Romeo and Juliet

Editor's note: Silas has an Olivia the Pig play stage which consists of various scenes from three performances: Turandot, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet. He spends quite a bit of time acting these out, performing opera or ballet, as the case may be. Today, he performed Romeo and Juliet outside for us. The porch was his stage. I asked him to tell me the story so I could write it down. The following is my best effort to write down precisely what he said. You may notice the tense changing, and you may also notice that he has taken a bit of artistic license with the plot.

Romeo and Juliet

rewritten and performed by Silas

Juliet was sleeping on the stage. I was in the bathroom peeing, when a monster came and she didn't even know. She was towed away! And now she's trapped with a monster in his dome.

I (Romeo) am going to try to rescue her.

I'm going to give the monster a ticket for towing Juliet away. I give him the ticket, but he throws it away.

I then use an ambulance because I think (I'm not sure) he left her on the floor. He might have dropped her and she might have hurt her head. But my ambulance doesn't work and it needs to be towed, so the tow truck is going to take her home. But the tow truck doesn't know yet that she's trapped because I didn't call them.

I need to call them and tell them that they need to come over. I think they probably will, actually.

that's pretty much what happens. When Juliet gets home, she likes to put on performances for people with me (Romeo).

That's it.

Polliwog Camp

This week, Silas attended Polliwog Camp at Stillwaters Environmental Center. I think it's safe to say that he thought nature camp was awesome. The campers hiked on local trails, studied bugs, bird-watched, did nature art, and learned about ecology.

There's a fabulous climbing tree on the grounds, which saw lots of use. Silas also told me that he made a secret fort with several of the other boys.

There were three other children at the camp from Silas' class at preschool, and I think this helped make Silas feel comfortable right away. Here he is with friend J, in the gazebo overlooking the pond:

When I asked Silas what his very favorite thing about camp had been, he said it was "walking on the trail looking at the ecology huts." I don't quite know what that means, but I'll take his word for it.

We hiked up a mountain (again)

Last weekend, we hiked up Hurricane Hill, just like we did last year. The biggest difference was that this year, there was a lot more snow. I mean a lot more. The pack from last winter was dramatically more than the year before, which I think must be a good thing.

Mt. Baker is just barely visible in the distance:

We saw an Olympic Marmot, which was bigger and more golden than I remembered.

And there was no shortage of deer.

Silas enjoyed making snowballs (and then holding onto them until they melted away).

Hello little cloud.

On the way home, we were waylaid by a bridge opening on the Hood Canal Bridge. This gave me a rare opportunity to get out of the car whilst on the bridge in order to take a picture of the Olympic Mountains.
Thus ended our day trip to the mountains.

We hiked to the ocean

Last Sunday we hiked to Cape Alava/Sand Point. This is a 9.2 mile triangle: 3 miles from the trail head to the ocean, 3 miles along the coast, and 3 miles back to the trail head. I was afraid that, going at a 4 year old's pace, we wouldn't make it up the coast before the tide came back in. When the tide is high, this is a much more difficult hike, as the beach along certain stretches becomes submerged, and the only way to get through is to swim, or haul yourself up a cliff with a rope. To avoid that possibility, we walked around Sand Point for quite a while, then headed back up the path. So, about 7 miles overall.

The forest, on the hike in:
Checking out a location for a potential driftwood house:

Look, ma, I'm at the ocean!

On the top of what Silas calls "Dragon Mountain."

Me.

Us.

Strong (little) man:

Putting the finishing touch on the driftwood house:

Ta-da!

Enough of us. Here's what we came to see:



It rained during the hike back. Thankfully, the rainforest canopy kept us from getting totally drenched (sort of).

Long day. Good day.

Anna Smith Children's Garden

We stumbled upon this lovely Children's Garden a few days ago. What a great place to gain inspiration for our own garden! As you can see, Silas loved the been and sunflower tepee. This is a must for our garden next year:

It's a little washed out, but Silas is about to step on a hopscotch board:
Shots of the garden:

My strawberries are overtaking one of my raised beds, so Drew will build me a strawberry bed like this one (square upon square upon square upon square) for next year:

We've been talking about building some mason bee homes in order to attract them to the garden and increase pollination. We'll probably base ours on the ones we found at this garden:

Bamboo mason bee home:

Unidentified beautiful flowering tree:
And, ending this post with a non-plant picture: Same park, down through the forest to the beach, Silas shows off his hook arm (paper cup + straw), which he would not take off all day. Sometimes it's the simple things in life...

Strawberries and Butterflies

We're right at the peak of strawberry season. Yum! The garden grows bigger each year, and as strawberries are want to do, they have spread out from last year, giving us quite a few more berries this summer. Again, yum!
Earlier this spring, I noticed a chrysalis on one of the shrubs I was planning on transplanting. Not wanting to disturb or destroy it, I clipped off the branch it was on and Silas put it in his nature explorer box, that his Aunt Amy and Uncle Jeff gave to him for his birthday. Then, we waited. And waited. After a few weeks I began to wonder if the thing was ever going to hatch.
But as you can see, it did!
I identified it as a Lorquin's Admiral. Right after the picture below was taken, it flew up and away.
Good-bye pretty butterfly!

Cap'n Red Gnome

Give him a hat and a peg leg...

Add an eye patch and a parrot on the shoulder.

Don't forget the sword...

...and a beard...
...And you've got Cap'n Red Gnome, scourge of the Salish Sea! Aaarrgghh!

(Taken at O's birthday party, several weeks ago. What a blast!)