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Don’t Tell Mom

As kids, we were routinely locked out of the house when our mother needed some well-deserved down time — which usually consisted of her reading her water-logged Bible in the claw foot tub, in our one bathroom house. We never knew how long it would be before outside time ended, she had a habit of stirring in more hot water and Revelation had fallen into the water a long time ago. It was our job to entertain ourselves on an eight acre acreage, complete with an abandoned barn, a forest, a creek and a pond, flanking the aptly named Bear Mountain. 

Our knocks and urgent hollering fell on deaf ears, in event of emergency we were without a doubt, on our own. After we wrapped our minds around things, we embraced the predicament we found ourselves in and lost ourselves in the voracious landscape and our imaginations. We could conquer this infinite passage of time — together. It was us against the elements, for perhaps eternity — there was no way to be sure.

Funnily enough, we never saw a bear, perhaps our heads were too caught up in our games to notice any curious onlookers. Perhaps we were too loud. Or perhaps our free-spirited, free-roaming dog, my dad found in the “unwanted” section of the newspaper —free to good home— kept them at bay. Shamoo, came with only the name, a half-bag of kibble and his thick white coat, full of the mysteries and adventures his happy grin only began to allude to. He traversed the perimeter of our property (and well beyond) alerting predators of his and our presence.

While there were places and activities forbidden to us, the rules were stretched or forgotten altogether when we ventured outdoors unsupervised. Our imaginations grew as we created portals into another world, one where only we existed, outside of the rules, outside of reality. We climbed tall ladders into high hay lofts, we rode dirt bikes at break neck speed we spent whole afternoons capturing and releasing creatures. While it was expected we had common sense, common sense was best learned by making a myriad of mistakes. Left to our own devices, it was up to us to learn and appreciate our own limits.

Given a brief introduction to knife carrying safety, my brother was set free with his first Swiss Army knife— never whittle towards yourself or run with an open blade. The instructions seemed straightforward and the knife made sense for reaching the next level of outdoor enjoyment. Sharp weapon-like sticks and rudimentary carvings were already in the works. It wouldn’t be long before we were blazing trails with machetes. When my brother fell, doing something he shouldn’t have, he lodged the knife deep into his hand between his finger and thumb. “Don’t tell mom,” he said. Those words were a pact we all deeply understood. 

While we enjoyed tattling on one another at many points in life, the wilderness built within us a camaraderie like no other. The fresh air that filled our lungs, ran through our veins and fuelled our hearts, coursing through us all — we were different outdoors. It was us against everything and we most definitely would respect the pact, by not telling mom. We learned wound care that day, and a deeper respect for sharp objects. 

Due to our apocalypse-fearing Christian upbringing, we often played an enchanting little game called, “End of the World,” where we imagined we would soon be the only people left on Earth, or need to go off-grid for any variety of reasons. Whatever the situation, it was pressing that we sharpen our survival skills. Imagine our dismay, when we learned a compass comprised of a magnetized needle and a leaf in a bucket of water could not save our mortal souls. It didn’t much matter we could survive the rugged terrain, bellies full of the sourest huckleberries. We could catch fish in buckets and we discussed the nutritional value of grubs and insects, only one of us brave enough to try. We had nothing but time, the wilderness and each other and so we practiced well. 

A friend from work mentioned she had removed a book from the school library shelves, titled Schoolyard Games, a how-to type of book, circa 1980. One of the chapters boasted a fun little game where children throw pocket knives at the other participants to avoid boredom and of course, increase knife skills. Thinking fondly of my own childhood, and us throwing sharpened sticks at eachother, I suggested she re-shelve the book (to no avail — though probably for the best). 

I couldn’t help but smile to myself, as my brother presented his own children with their very first pocket knife, during a family camping trip. I even got to listen in as he explained the simple rules for the miniature blades. I watched as they carefully realized what potential lay in their palms. “Enjoy.”

Now we have the most incredible opportunity watching our own children from our windows — giving them the illusion of aloneness — as they scale tall hills, use sticks as swords, catch frogs, gather insects and test their own limits, right at the foot of the same Bear Mountain. I watch as they increase their familiarity with the wild, one tiny step at a time. I listen intently though for worrisome sounds, not quite ready to draw myself a bath and lose track of them altogether, one foot in the 90’s, one foot right here. If ever I am lucky enough to overhear the phrase, “don’t tell mom” used by my own young children, I will try my absolute best to smile. 

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Tragedy at the Puddle’s Edge

Only days into summer holiday, we discovered freshly laid frog eggs in the very shallow, warm water of the ditch near our home. Some lay completely exposed to the afternoon’s heat, the soft jelly already hardening, surrendering its existence to the relentless heat. The sun has since made dusty patchwork quilts of the ditch’s bottom. 

We carefully collected all of the eggs, scraping the mud with our fingers, we placed them delicately into a large bowl of murky water. We knew a completely successful hatching was unlikely given their delicate condition and still we watched, hopeful. Nearly forty tadpoles emerged and found life in the tank that would entertain us for weeks. 

Unbeknownst to us, we simultaneously hatched mosquitos and midge flies, too. The mud we collected alongside the eggs, gave birth to squirming larva. The walls of our home were soon sprinkled with the tiny winged creatures, who would regrettably live out their short lives indoors — their forlorn figures eternally resting on our window sills. 

We watched as the tadpoles slowly developed back legs, then front. To our delight we noticed one afternoon, the first tiny frog with barely a tail, sitting on the rock we had planted in their makeshift home. It had happened. We hurried to fix the lid in place as the frog quickly scaled the walls of the container. Revealing its delicate underside, through the glass, we witnessed each breath as the air from the room filled its lungs. 

After a month of dry weather, the only nearby refuge that the summer had yet to get rid of, was a small puddle on the edge of the ditch. Collecting a constant, almost imperceptible amount of ground water it defies the tall, thirsty trees looming overhead with their starved, autumn-coloured leaves, curling sorrowfully. So nearby where the eggs were laid, the destination seemed to me both poetic and opportune.

We collected the frog for a second time and brought it to the puddle. We watched as it flicked its tail and tested its legs in the water. We celebrated its first jumps as it stretched its legs in this newfound capacity. It ambitiously explored the rocky edge of the puddle, collecting fallen pine needles on its back. I watched it for some time, crouched nearby.

I watched a fascinating, particularly long-legged, wonderfully dexterous spider race past me, past the pair of fading deer prints, left sometime ago. It left the dry edge of the puddle, stretched its black and yellow limbs and took hold of a thin green plant that bent under the weight of the excited spider. It skillfully climbed from branch to branch before resting on its perch, contemplating where to build its voracious web.

I watched the frog as it continued exploring, a world materializing around it, now free from the confines of the water of its previous life. 

As we prepared to head back inside, one excited daughter pushed another to get a final glance of the frog we had raised. A foot came falling down and crushed the tiny frog, on the puddle’s edge. 

One daughter cried. Another reminded me, “it would’ve died anyway.” The youngest remained oblivious. We went back inside as there was nothing left to do. 

The spider, having observed many thirsty insects, could rest assured in its decision to build there. It began to prepare a web in hungry anticipation. 

The still body of the frog sank below the insatiable mud. 

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Another Day at the Pond

Photo by Mélanie Martin

We trudged up the hill, the trees, usually generous, offered no relief from the sun, high in the sky. Rubber boots against black pavement amplified the heat and chafed our bare legs. When did this hill become so steep? It was important that we hurried.

They sighed in loud opposition, as they often do. They didn’t want to be here in the heat of the day, still I urged them forward. It was important that we make it.

Days earlier we had studied the shrinking pool of water. It was much smaller than a few days before that. As the water surrendered to the warming days the pool became more obviously alive. We stirred up the water with a stick and watched as creatures emerged from the murky bottom. I’d always been fascinated by pond life. 

My grandparents owned a beautiful five acre property we loved to explore. My grandfather carefully tended each area, tamed blackberry bushes and proudly toured us around, feeding us the things he found while noting seasonal changes and improvements he’d made. There was a barn that housed a horse and chickens, large gardens and a dilapidated caboose, all the things childhood adventures were made of. But the most fascinating part was the pond. Each Spring, we bore witness to life itself, while observing eggs turn to tadpoles and tadpoles to frogs.

My grandfather cared greatly for his pond and the life within it. He took it upon himself to give it a concrete bottom on one half, I’m sure to ensure that the pond would not dry out before the tadpoles had completed their transformation. It was important to him for these tadpoles to join the loud chorus of adult frogs in the neighbourhood. 

We would venture into the pond, stirring the ground with our boots plunging ice cream pails into the water, excitedly studying each scoop, until our boots filled up with water. We returned to the pond week after week, spring after spring making note of changes.

It’s no wonder I love ponds, this oddity is likely a part of my DNA. Naturally, I was thrilled when we bought an acreage with a pond on it, my kids would love this, they’d have to. If it wasn’t already a part of them, it would be soon.

Routinely we walk our property, appreciatively breathing the fresh air. The walks always move slowly, as we stop for each puddle and collect all of the treasures that catch the eye of my daughters, until their pockets and hands grow heavy, until their legs grow weary.

We religiously study the water levels as cool spring days become warmer. Each year we watch as puddles become captivating ecosystems, wriggling with life. As the days grow longer so does my concern for the well-being of the puddle dwelling creatures that have entertained me so. I cannot bear to let them succumb to the heat of the day. And so we hurry.

They are moments from death. Near victims of the perilous sun, they lay still. Helplessly packed together, their delicate skin is only kept damp by the body pressed against theirs. Survival had sent them to various deeper pockets of the puddle. The ground around them cracked, baking in the heat of the day. With both my hands I carefully scoop them into the bucket. There’s no way to know for sure but they it looked as though they were celebrating this necessary change. 

My four year old daughter drags a net through another puddle, carefully tapping the net on the bucket to release its squirming contents. Tadpoles, salamander efts and dragonfly nymphs cascade out. All natural predators of each other, I pondered if I ought to leave one type behind. Having already interfered with Darwinian survival principles, I decided against throwing off the balance of predator and prey. That and I couldn’t possibly. It was too rewarding rescuing them, imagining all of the creatures happily re-homed in a much larger pond, one able to withstand the summer sun. 

Our two-year-old quickly lost interest and found herself tangled in  a long black berry vine. Even after rescuing, she cried to return to the comfort of our house, dramatically indicating her freshly scratched legs. It was time. We had rescued hundreds. The next large puddle over had several days still before they too would be in dire condition. I made a mental plan to return. 

We headed back down the hill. The bucket sloshed against my leg as I tightly gripped it and our crying two-year-old daughter’s hand. Both loudly complaining now, they were prepared to collapse right there on the road, just minutes from our home. Desperate promises of popsicles in the shade, coaxed them along. 

I carefully let more water into the bucket and left it in the pond, acclimating, under the watch of the weeping willow. After some time my daughters and I went back to the pond to bid farewell to our friends. I slowly tipped the bucket into the pond, some eagerly swam away, some hesitant, clung to the bucket, waiting for more help. They were free. I watched as they began to migrate further into the pond. They had made it. Relieved, I continued to watch as a large salamander crept out of the depths and snatched up an unsuspecting tadpole in its mouth, before disappearing again. And the circle of life marches on, just another day in the pond.

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The Wasp Trap: A Delightful Demise

I think both my fear and fascination with wasps began with my first sting. This is perhaps my first childhood memory. On a family reunion camping trip I unsuspectingly slipped my foot into a shoe, only to receive a startling and excruciating sting. I vividly remember holding ice to my foot, tears slowly sliding down my cheek as my grandmother pushed me in a swing, in a kind but somewhat pathetic attempt to distract me from that life altering moment.

Since then, I exerted a great deal of energy running from them, ducking for cover from them, surrendering food to them, trying to ignore them, gently shooing them and nothing has worked. Nothing.

Once while waiting at a ferry terminal with a friend I ordered a pizza, a $12 pizza. It was a beautiful pizza, hand made, organic, the toppings placed just so. Merely moments after I had taken my first bite, wasps had swarmed my pizza. No amount of fast walking, jolty movements, blowing, gentle shooing and hysterical shrieking could convince the wasps to seek a meal elsewhere. My friend embarrassed and probably wishing she had invited a different friend on a weekend away, calmly reminded me that wasps are small and generally mean no harm.   But, you see my friend is a vegetarian, and while she is admittedly much more level headed than me, the wasps had very little interest in HER pizza and no amount of sensible speak could prevent me from hurling my pizza onto the ground and running in the opposite direction. Is THIS why people become vegetarians?

I love the outdoors. I need the outdoors. My body and my mind are at peace outdoors. My kids get along outdoors. My dog is happy outdoors. I cannot stand when my peace is disrupted by that all too familiar buzz and aggressive flash of yellow.

I wonder what my neighbours think when they hear my shouting and shrieking. Really, why would a grown woman be raising such a raucous outside? Or maybe they get it. We have all encountered a nosy and persistent wasp, haven’t we? I am slightly concerned that one day they will assume I am being chased by a tiny insect when I am in a deeper sort of peril.

Often lately they have been lurking just outside my door, threatening to come inside each time it swings open, invoking some fearful cursing and an immediate slam. They bump their bodies into the screens of my windows as they peer inside, meticulously studying the perimeter of the house, obviously plotting their take over. It was time, time to take back my doorstep, time to reclaim my place outdoors.

My late, great uncle, great, both in the wonderful sense of the word and in the generational way, an inventive and ingenious man, used to fashion his own traps. He’d hang the carcass of a fish, above a bucket of water. You see wasps are carnivorous, ferocious and selfish little creatures. They would feast and feast until they were so engorged they could no longer lift their tiny little bodies off of the fish and would plummet into the bucket below. Drowned by their own gluttony.

Since a rotting fish would most definitely draw in a much bigger and much more dangerous creature I opted to check out the selection of pre made traps at the ol’ Canadian Tire. Having heard a great review on something that sounded like the trap I held in my hand, I confidently headed for the check out.

I set that bad boy up, following every instruction, tightening and untightening, cutting and dumping, and washing my hands, I need no help attracting wasps.

I caught 39 wasps in 24 hours. 39! I watched two wasps literally fight to be the first one in. The trap was mesmerizing, alive, a buzzing ball of angry beasts, desperate to escape. 39 wasps meant that my original thought that there were one or two, possibly three mean wasps that were taking pleasure in torturing me with frequent fly bys often landing on myself or my kids, sending me shrieking in terror, arms flailing, racing for the safety of my house, was not true.

Day two, the number has probably doubled. On one of my excited frequent checks, I noticed what appeared to be a super wasp, much larger than the others, perhaps the king of all the wasps. Upon closer inspection, I was horrified to realize that it was carrying the head of one of its fallen friends. Turns out when trapped for hours on end, wasps will resort to hauntingly cannibalistic behaviours.

I have begun to picture a world, not completely free of wasps, because apparently they do serve a purpose, but one where there are traps in every space that I frequent. The park, scattered throughout my yard and the place I return my grocery cart to, offering the wasps something far more appealing than me.

Too long had I been running, yesterday was the day I took my power back from the tiny yellow overlords and it feels good. This does not come without consequence. Every time I shut my eyes I see them, crawling on top of each other, entangled, fighting for freedom; which is both delightful and disturbing. But it is worth it, completely worth it.

With a brazen confidence, that I am sure only comes from killing 39 wasps in one day and will soon dissipate, today at the park, I crushed a wasp under my foot, and a second by removing my shoe, and squashing it dead, right there beside the swings. 28 years ago a wasp used my shoe against me, today, I used my shoe to crush it. Today the tables have turned; today I have regained my power.

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Unstructured and Unsupervised: Attempting to Raise a (somewhat) Wild Child

I’m slow reading a book titled The Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. It’s fascinating, but also long. Basically, due to a large number of factors, children are not playing independently and in natural settings as much as they used to, he believes this is having profound but unstudied effects on children today.

I grew up in the back of town on 8 acres with 3 siblings. We were free and encouraged to roam around and when my mom took a much-needed break (ie. shooed us outside, locked the door and ran herself a bath) that’s exactly what we did. I think back on my childhood with such fondness, but also with astonishment, partly that we all survived and partly because my parents encouraged our behaviours. I really wonder what they thought we were doing out there.

While she was bathing we were eradicating large wasp nests, with a barrage of both buckets of creek water and large rocks thrown from the safety of a very small embankment.

We laid out sticks on the street for cars to drive over, retreating to the woods for cover, triumphant when a car’s tire broke one in half.

We fished with sticks and buckets, bare feet precariously balanced on slippery rocks.

We built rickety fences with real hammers and nails, out of 1×2 pieces of wood and picked hay for the horses we wished to have.

We got blisters digging deep holes, imagining ourselves popping out on the other side of the world.

We lathered ourselves in mud, the thicker the better.

We threw clumps of dirt, handfuls of grass and rocks at each other. We learned to dodge them too, we learned to run fast and to throw back when necessary. We learned to negotiate, call truces and retreat.

We took turns riding our small dirt bike, which appeared small, but when full throttle could send 7 year old legs flying out behind it, while it’s rider continued to grasp the throttle, envisioning the inevitable crash, but hoping for the best.

We were allowed to attempt to sleep in our camper trailer, parked probably 100 meters from our front door. I say attempt because every single time, after the sun went down and our junk food supply ran low, we made that 100 meter dash, usually solo, for fear of wild animals breaking into the trailer. And later we actually slept in a tent, overlooking the trees, surrounded by empty bags of chips and candy wrappers.

When looking at my backyard my child eyes saw freedom, a place to explore to experiment and to build, to test boundaries and physical limits. We were explorers, conquerors and care takers; we were strong, we were brave and we were wild.

I just found out I’m a “millennial” parent, the cut off being the early 80’s, being born in ‘84, I am torn between my millennial thoughts and my desire to parent as my parents did. We were brought up in a different time, the age of double buckling and games of red rover, when we suspected my brother broke his arm, he was told to “sleep on it.” There was no google to tell my parents they were doing it wrong, so they just did. The only “mom group” my mom belonged to was literally a group of her three closest friends. Articles on social media didn’t alert them to the 1000 ways a child can die both in and outside of their home, forcing them to second guess every decision they made; they followed their instincts and their instincts served them well.

The millennial parent in me sees: a creek, filled with ankle shattering, wrist breaking, skull cracking rocks, ending with a drowning death pool, a busy road with fast dangerous cars packed with potential perverts, thumb bruising hammers and skin piercing nails, a perilous crash hazard, lurking bears, hungry cougars and angry wasps. I am so very fortunate to now live only 4 houses away from my favourite childhood property, surrounded by the forest, full of perceived potential dangers. It makes me anxious just thinking about my kids being outdoors without me, and yet I want that for them.

I want my kids to find joy in the outdoors, to navigate this space independently together, to use their imaginations and to care for nature. Louv says in order for adults to want to protect nature they must interact with nature as children and this occasionally involves destroying it. Which feels contradictory, but I think back to my days of trail blazing, feeding bugs to spiders, stepping on slugs, catching fish in the inhumane way, breaking off trees to make marshmallow roasting sticks, uprooting plants and cutting worms in half, and I know he is right. I have a deep respect for nature and I feel incomplete if I haven’t had enough time outside. I shudder to think of my children following in my borderline sociopathic footsteps, and yet so hope that they do.

I want to raise wild children while still keeping tabs on them. But I fear that’s not possible, because it wasn’t until my mom actually locked the door that we were set free.

Thank goodness, I’ve got a few years to wrap my head around this whole independent outdoor play thing, since right now, I can’t trust them alone down the hall.