I spent a lazy couple of hours at the lake with two of my granddaughters last Sunday.
After spending Saturday at some of the Canada Day events, a day of doing nothing seemed like the perfect way to spend our time.
The older of the two paddled off in my kayak to commune with the fish while the six-year-old and I settled down on the dock to splash and enjoy the afternoon sun.
It was when I was hauling her out of the water, after she found it too cold, we first saw the clouds of tadpoles swimming through the water.
That was all it took for her bug net to become a tadpole net.
The problem, however, with being little is you do not have a very long reach. I soon found myself elected as the official tadpole catcher. Took me back to my own days of catching bugs and snakes and other cool things.
But these guys were sneaky. No matter how carefully we slid the net into the water, the deeper they swam. Eventually, we switched to the other side of the dock to start fresh. It was closer but still not quite close enough.
So I stretched out on the dock and reached as far as I could.
Success!! And a happy granddaughter. We set him free after a few minutes and started again. A few catches later and they began to clue in diving deeper once more.
I was bound and determined to catch at least one more for the child before calling it a day. I stretched so far that I almost rolled off of the dock, much to my granddaughter’s amusement. While I cannot swear to the possibility, I think if I had overextended myself like that again she might just have helped me along. She kept giggling as she urged me to reach just a little bit further.
Nice try child. I was not born yesterday. After all, I raised her father and that is just the type of thing that would have made him laugh till he cried.
Come to think of it - he probably would have encouraged her.
fiona.grisswell@100milefreepress.net
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