05.14.09 PhotoPostPart1 Suckerfish
It has been a long, complicated frustrated week but as usual, my children kept me focused and on getting back on my feet no matter what. I have had alot of difficulty sleeping and so the blog has suffered. I hope to catch up on posting the major events of the week this weekend but in the interim have decided to post a sort of photo diary of Thursday. The photos for the most part are quite self-explanatory and this way I will not feel like I have completeley dropped the ball. Thanks for visiting & come back soon, there has been much photo worthy fun in the past 2 days!
Happy Victoria Day Weekend, if you are travelling this long weekend please do so safely (and of course alcohol free!!!) and arrive alive… don’t forget if you are in my corner of Ontario that there are MOOSE ON THE LOOSE on these highways so be aware (driving sleepy can be as dangerous as driving drunk so if you are feeling tired, don’t push yourself, pull over and snooze for a while or find a hotel and stay the night!
SUCKERFISH
11h40 Grandpapa picked Emeraude & I up as I needed to go to the hospital for an injection for pain meds. As we were getting into his van, a school bus stopped across the street and Emeraude said “there’s Lloyd” but I explained that Lloyd was probably still at school and he’d be home later when we returned from church. I buckled her in and Grandpapa pulled out of the driveway…
We were just coming onto Adjala (near the churches as Emeraude said again ‘there’s Lloyd” I looked and sure enough Lloyd was running down the street towards us as fast as he could. Grandpapa pulled over and Lloyd explained that we had seen him getting into a bus, there was a bus driver from out of town who had become lost looking for Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School and Lloyd had got in to give her directions. On his way back through the church hill shortcut, he looked in the creek to see a pile of suckerfish. He had run from there as fast as he could to cut us off (and had succeeded) wanting to bring his sister to show her (I felt so proud of him, so blessed to have such a thoughtful teenager, so happy for her to have such a great brother, it was just an amazing moment I won’t soon forget!). Emeraude wasn’t quite dressed for adventuring; it had been snowing and was very cold outside, -3oC, and she had warm layers wearing spring winter boots, her lined rain coat with a warm sweater, long sleeved shirt but no toque or mittens – Lloyd assured me he would find a way to keep her warm but thought she must see the suckerfish (she had not before). So, he took her out of her car seat, pulled her sweater’s hood over her head and I watched as he scooped her up and started on his way back towards church hill…
Meanwhile, Grandpapa brought me down to the hospital. I was releived to see there were not many cars in the parking lot (at least for a weekday at noon) and managed to walk in pushing a wheelchair to avoid any delays that might come from a low bloodpressure (I have a normal low and it needs to be at a certain level to recieve the injection as it can lower blood pressure…there’s a whole other story from the morning prior behind that info but I’ll just explain that walking on my legs when I can barely bare it raises my blood pressure) and was relieved to see Lindsay at the desk as I approached, already calling to let the nurse know I was there. I opted to get the maximum dose available (I have been in pain for so long that I can usually tell what it’s going to take to get the pain under control). There wasn’t much of a wait and I was processed and back out the door rather promptly. 
Grandpapa returned me home. I ran in the house as fast as I could and gathered Emeraude’s rain pants, rubber boots, a toque and some mittens. On the way to church hill, Lloyd & Emeraude were walking up the road (he was carrying her once again and I could tell by the smiles on their faces that they were having a ton of fun. I said a quick praryer of thanks. Lloyd almost seemed to be bouncing…Stopping to pick them up Lloyd explained that he had been bouncing lol, on Emeraude’s request.
I changed her into the extra clothes, Lloyd ran into the garage to find a fishing net (Emeraude had asked to go back and Lloyd wanted me to see just how many fish there were for myself). Our fishing nets could not be found. We went to Grandpapa & Grandmaman’s house to see if they were there, they were not but Grandmaman gave Lloyd some money to pick up a new one from the Home Hardware.
The three of us went into Home Hardware together and after much debate decided on a less expensive one to allow us to buy Emeraude one as well (Lloyd said that the smaller net would be great for trout fishing) we would learn later that the big one was not a very wise purchase (we had the choice between a net with a rubber mesh and a traditional one made of rope-type mesh choosing the latter).
The three of us got out of the van (now at the creek, bottom of church hill). It was so cold outside but the kids hardly seemed to notice. I put Emeraude’s life jacket on – until a child is a VERY strong swimmer, I prefer to just err on the side of caution, insisting they always have a life jacket on when near water other than the lion’s beach (even there I often prefer she have the life jacket on) – the kids started on their way to the culvert. Lloyd helped Emeraude & I down to the side of the creek (so chivalrous) and then hopped back on to the culvert.
The rest of the story is here in photographs… Lloyd caught a suckerfish then put it into Emeraude’s net for her which she LOVED. We played and attempted catches, threw rocks (Lloyd explained we had to be careful not to throw them near the fish but rather into clear water where there were none to avoid harming any as the water was quite shallow) made more attempts, cheered Lloyd on and examined the water striders which Emeraude tried to catch. Lloyd caught one more which became quite entangled by it’s fins and gills in his net. In part because his sister was there paying such close attention and in part because he is just a lover of nature and prefers not to see any creature suffer, he worked as quickly and carefully as possible, keeping it in the water in spite of his hands turning red (and certainly freezing quite painfully) as they froze, and finally after around 10 minutes managed to free it. He had been so careful that it was still very frisky and was gone swimming away before we could follow with our eyes. Emeraude, inspired by her brother, lead him back to where she had found the water striders and then ‘saved’ one to impress him and was very proud of herself when he applauded and congratulated her enthusiastically. We called it a day and made our way back up out of the bushes.
