Summer is Time for Adventure

Today as I was walking by the stream I noticed something moving. Turns out that we have a crayfish living in our waterway, and he was rather large. It also turns out that he was very much stuck in a length of string that he wrapped around himself. Crayfish aren't the brightest like that. Kind of like the dimwit that would put string into a stream to begin with. This facilitated a rescue but instead of calling the Wonder Pets I called Josh, because every 11 year old boy would love to be in on the danger end of a wild animal rescue. We cut string and more string and were finally able to lift him out of the water to carefully unwind him. For pay, that one-armed bugger pinched me. I learned today that the claw of a crayfish has teeth-like things in the ends to slice into their prey and hold on. Darn, that thing hurt. It drew blood. With just one pincher.

My finger still hurts. It's probably infected from the thing that lives in dirty water and created an open wound.

The big kids went to the farm to unload hay for Pappy. Funny how they find that job to be a privilege when I would have seriously contemplated cutting off my own right arm to get out of it as a kid. Micah wanted to go along with them, so Daddy humored him with a walk across the road. When I went to join them, I found Micah in Pappy's office. Pappy used to milk dairy cows back in the day. That day ended fourteen years ago when he had a hip replacement. His office has sat untouched in the front corner of the barn for the past decade and a half. Cobwebs and dust have settled on everything, making it look very much like a scene Indiana Jones would stumble upon in an underground passageway. Micah was pretending to be Indy himself. He found a framed certificate of recognition sitting on the desk, and scraped away at the grime until he saw letters. You would think he had found the Holy Grail the way his face lit up. He sat and scraped at that framed treasure for the longest time, marveling at each new letter that he was able to expose. I sat and watched him scrape in fascination, marveling at how kids find the greatest treasures in the simplest things.

We loaded into the truck - Micah, Sam and I - and drove to the quarry for several tons of limestone dust. Micah was not a happy camper, being pulled away from his treasure the way he was, but one look at the super sized loader coming at our truck was enough to flip his attitude switch. That loader was the stuff that little boys' dreams are made of, and it was right there, right beside us, dumping dirty stuff into our truck. Wow. Just wow. If he could talk, he would have been saying, "did you SEE that?!"

We did. We saw our boy being a very normal little boy today. There are so many days that an extra chromosome makes zero difference whatsoever. Today was one of them.

14 comments:

Karen Deborah said...

awh did you take pictures? what a great day.
I'm breathing a sigh of relief that there is no already chewed food in the pot--post today.
just cuteness, sigh of relief...
um very big on cuteness & charm.

Karen said...

Karen Deborah - sadly there are no pictures. I wish I had my camera with when Micah was discovering treasures. His face was priceless.

Karen Deborah said...

I can't believe you didn't! but it's in your head and those are some you'll always keep.

Andrea said...

Sounds like a wonderful day. There is just something in every little boys' genes that just draws them toward dirt, treasures, and trucks.

Karen said...

Karen Deborah - thank goodness for the blog to keep a word picture for me.

Karen said...

Andrea - isn't that the truth. :)

KG said...

When I was a kid, I used to go crabbing. Not the lame kind of crabbing you do with a trap, but the kind with a line of string, weighted on the end, with a nasty, rancid chicken neck tied to it. Before i learned how to properly pick up a blue crab, I was pinched. It hurts. A lot. The worst part is when they drop their claw off and just bail, so that the claw is then still pinching your flesh but there's no creature attached. Good times.

Danyele Easterhaus said...

i love that micah was playing indy! sooo fun! and i'm so sorry you got the bad end of the deal!

Burgh Baby said...

Awwww, you made me smile!

Unknown said...

Boys + Dirt = Fun

No matter what!

Leanne said...

Lovely. Sounds like a GREAT day. And uh, about the onion? I would still have eaten the hot dog, but only after I flicked off the onion. But maybe that's just because I'm not a fan of onions on my hot dog....can't decide. :)

Michelle said...

I love days like that!

Flea said...

He looks so much like you in that picture. :D

Brandie said...

Days like that are priceless.
I think the love affair between boys and heavy equipment is so cute. My husband has worked for free just for the chance to run an excavator. My girls on the other hand could care less.