Ray Bilderback
This weather is just a bit milder and pulling me out of the house. I know that some of you have been out all winter and wondering what the fuss is about. Spring? I’ve been out all winter.
Here at our house on Curlew Lake, we’ve found our first buttercup and I have been to the greenhouse deciding where to clean and where not. I tend to be slovenly and let the place get messy. My rationale, my excuse for such behavior, is that I worry that if I get too ambitious, I will kill as many good guys as I do bad. I don’t have mites or aphids, and I think it’s because the good bugs and good spiders have the upper hand and I’m going to leave it that way.
Evenings still get chilly and are a prime excuse for a fire. Sometimes that calls for popcorn and memories. Lately, I’ve been remembering some good excursions with children and grandchildren, and some bad ones, too. In some families of a bye-gone era, it was fashionable to introduce youngsters to swimming by throwing them in the water. Such caveman tactics worked for some kids but brutalized others. There are less macho ways to introduce an activity.
I remember trying to match my ideas of a good activity with theirs. I like to garden, hike off to fly fish in beaver ponds that might no longer exist, put on a CD of classic Italian arias, eat, do a spot of bird watching, try my hand at watercolors, eat, see if the recent rain brought mushrooms, eat, go to the library, read, hunt the wily huckleberry…it’s quite a list, but spring is in the air and we (some of us) have been cooped up all winter.
So, outdoor activities that might interest a child: gardening, hunting for mushrooms or berries, bird watching, eating, painting. I am saving mushroom hunting and fly fishing for older children.
Let’s imagine a sample activity for the younger set: you have grandchildren visiting for the afternoon and you are checking your window plants.
“What are you doing, Grandpa?”
The child is curious, and you answer, “I’m checking my outdoor plants. They get an early start in the window. These need water. We should use slightly warm water. Don’t you think?” You draw water and return to the window where you have started onion plants.
“Oh, Grandpa, there are so many.”
“Onions don’t mind being crowded. When they get bigger and stronger, about 7 or 8 inches tall, I can set them out in the garden. Then they need more space. If you are here at that time, you can help plant them. Right now, they need water. Would you like to water them?”
That is an easy introduction to gardening, and the child/children will be successful. You can send them home with the ingredients necessary to start their own onion patch or, better yet, help them do it on the spot. I use a 6-inch pot and fill it with potting soil and our homemade compost. Thirty or more seeds will do for that size container. I use a tray or saucer of some sort under the planter.
Once you and the kid(s) get the pot ready and the seeds planted, you point to the drainage holes in the bottom of the pot. “We don’t want to drown them. When you get home, find a sunny spot in a south or west-facing window and water them. One of your parents will help you. And remember, they need sunshine and water just like we do, but they also need to breathe.
Unless they are your children, it might be a good idea to share your plans with a parent before their visit. Gardening can be as interesting as an ant farm or an aquarium, way less expensive and far more useful.
Bird watching is another indoor/outdoor activity that suits the season, and the great yards, parks, meadows, lakes and forests of Eastern Washington are uncrowded (mostly) and waiting for you. Much the same as above, you can ease children into bird watching. And, just like gardening, it may become a life-long activity.
You can start at your own backyard feeder. At our feeders, we commonly have finches, juncos, nuthatches and flickers, to name a few. They come to our sunflower seeds and suet. Contact the North Central Washington Audubon Society at P.O. box 2934, Wenatchee, WA 98807, or ncwaudubon.org, for advice on setting up bird feeding stations or visit with a local birdwatcher. If you don’t have a reliable bird book, visit your local library. Our libraries are terrific, and so are our librarians. Or, it might be time to visit your local bookstore, if you are lucky enough to have one. A good app for bird identification is Merlin.
Libraries, bookstores…You say you don’t know where to take the kids?
The value of spending time with your children or grandchildren cannot be overstated. It’s good for you as well as them. You don’t want to smother them, of course, as they need unsupervised time (time to take the dog for a walk, time to inspect a pond for frogs and so on), but they need direction as well. Just make sure it is a good experience.
My son and I went on a two-hour road trip with a friend so that he could show us a favorite trail. We took water and a light jacket in our pack and set off at a good pace, but the trail soon became overgrown with brush and even young trees. He had not been on the trail for many years. Now he tells us.
An hour or so later, we lost the trail all together and ended in a swampy area replete with mosquitoes. Lots of mosquitoes. Add to that, we were losing our light. We were able to backtrack and get to the car safely, but it was a miserable experience and not a good introduction to the joys of hiking.
Next month I hope to have good news: my novel, Little Ruby, will finally be back from the publisher. Look for my ad in The Huckleberry Press.
Ray Bilderback, creator of the Reuben Braddock novels, was born and raised in the Sierra foothills of California. He served in the U.S. Navy Seabees during the Korean War and taught for many years in the west. He makes his home in the mountains of eastern Washington with his archeologist wife, Madilane Perry. “In the 1930s and 1940s, where I lived, we still used horses and hand tools, canned and preserved what we grew or raised, lit our kerosene lanterns, stoked our woodstoves. In my writing, I draw from those times like water from a sweet well.”
