On a gorgeous day in October, we took an autumn hike as a family around Balls Lake, which is about twenty miles west of us on the island.
“It’s only a mile or so around the lake,” someone had estimated to us.
Haha.
Lesson learned: don’t trust estimates. It was more like 2.5 miles, a slight discrepancy that didn’t bother the adults as much as the short-legged two-year-old in the family. He was a real trooper though, and walked a good two-thirds of the distance before he had to be carried!
We found lingonberries along the trail, spotted sockeye salmon in a creek, and played with the most beautiful echoes. The sun played hide and seek with us, so the jackets came on and off. We came out muddy and famished after our longer-than-expected hike, ready to inhale a very belated picnic lunch.
It’s interesting to observe the differences and similarities of the changing seasons here on Prince of Wales Island as compared to where we came from in northern Minnesota. Fall is more subtle here with most of the trees being conifers, yet the season is still distinctly evident in the frosty mornings, falling alder leaves, roadside and shoreline grasses turning from green to beautiful pale gold, and the turning of the leaves closer to the forest floor like the bunchberries, devil’s club and ferns you see pictured here. This hike finally gave us the opportunity to get up close and immerse ourselves in the autumnal forest, and I’m happy to report that it was beautiful.
“The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love…” (Psalm 119:64)
Memory verse: “
I didn’t get out to walk as much as I normally like to this winter. And for the first time in years, I didn’t even touch my skis, because by the time I got through postpartum recovery and felt up to getting on them again, the snow drifts were being measured in feet, not inches. Even you avid skiers know how daunting breaking a trail through that is!
But circumstances are never an excuse for failing to find joy.
And I learned to really savor few opportunities I did have to snap a photo. These were taken while…
There are a lot of parallels here to the strange times we’re living in right now. A pandemic is weird, strange and scary, and we’re all feeling the effects of it one way or another. We’re chafing because we can’t go places when we want to. We’re missing people and faces and fellowship. We’re disappointed at cancellations and postponements. We miss the days when you didn’t feel like you were hazarding your life and everyone else’s every time you walk into the grocery store. We’d really like to have a normal conversation again that didn’t contain the words mask, CDC or quarantine.
Normal life will return eventually, but while you’re waiting, don’t miss the unique gifts and blessings that God may have for you during this pandemic. When we look back on 2020 in years to come, let’s be grateful that we learned new good lessons and lived this strange and memorable year well, instead of regretful that we spent it chafing for it to end.
And not-so-exciting old things—
And not so fun new things—
“
I’ve been a bit missing in action for the last month or two, and for those of you who haven’t guessed, it’s all due to a bit of a recent career shift. From here on out, if my posts start to sounding to you like those of a kindergarten teacher, you will be correct. It’s an exciting new chapter for us, but a busy one, with lots of adjustments to new schedules and more time spent researching literature and art projects for unit studies than composing blog posts. I hope to get back to posting more often eventually, but we’ll see!
It makes sense: who else in the whole world cares more about her success than I do?
I sensed, going into the retreat, that my ideas were good but jumbled. If you know anything about the world of home education, you know that the amount of resources available are both incredible and rather overwhelming. I needed some vision to narrow my focus down from all those fabulous options to what would work best for us—and I always think most clearly while walking. And if the walk winds through sun-dappled woodlands around the edge of a sparkling blue lake? If there’s not a sound to be heard but the crunching of leaves beneath your feet and the wind in the oak tree tops? All the better.
Little by little, each day it grew;
“Little by little,” said a thoughtful boy,
“Little by little, I’ll learn to know
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
In all that he does, he prospers.
With the warming of the air, the signs of spring begin. The return of this old friend to his favorite post in the old oak tree overlooking the lake is officially the first. I heard him one afternoon, reinstating his dominance over favorite hunting grounds for all the world to hear. He peered at me with his sharp yellow eye through the branches, skeptical of my attempts to find an angle that didn’t make it look like he was holding a stick in his beak (as you can see I was unsuccessful, so let’s just pretend he was grabbing it to add to his nest).
Rejoicing Hills 