Our metro park is always a special place. We frequent the nature museum there, but today was deliciously surprising. It was the annual Ice Daze weekend. We went before lunch and all the boys got to ride together on a wooden sled pulled by a team of 6 gorgeous huskies. The boys loved the dogs and got a great thrill being pulled through the 4" of freshly fallen snow. (It happened to be our first real snow of the season that fell just last night!) I was just amazed at how tiny the huskies were. I'm getting pretty used to our mammoth Tor and bitty little huskies pulling a sled with 4 people kind of shocked me. The museum curator named Jerry was sculpting a tree out of two blocks of ice in front of the museum with a chainsaw. I really enjoyed watching him especially because I once carved a tree out of a stump with a chainsaw and I know how fun it is. The boys loved playing a game called snow snaking where a long skinny stick is slid down a channel dug in the snow and your distance is measured. They got pretty good at it. Inside the museum there was so much to do. There was a beautiful angora rabbit owned by an excentric woman who spun angora yarn for us and helped the boys make rope from yarn. There were 7-8 grandfatherly men all with white hair and beards tying flies and teaching observers about the art. There was a fish sculptor demonstrating his skill of carving and painting. There was a table of astronomers teaching about telescopes and binoculars and sun flares and star charts. I would have liked to spend hours with each of these people, but we moved onto the museum classroom where sweet grandmotherly volunteers helped my boys sew fabric snakes. Joren loved packing stuffing into the snake until it was rock hard. The ladies helped them sew up the ends and the boys drew faces on their snakes. There was lacing and coloring and dot to dots and muskrat puppets that you could make clothes for. As Teig started to melt down I reigned in the kids to get them to the car before the tears of hunger and naptime ensued, but we had to catch a quick glimpse of the silver strings Dolcimer society that had just begun playing. It was in a small room in the middle of the museum with only about 15 chairs for audience. There were chairs open so we grabbed the two on the end. I am not exagerating when I say that we were all completely engrossed. 20 stringed instruments including banjos, guitars, dolcimers, harps, bass, and fiddles, harmonicas and some I did not know played dancing songs, joyeous and classic song right in front of us. Joren almost bumped the fiddle in front of us about 6 times. We were that close. I held Joren and Teig on my lap and we clapped our hands and I bounced them and I wept because the music was so beautiful and my boys were so happy. I whispered to them that it reminded me of the dance at Grandma's house from the book "Life in the Big Woods." They loved the reference. Joren asked if he could play a fiddle when he grows up. I wanted to put my arms around all these beautiful musical people. I felt so much joy! My kids faces were lit up more than Christmas morning. At one point Eirik took a break from clapping and layed his head on the chair and closed his eyes to enjoy the music. Even Teig was dancing like he couldn't stop even though he was about 3 hours late for his nap. I don't want to ever forget.
After lunch and naps we went back. A woman taught a class about owls in the nature classroom. She showed a slideshow and told which owls we could find in the park. The boys love all the taxidermy filling the shelves of the classroom. There was even a foxes head and they got to touch his teeth. Then we pulled on all our gloves, hats, and scarves because we were headed out for a nature walk to hear the owls and it was 14 degrees outside. We had to walk quietly down the dark snowy path. Joren said he was glad he could hold my hand so he would not get scared and Teig was quiet and alert propped on my shoulders. It was a mile trail so I was glad we had walked it many times and I knew the boys could do it. Jerry, our guide stopped a ways in to play the sound of the screech owl on his recorder. Then we sat perfectly still and listened. It took a few times, but then we heard it. The return call of the owl living in the park. He called and called until when it was silent a minute we saw him sweep past the train in front of us and land in a tree to our left. We called again, but he was on to us and we did not get to see him again, but the moment was brilliant. Eirik said, "I don't want to ever forget this." We were all delighted. Walking in the dark with my boys in the moonlight I was thankful to be living a life full of so many delights and surprises. I was grateful for this gorgeous world that we truly know so little about, even when we think we know. And I was grateful that usually I have my husband by my side for these kinds of excursions because it is way easier to do this stuff with two parents. We made our way back to a campfire outside the museum and had hot chocolate and smores. The boys were the only kids and loved roasting the marshmallows and I think the adults loved watching their enthusiasm and seeing their happy faces. It was a wonderful day.
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