even better. I didn't let the boys get too wet, since we had a ways to go yet and no way to easily access the dry clothes in the car, but we still managed to have a good bit of beachy fun exploring, skipping rocks, and collecting shells.

At the canal it was still too early for lunch, so we got back on the road aiming to hit the National Seashore visitor center at lunchtime. We pulled in a couple minutes before noon; when the boys objected I reminded them that it *would take a little time to get the lunches out of the car and find a spot to eat and all. After lunch we took a walk on the trails around the salt pond. There's a short guided path stuffed with informative signs telling us about some of the plants and the history of the area, but what I mostly noticed was the proliferation of invasive species that were battling it out for control of the area.

The walk was a little more than a mile, which felt too long for boys who were eager to get to Truro and the beach there. But they endured it, which I appreciated because I was really enjoying the chance to wander and explore. That's the best part of traveling! Well, one of the best parts. The snacks and the audiobook are also pretty nice, and the boys appreciated those unreservedly. There was also an unexpected treat: drinking fountains are open again! We really missed them last summer, and it was thrilling to be able to get a drink on the road again. And necessary in the 90°F heat!

That was just the drive there—after that we actually had a few days of vacation. But it was enough adventure enough for a post of its own. The rest will have to wait... maybe I can milk the trip to fill a whole week of blogging!

The Bay side beach is easy to get to: a seven-minute walk away or, new this year, a two-minute bike ride (though none of us dared to stair-ride the giant multiflight wooden staircase down to the sand). It tends to be calm, and pretty empty since the only people who can access it are the ones who have houses in the neighborhoods above the bluff. This year there was actually a little chop the first day we were there, which was fun. When it's calm it's great for swimming, and it's always great for walking in the morning or evening.

Our other favorite, Coast Guard Beach in Eastham, is far away. In fact, there are accessible ocean beaches much nearer to hand, especially in early June before the sticker parking restrictions kick in. But those beaches aren't accessed via the world's most fun bike path, the Nauset Path, that runs over the dunes for a little over a mile from the free parking at the visitors center to the beach. This year, on his geared bike, Lijah was able to ride the whole thing!

The main attraction of the beaches on the ocean side is the waves. This year they weren't particularly big, especially when we arrived a bit after 10:00, but that was alright: we had some intense experiences last year that may have soured one of us on even talking about waves for the past ten months. They were enough to be interesting to the boys! We were also not deterred by the cold water; I overheard someone saying that it was 57°F, but it felt at least 65° and Harvey and Zion at least spent two solid hours mostly submerged. Lijah and I had to take breaks, but we still had lots of fun.

The only bad part about the outing, in fact, was how hard it was to find ice cream afterwards! The first three places we visited were closed (that's not counting Ben & Jerry's, which was too expensive to contemplate). We were saved by PJ's Family Restaurant who had reasonably priced cones and awesome flavors (campfire s'mores!); everything we could want, in fact, except shade. So we ate in the cemetery across the street.

That was an outing. Lots of fun, but also tiring. So that evening we were glad to make another visit to the quieter beach. And then again the next morning, and...

I did the packing while everybody else took one last trip to the beach. I knew the bikes were the main sticking point: two can go on the rack, but more than that is a little sketchy on the highway. But with the pedals and front wheel off Zion's strapped down beautifully on the roof, and with both wheels off Elijah's tucked very nicely agains the wall. I secured the wheels and everything else with tie-downs so nothing would fall on the dogs, and they had all kinds of space to lie down. Minivans are awesome.

It all went so well, I think we need to take another trip!

The best part of Berry Pond is that you can be on the beach and in the shade. You can even swim in the shade! Though it wasn't that warm a day, so we parents were happy to stay out of the water completely. Not the kids though: they were in it all day.

Or not quite all day: there were two exceptions. First was for food—befitting our celebratory gathering we had quite a spread, including chips, popcorn, crackers, veggies and dip, strawberries, brownies, cupcakes, and two kinds of lemonade. And then everybody had their own packed lunch, too, not that those lunches got much attention.

The kids also took some time off from swimming to walk halfway around the pond to a beautiful rocky spot opposite the maintained beach. It's a perfect place for getting in the water, except for one thing: it's absolutely covered with "no swimming" signs. That's so unfair that I did have to let the kids go in for a little bit, but couldn't hold out against the pressure of the rules for as long as they wanted to swim. So sad.

But never mind, the beach was good too—good for well over two hours of swimming and relaxing and being together to mark the end of this strangest of school years. Not that too much will change: our same group is getting together next Monday. Call it summer camp?

The expedition was not everything that we could hope for. Parlee Farms, where we've long picked all our berries, is every year becoming more and more of a PYO theme park. Continuing in that theme, they've now switched the strawberry pricing from by the pound to a flat rate: you buy a box before you head out to the field and get to bring home as many berries as you can fit in it. The prices were never outstanding, but now they're much worse. $11 for a quart box that you have to fill yourself?! We paid $35 for a box that was said to hold six pounds, and we went in determined to fill it to the absolute brim!

For all my gripes about the farm, the picking itself is fantastic. And this year all three boys were awesome helpers, so we got our box filled in no time at all. More than filled: we carefully stacked the berries well above the rim. We had to get our money's worth—and it's so hard to leave berries behind! The strawberries are at a far end of the ever-growing farm property, so the tractor wagon ride to get there (can't call it a hayride anymore: all hay has been replaced with wooden benches) took a considerable time. In fact, after we'd picked all our berries and walked back to the tractor stop we had a couple minutes wait before the arrival of the same tractor we'd ridden out to the field, one of three doing the round trip. I guess part of what we were paying for was that ride, since it was the longest part of the visit!

Well, that and the animals too; we happily spent some time admiring the goats and, especially, the bunnies. We would've had to pay extra to feed them though, so we didn't do that. We did pay a little extra to feed ourselves some donuts and chocolate milk as a reward for our hard work, but there was one final disappointment: they don't make strawberry donuts any more. No blueberry donuts in blueberry season, no strawberry ones now... just boring apple cider. It's too bad. We've been regulars for a long time, but it's about time to find a new place to pick. That and keep working on our own strawberry beds!

That trip was disappointing, but at least we could look back at one purely wonderful strawberry-related event this week: the return, yesterday evening, of the Strawberry Festival at the Congregational Church. It was cancelled last year, obviously, but things are looking up enough that it happened this year. Outside, which made it even better! It was so wonderful to be out among people, and eating even! Sure, five dollars is a lot to pay for strawberry shortcake, but it felt totally worth it under the circumstances. Especially since Lijah's bowl of only chocolate sauce (they offer chocolate and ice cream as well as the traditional components of shortcake; he cares only for one component) was free: it should've been five dollars too, but he's so cute and it's such a fun thing to ask for that they didn't charge us, even after I insisted. It was a lot of chocolate too!

Folks came over before lunch with their bikes, and we rode the oft-traveled route down to Fawn Lake for a picnic (we've done it before; everybody is much quicker now!). Everybody brought their own lunches, but we provided a variety pack of little bags of chips. Very festive! Then I made everybody ride around the pond, forgetting that normal people find bikes a hindrance on twisty, rooted trails. Oh well, their riding on the bike path was so easy it totally made up for it. In fact, they're so good I don't think they even noticed the ride: their bodies were on their bikes, but their minds were in Minecraft. At lunch too.

When we got home we had cake and ice cream on the lawn; it was too hot to be on the deck. Harvey conceptualized the cake and helped me construct it, and we were both quite pleased with how it came out.

Of course, that wasn't the only party! Celebrations kicked off Saturday at lunch time with a cookout with my parents, who graciously shifted from from our previously planned dinner cookout to let the boys attend a movie night in a friend's garage. Lunch was hotter than it would have been in the evening, and I may have sweated onto the burgers, but that didn't bother anybody. We did head inside for dessert, which wasn't a cake but a strawberry-rhubarb pie.

On Sunday we celebrated Harvey at breakfast time with a candle in french toast. Then in the evening, after he had a little bit of time to rest after the excitement of the early afternoon, it was time for a party with the other grandparents and another chocolate cake. I skipped that one: after a full weekend of party prep, my Fathers Day present was to get some rest!

Happy Birthday Harvey! I trust he feels well celebrated.

Thrilling as it was, the tunnel wasn't the only exciting part of the outing. We've explored Hapgood Wright lots of times on foot, but bikes always let you see trails differently. This time we noticed lots of amazing downhill runs that we definitely want to go back to do some more! Of course, downhills require uphills, and there were certainly some doozies. Even before we got back to the pond to swim we were glad of a midway rest stop.

(If you want to explore the tunnel yourself, just follow our track as shown here.)

Thursday's adventure was a post-strawberry trip to Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsboro State Forest, but that one didn't go as well. Elijah was tired out from the picking, and the other boys have bad memories of riding that woods from when, the last time we tried it, they were feeling a little sick. So their energy wasn't high to start with. The only new discovery we made there was that the paths on the ground are difficult to reconcile with the map—and not knowing where we were or where we were going didn't make Lijah feel any better about the outing! Even though the older two boys had recovered and were having fun, we cut the trip short after just a couple miles.

Then on Friday we were back in Concord for a hike with friends in Estabrook Town Forest. We know it well too, though I will say every time we walk up Punkatasset Hill (88m) I'm surprised at how steep that trail is! Being there with other people let us notice some things more—like stick houses—and some things less, because lots of the time we were deep in conversation. But by far the outstanding discovery of the trip was that they spillway where the pond drains into Sawmill Brook makes a fantastic natural waterslide... but that's a story for another post!

It was a bit of a process to come up with that setup, and really the kids should get all the credit. I resisted the ladder on safety grounds, and I resisted the tarp because I thought it would be a pain to dry and put away after. But both worked fantastic, as long as we had at least one person holding up the ladder. Zion and Elijah even tried a few runs head-first, despite the kind of tough drop at the bottom of the slide. And nobody died!

As cool as that was, it wasn't even the best waterslide experience of the past couple days. As I hinted at yesterday, the boys and their friends—or, to be precise, Zion and his friend—discovered that the algae on the spillway at Estabrook Town Forest makes it very slippery indeed. At first they were just sliding down on their bare feet, but that was of course kind of risky: even though the water over the spillway was only a couple inches deep and the pool at the bottom not more than 18 it was inevitable that before too long they'd fall and get wet. So they made sure that wasn't an issue by just jumping right in!

(That also reduced the risk of head injuries from falling backwards, which I appreciated.)

The slide kept the kids entertained for well over half an hour, and they would have stayed even longer if we had let them. And it was hot enough that they didn't mind being wet for the rest of the walk and the car ride home. Who needs to pay big money to a waterpark to have all kinds of wet slidey fun?!

We took the two boats to the pond last week for their first outing together. It was a bit of a challenge getting them on the car, but we managed; it was also challenging getting into Walden Pond on a hot day, but we did that too. Then once we were there the boats made it easy to find a spot where we could swim away from the crowds.

Of course, Harvey isn't the only one who wants time in a boat by himself! It'll be a while before Zion or Elijah get one of their own—if for no other reason than we have no way to carry them!—but Zion at least can certainly do some practicing. Harvey wouldn't let him take out his brand new craft, but the Green Gecko is always available for solo runs.

Even Elijah got in on the action, though only briefly: it was so breezy it was even challenging for Zion (he had to get out and swim once to pull the boat back upwind). I was worried Lijah was going to get blown all the way down to the main beach, so I didn't let him get far from shore. But he'll have lots more chances to try this summer!

We got the pool last year, and we've managed not to pop it so far. It lives on the deck, which is great because there's a perfectly flat floor with no danger of sticks or rocks, and also because I don't have to worry about damage to the lawn. The boys have been having a great time out there: singly, all together, with friends... Listening from the street you'd think we had a full-size pool in the backyard with all the noise they make splashing, "diving", and even playing Marco Polo!

While we fit in the pool well enough, Leah and I find that the boys' enthusiasm leaves it a little dirty for us to feel quite comfortable soaking. So we take other routes to beat the heat. We've got a window AC in the bedroom—which is to say, Leah's office—so she can work in comfort. Relative comfort, at least. When the humidity gets too much even there, she does her swimming at the pond.

Me, I've discovered I do the best when I spend the most time outside. I've spent lots of time weeding and pruning the last few days, and it's been really hot—but when I take a break and sit in the shade for a minute the air feels charmingly cool and comfortable in comparison! Plus, I'm more on top of the weeds than I've ever been before! In the past I've failed to understand how people could embrace really hot weather like this, but I'm actually kind of digging it this week. I've even taken a couple good bike rides! Maybe improved heat tolerance is something to do with getting older?

Tomorrow looks like it's going to be the last day of the heat wave before cooler, rainy weather takes over. I'll miss all the weeding time, but the plants will appreciate the rain. And it'll also be nice to give the water meter a break: between the garden, frequent showers, and water play in the yard keeping cool has taken a lot of water!

Some things are still discouraging. Woodchucks ate the peas down to stems, and while they finally recovered a little bit and started climbing, over the last week they've dried up, right after they formed the first pods. The lettuces, also critter-plagued a month ago, recovered a little better and we've eaten some, but they're now bolting. And while we got lots of strawberries, something has been eating the strawberry leaves to the point where I'm worried about the plants' health for next year.

That said, there are a lot of positives! The cucumbers look the best they ever have at this point in the season. Most of the tomato plants recovered very well from being nibbled and are starting to set fruit. I finally figured out how to fence off the beans from the rabbits and they're growing well. And those blueberry flowers from the mid-May post are living up to their promise!