Outdoor classroom

Yesterday, we took our first year students on an all-day retreat. We spent the entire day outside. The students loved the high ropes course, where we challenged ourselves by climbing up high into the trees and walking on wires high above the ground. The low ropes course involved crazy teamwork challenges like trying to get a group of twelve people, half of whom are blindfolded, balancing on a tiny platform. But more importantly, the students got to spend time meeting faculty and staff in a setting that’s far more informal than a classroom.

We ate meals together, sitting outside on the grass, and had long discussions about where our food came from. (Our first year students read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle over the summer.) Several faculty members brought produce from their own gardens, including some crazy-looking heirloom vegetables. Faculty and students played soccer together and searched together for the soccer ball together every time into the woods. At least two students brought their dogs, who were pet by dozens of hands. I taught countless first year students how to play bocce.

Because our college focuses on environmental science, faculty had lots to say about the beautiful natural area where we spent the day. In small groups, students walked to the pond, the orchard, the pine forest, the rock cliffs, and the sinkhole, where professors could talk about some of their specialties. It was a long day, filled with activity, and ended with a fire, and the traditional cooking of S’Mores. It was a day filled with positive energy, the idealistic young students talking excitedly to professors who have worked in the field since before some of these students were born.

On guard

Thinking

I took this photo of With-a-Why last weekend at camp. It’s a typical pose for him — black hoodie tied around his waist, head bent, hair in his face, so deep in thought that he’s oblivious to all around him. I often wonder when I look at him what thoughts are going through his teenage mind.

What I didn’t realize when I snapped the picture is that it would be the last photo of With-a-Why with such long hair. The next evening, just before starting tenth grade, he decided to cut his hair and donate it to a charity. The minimum length needed for a donation is ten inches, and his hair, which he hadn’t cut in four years, was plenty long enough.

I took him to haircut place where the women on staff exclaimed over his dark silky hair, and bound it into little pony tails that they snipped off. His hair is still longish – it touches his shoulders – but he looks way different. I can see his face.

He looks taller, somehow, and older. That shy little boy is disappearing fast.

End of the season

Nine family members gathered at camp on Saturday, a small enough group to fit around the wooden table in my parents’ cabin if we didn't mind knocking elbows with each other. Because the weather was cold and windy, we played cards and board games inside. Every few minutes we’d hear a knocking sound as acorns came tumbling down from the oak trees, plinking against the roof. When the sun came out, we took a walk through the pine forest. My father had already pulled his sailboat out of the water for the winter; the dock always looks empty to me without the mast coming up through the cattails. After dark, when I stepped out of the cabin, I heard a wild scurrying, rushing, and click-clacking as small creatures dashed up the oak trees. When I shone a flashlight up into the branches, two small raccoons looked down at me.

Off to camp

The busyness of the first week of classes coincided this week with a late summer heat wave. All week, our cats have been stretched out on the living rug as if they're dead, and I've felt much the same way. It'll be a relief to get up to camp, where the tall oak trees and breezes off the river keep things cool.

Growing up

Ponytail, the little neighbor girl, calls me “Tooseen.” When I come home from work, she's often jumping up and down on my porch yelling, "Tooseen! Tooseen!" as if it's some kind of cheer. This pronunciation is so far off from my real name that revealing it does not destroy my anonymity. When I first met her, she’d often say phrases that we couldn't figure out, although after a while I got used to her way of talking and could translate most things.

Last year, Ponytail went to a speech therapist at school, and she’s become easier to understand. She’s continued to make progress over the summer, even without the speech therapist. Last week, she said to me, sort of out of the blue, “I can say your name now.” Then slowly, and carefully, she said my first name, both syllables.

I hugged her, and she repeated my name, over and over. I could tell she was proud of her accomplishment, but it made me a little sad too. She’s getting old fast.

Juicy

We're having another heat wave here — this has been the hottest summer anyone can remember — and it's too hot inside my house to write, or think, or eat anything but fruit.

On the front step

Colleges start a couple weeks before the public schools in this area, which means that even though I’m back at work, the little neighbor kids aren’t yet back in school. Since the weather is still warm, I leave toys on the front porch so that they can play outside when I’m at work. Even when they are unsupervised, my front steps are a pretty safe place for them to play. At least, it’s safer than their other options.

Today I came home from campus to find lego blocks scattered all over the steps. When I looked closely, I could see that it was a village of sorts, complete with a swimming pool and diving board. (Ponytail’s lego houses always include swimming pools.) Other days, I find crayon drawings, or trails in the dirt from trucks that have been driven on the same path over and over again. Sometimes the kids are still there when I come home, and they jump up and down and yell my name when I arrive, greeting me as if I had been gone for months instead of hours. I’m thankful for the sunny weather that gives the kids a chance to play outside by themselves, hidden from the world by the river birches on my front lawn.

Yes, that's Ponytail in the photo. She's really grown over the summer.

I can see the floor

The result of a fun-filled summer is often a house that looks – well, the phrase “lived in” might be too kind. I’ve been traveling so much this summer that any cleaning I’ve done has consisted mostly of tossing stuff into the garage. My two oldest kids have been moving out gradually this month, taking what they need from the stuff in the garage, but still, we ended up with piles of miscellaneous junk out there.

So that’s what I spent my weekend doing. I filled up trash bins, drove two carloads of usable stuff to the Salvation Army, and basically got rid of anything in the garage that isn’t absolutely necessary. As I was sorting through stuff, I’d say to myself, “Okay, if two grad students didn’t want this, then why would I?”

The garage isn’t completely empty, of course. I can’t get rid of the snowtires, or the tents, or the bicycles. I’m keeping the ice chests, the snowboards, and the bocce balls. I’m going to need that lawn mower and that wheelbarrow. We don’t have a basement or an attic, so we do use the room for storage. But still, I’ve got a lot more space in there then I did on Friday. Tonight, I kept walking out into the garage just to admire my work.

I admit that my weekend wasn’t all cleaning. I went to the farmers’ market with my parents Saturday morning, I had a supper picnic with my husband and two youngest sons at Pretty Colour Lake last evening, and I drove out this morning to the retreat place where I’ll be taking students later this month. But still, that was my biggest accomplishment of the weekend: I cleaned the garage.

And just in time. Classes on our campus start tomorrow. Fall semester is here.

Picnic

Food tastes better outside. It’s true. Even the something simple like a bunch of grapes or a loaf of bread tastes like ambrosia if I’m on a picnic.

When I picked up FireAnt at her house in the city last week, she lugged a wicker picnic basket out to the car. She is a woman who knows the right ingredients for a picnic. She brought a red-and-white checked tablecloth, china plates, and her delicious potato salad, made with local potatoes flavored with olive oil, chunks of garlic, fresh dill, and parsley.

We drove to a park that has picnic tables under pine trees, just above a waterfall. We had the place to ourselves: we could hear the crashing of the water as we spread food out on a table. BusyLifeAlsoWrites joined us, pulling up in a car that looks like a refrigerator. She brought hot tea in a thermos and a dessert that included fresh peaches from the farmers’ market.

We talked as we ate, catching up on our lives, trading stories about our summer travels. Then we walked a trail to the waterfall. The trail ends at an overlook, with big signs that say things like, “Danger! Stay on the path.” We ignored these signs, of course. We always do. They’ve been there for as long as I can remember. Even when I was kid, I thought they were ridiculous.

So we climbed under the railings and slid down the dirt to the little creek at the bottom of the falls. All kinds of trees had come crashing down during a recent windstorm. I climbed around on the fallen trees and onto the rocks at the bottom of the fall, and got close enough to feel the mist. It was hoping the sun would come out so that I could convince Fire Ant to pose naked in front of the waterfall, but the light did not cooperate. It was still overcast and getting dark as we walked back out of the park and headed for home, bellies still filled with delicious picnic food.