Skipping Rocks

July 7, 2018

...a make shift belt ...

Bonnie meet up with us when we have moved from the big dock to the blue swimming platform.

She has come to spend the day giving her attention to Alice and Betty.

She is going to take them to Salmon Arm. After looking around she says, why am I going there. There is no place better than this. 

Of course, again the kids are ahead of me, but I don’t worry.

Two out of three have on life jackets.

... the lowest I can crouch on a log ...

With Bonnie two of them build a mythical pot of stone soup (mostly out of stones).

Alice stay apart, making a large cake for us to have for dessert after we have finished the soup.

There is always one pair of feet that splashes the sand production of others.

The feet are control by impulses that make Bonnie and me curious.

We experiment with different interventions.

We fail.

3 kids in one photo

We are hungry and tired and want to go for lunch, but the children don’t seem to have those feelings so Bonnie begins to teach rock skipping.

This is a bit more dangerous than fishing with three people who have no hooks on their lines.

Now the children are fully armed with rocks.

They are given a group lesson and then spaced up and down the beach, Bonnie running from one to another for one-on-one work.

testing out the new blue dock

The group lesson was probably unintelligible to all, for they need to hear the instructions again and again. Choose a flat rock. Cup your index finger around that rock. Bend your knees. Get your eye down to the level of the water (or the white ski boat that is picking up a passenger out of the water). Let the rock go. Count the skips. For the older ones, remember that number so you can figure out your personal best.

Everyone succeeds at skipping rocks, even the three year old. If I am being assigned miracles, this is not the spot where I want one assigned. But it is.

we can climb this easily from shore

Now Bonnie and I try to move everyone back up to the house. Betty won’t let anyone help her with her shoes.

And her toes have so many rocks between them that her feet don’t feel good in her shoes.

She goes down to the water to wash them off, but a speed boat has come by and the water is being washed up on the shores in big waves.

She runs into the water and then has to run back up the ramp, the water it coming in with such force.

In and out the water goes.

Back and forth Betty runs, following its rhythm.

Bonnie can hear the training coming. I tell them to go ahead and cross the tracks, but they wait for us.

Still the train has not arrived by the time we get there so we cross the track. We cannot go any further, as now the children want to see it come into view and then count the cars.

a good skipping rock

When the last car has rumbled by, Bonnie has a new game for us.

From there, up to the steps that lead to grandmother’s house, we are not going to talk to each other.

Now we are just going to listen for sounds and tell what we have heard when we get to grandmother’s first step.

Along the way I see a baby slug crossing the road.


I have to silently signal for everyone to come back and see. 

We speak to each other in sign language.

 Alice wants to have the slug crawl onto her finger.

making a magic mud cake

That takes a long time. When it touches the tip of her finger Alice recoils and so does the slug.

Further up the hill I see some thimble berries full fruited. I signal again to people e to come and taste.

Michael is afraid he will not like the taste, but he gathers berries and gives them to me. Since we are not talking, but listening to sounds, I notice the long blue stand of Douglas Aster in bloom. I wish I had my camera out, but by now I am too tired to take it out of my bag. Even too tired to remember it is in my bag.

 And thus endeth my morning.

Arta