Sticks and Stones and ... Beaver Bones?

Sticks

It doesn't matter that David and I have now lived longer 'away' than we ever lived in PA; the rolling tree covered mountains are 'home'. There is something so restoring about their gentle wildness that I am drawn by an almost physical ache.

Our family has made a tradition of spending a day at Tall Timbers. Because it was too remote for the early loggers, it is one of the most pristine places I've ever been and actually has some virgin growth forest areas. The trail we regularly hike is reported to have 'second growth' trees but there are some real beauties there. Swift Run begins here at the upper reaches of the Penn's Creek watershed. Each of us has different ways of soaking in our surroundings. David takes photos. There are parts of Swift Run that are so beautiful with moss and mist that he tries again and again to capture them. The kids run free and play. They whittle sticks into boats and have boat races. We once had a dog who spent her time there carrying stones out of the creek. (Yes, she was a retriever!) All who are able hike. I savor those hikes.

Hannah enjoying a natural slide!

Why does it call to my heart so?

I think Chris Rice says it best in these lines from his song

My Cathedral:

Out here in the stillness,
I find my house of worship
with column trees and canopy of stars,
Here in my cathedral.

The kids love to climb this sheer rock face - the big kids too!

Stones

A Rigel vacation has to include stones. David took the junior geologists to the shale pit to look for fossils.

Jacob, Isaac, Jesse

Beaver Bones?

As a homeschool mom, I've found myself asking odd questions and doing strange things over the years - all in the quest for knowledge. Among the strangest of the strange is that I now get excited about good roadkill. That I even have a definition of 'good' roadkill cracks me up! I've been known to go cruising for roadkill (leisurely driving rural roads in the hopes of finding something 'good'). I've stopped to pick up an interesting looking tidbit. I've even gone back for something special. Why would I...? Hannah.

My beautiful daughter #1 likes bones.

She has tried drying pelts and stuffing birds but I think she really enjoys rearticulating a skeleton. The funny thing is, I know she'd much prefer the creature to live. But, in the event of it's demise, she'll skin it, clean it, and make a puzzle of it. And the family gets involved.

That's how it all started on vacation.

Most of us went for a walk one evening. Zach had gone to the lake and we were planning to catch up with him. We never made it past the neighbor's farm where we stopped to chat and catch up with old friends. On our way back home, we came upon a freshly killed groundhog. David took it back for Hannah - you just can't pass up one that fresh! They took it out behind an outbuilding along the edge of the millrace and put it under some wire fencing so scavengers wouldn't carry it off while it decomposed a bit. (Let the wild beasties do their thing.)

A couple of days later, Hannah, Bekah, and Julia were walking down the creek to meet the boys who had gone fishing with Uncle Stan and they came upon a dead beaver. Now this beaver was not fresh! But it was a beaver! You just can't pass up something like that. So we went back for gloves and bags and came back to retrieve said beaver. Now we have two stinky carcasses to bring home. A few days later, David and I were driving along and I spotted a dear carcass beside the road. I thought it was pretty clean and a possible source of some good long bone (remember we just visited Jamestown and now we'd like to try making tools the way the native americans did -and you need bones for that...) so we stopped and oh so casually picked up a small bagful of deer bones.

One bagful of stinky beaver!

For more on our trip, check out Hannah's blog.