the squibix family blog

Of course, then all the other kids had to join him—and I did too. But unlike Harvey, who went barefoot, everyone else made the mistake of wearing boots. It took them three days to dry. It was pretty fun, though.

All the rain lately has swollen the local waterways impressively. On Tuesday we took a short excursion to the boat launch on the Concord River to play in the water. It was sunny when we left; it had turned cloudy and quite chilly by the time we got there, five minutes later, so we stayed dry this time. But it was still delightful to see how high the river was among the trees. The land is so low on the approach to the boat launch you really could imagine the whole world being flooded.

Seeing all that water, we decided we had to buy a canoe. So now we've done that. We're waiting on paddles and life jackets, then we're going to launch our life afloat!

First up was a summer camp expedition to discover the banks of the river on the north side of town. Starting out across the street from Nathan's new house we plunged into the wilderness on a tremendously varied short hike that included woods, bogs and a stream, a fire road, a real road, and a horse meadow (unoccupied).

Following the well-marked trail we eventually made our way to Two Brothers Rocks, the spot where John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley placed the border to divide the immense plots of land each of them had been granted the King of England (isn't land ownership interesting?!). The rocks are notable as the earliest historical site in Bedford, but we were mostly concerned with their potential for climbing and eating on.

A couple days later the boys and I headed out to Walden Pond, only to find that it had closed for overcapacity minutes before we got there. So we went back through Concord to the North Bridge instead, thinking that we could at least wade in the water there and enjoy a picnic and cooling breeze. We did.

Of course, with the swimsuits ready and available and the water beckoning, it wasn't long before wading turned into something a little more immersive, as pictured here. There were plenty of other people around, but nobody else was swimming... I wonder why? Well, I stayed out too; but for my lovely boys water is is water, and we're sure glad to live so close to this river.

Next we need to get a canoe!

As expected, the water was high. The boys delightedly pointed out that our picnic spot last time was under at least two feet of water, and marveled at how many trees were awash.

The air was chilly and the water downright frigid, so no one was tempted to wade. But not to worry, we found plenty of other entertainments.

But of course the most interesting thing was the water—or, really, the intersection between water and land. The boys explored the marshy field where a tongue of the river had invaded, and we squished along damp paths that ended abruptly in lapping water (along the way we got a lot of practice identifying the baby leaves of just-awakening poison ivy). Nobody got wet, nobody froze to death, nobody fell too hard from the tree, and I got shot about four thousand times by three minutemen with rapid-fire repeating muskets. It was a lovely outing.