Pirate Camp Day 2 & Domestic Complaint

Frost and Eve were 'miners' yesterday. The team mined from a shaft and found small treasures and odd items like bones (from a chicken). They shared all the treasures and then could pick a few to take home in their gold treasure bags. Frost described the camp as "not really pirate camp but like an adventure playground for kids. Like you would build it just for kids. It has a lookout and its really tall and a mine and a fire." He explained they are not starving and eating bad ship food because the pirates are on shore at the moment so they get to eat better. He is loving wearing the same clothes every day and again checked that he could come to pirate camp EVERY YEAR. The only down side is that Frost says that kids come from all over so there is no point in learning their names because he will not be friends and never see them again. Hrmm. He is hanging out with Eve.

Meanwhile, back at our rental house things are comfortable but run down. The cabin is very clean and pretty with shiny pots and a well-stocked, brightly lit kitchen but still has has an air of vague neglect. We have a family of small brown mice who skid across the floor from the fireplace to the couch and kitchen and another couple heard and sighted in the bathroom upstairs. The house creaks and groans when you walk. At night you can hear its bones rearranging as you climb the spiral staircase up to the bedrooms and single bathroom. During the night the baseboard heaters make irregular clicking noises as if they are about to erupt with heat even though the thermostat is turned off. Outside, the umbrella is broken, the hammock is missing (but the rack remains to hang it in a big tangle with an old TV aerial) and we found a sensory table pictured on the deck out in the second paddock. Wren loved washing it down and playing with his cars in it. The path is overgrown with a large leafed prickly flower and Wren has learned the word "sticker bush" to remind himself to avoid the thistles guarding the drive. We are unable to collect chicken eggs because the new hens are not laying. The flyer in the cabin apologizes for this saying it is due to "raccoons" and the new chickens should be laying by late 2009. I fear this may be an annual thing since I found a flyer dated a year ago and giving the same message with another date. Perhaps they have stopped having chickens and didn't want to update the website?

My final complaint is that I have three bruises on my head from bashing into things in the kitchen obstacle course - the pot rack is mysteriously placed above the coffee-pot and toaster and the breakfast table is under the stairs so I often stand up to smash into a heavy metal object. Got to love vacations :) Still, this morning it is quiet and blue and I am happy at the small pine table looking out over the morning sun on the tussocked paddocks.

Last night we asked for some food to feed the livestock and then Steaky (the horned highland bullock) started following us around and nuzzling Wren's leg (much to his anxiety). We also visited some turkey's and walked down the lane to young heifers on a neighboring farm. The kids went swimming at the Vashon Pool and Wren jumped in as many times as he could in half an hour. Josh was very patient about being splashed in the face each time he caught him.

Wren is in an aggressive drawing and iPodding phase. He loves a game of animal match on my iPod - the animals make their noises as you turn over their card. He has become remarkably adept at remembering where the animals are to pair them. Frost and Wren fight over the iPod which barely feels like my toy at the moment. Whoever does not have it has a deep sense of injustice and expects some high reward for their suffering. I am fed up with it and threatening to withdraw all iPod priviliges from the U10 crowd.

Right now Wren is drawing. I shall scan some of the recent drawings because they deserve their own post. I have told friends (jokingly) that Wren is an artistic genius but I secretly think he is a bit of one. He draws and then writes "numbers" to say "WREN DREW THIS IT IS A DIGGER WITH BIG SNOW" or some similar title. He is now writing "big dump truck, little digger, man driving a digger, 'struction site cones, so many cones BY WREN" as the title of his latest artwork. The 'writing' looks like morse code. His art looks like abstract surrealism.