First, we are fishing. Now, The Fiance is an actual fisherman. In face, he recently caught a catfish who truly looked to be about 4 ft tall. No joke. The picture both amazed and frighten me. The good part for him and my cousin is that they will be eating well... probably until their 5th wedding anniversary. Anyway, I always get excited about the idea of fishing. Being out in nature, under the sun, surrounded by trees, hearing nothing by birds and the occasional splash of a fish. It's all so serene. I love it. Then I get the ol' fishin' pole in my hand and my stomach jumps a little when I notice just how sharp the hook is on the end of the stringy thingy at the end of the pole. But I still get a little confident when it comes to casting. My uncle, my cousin who is a nature enthusiast and my Grampa all gave me lessons when I was a little girl. Start with my arm behind me, stick my thumb on the button thing at 11 o'clock and let 'er loose at 2 o'clock. When I was 10, I rocked out at casting.
Of course, before casting comes baiting. But, uh, well, The Cousin and I aren't really crazy about worms. Lucky for us, she learned in elementary school that hot dogs are the perfect bait. It's a little known but true fact, as we used this as bait last year and The Cousin and our Grampa both caught fish with it.
So, I bait my terrifyingly sharp hook with a tasty hot dog, resisting the urge to take a bite of it myself. Then my stomach jumps when I toss the pole back, because I'm always so certain the sharp hook is going to get stuck on my leg somehow, I push the button deal, I release at 2 o'clock waiting for the magic and!
The hook falls two feet in front of me.
I don't get how I did this so impressively when I was 10 and then when I do this now, I can't get the line (Oh yeah! That's what the stringy thing is called!) to go way out in the water. So it's good that we'll have a real fisherman with us. We might have to use worms, but I'm challenging myself to step across my comfort zone more often, so I'll try the worm thing this year if I must. I'm not promising that I will do it without squealing, but at least I'm going to try.
After that, we will cruise around the farm on a mule. Back when we got the mule and the family was raving about it, I thought they were talking about the actual animal. I was imagining my Grampa and three others from the family galloping around the farm on a mule to "make it easier for him to get around." I mean, it sounded fun, but I didn't really get why we needed a mule. And how could it possibly fit four of us? And wouldn't it get tired? I always forget how many acres this farm is, but it's pretty impressive. The mule would get tired going from one side, through the woods, and to the open field. I don't know how it would carry four people back in by lunch. I don't know how it would even get to the other side of the farm by lunch.
It turns out a mule is a vehicle. Ours is something like this picture on the left. It seats for and you can carry things in the back. My Grampa would take us on tours of the farm, then randomly stop without telling us what he was doing, go to the back, grab a saw, walk up to a tree, saw off a vine, return the saw, and continue the tour, acting like he never left the mule.
In my lifetime, a vehicle like the mule never existed at the farm. We would go to the farm in Grampa's truck, drive it as close to the timber as we could, and tromp around through the woods. There are streams to walk through, paths to search for arrowheads in, a cave to explore. The cave has carvings in it that date back to the 1800s. It's an amazing place and when there has been enough rain, it is the site of a beautiful, but modest, waterfall.
Now, we still experience these beautiful sites. We just get to them by bumpin' in the mule instead of the truck. Sometimes... it's possible that TWO of the THREE of us going tomorrow have made fools of ourselves and have had to make a fast escape in the mule, driving at a quick 20 MPH. We feel like we're alone out there in all of those acres, but there is a farmer who keeps the fields up for us. You heard me. 20 of them.
Driving in the mule (not riding on one) does add to the experience. Having the summer air blowing around you is an amazing feeling. It makes you untouchable. And to me, nothing quite reaches the smell of a summer evening in the country. It's heavy, it's fresh, it has hints of grass and flowers. It reminds me of the carefree nights playing outside as a kid. Combine that with riding around on the mule at sunset with someone I love more than myself, The Cousin, and it feels like life can't get any better.
After an evening drive, we are going camping. Well, sort of. The Husband is camping this weekend by Lake Michigan. He is using his tent. He will build a fire from scratch and have his dinner made over the fire. He will hear raccoons quarrel when he's sleeping. That's camping. The Cousin, The Fiance and I are sleeping in a lodge. We're cooking our dinner on a grill because we want to, not because we have to. We might build a fire from scratch, also because it sounds like fun. But our bathroom has only been used by family members and friends. Families of daddy long legs won't be watching us when we need to take care of business in there. In fact, the bathroom looks better than my very own restroom at home. It was built and decorated by Amish neighbors. There are three bedrooms, eight (?) beds, a living room with a television and a kitchen with all of the appliances we could possibly need, including a George Foreman grill, in case we didn't want to use the outdoor grill. The only thing missing is air conditioning. Yes, we even have heated water.
That's how we camp. That's how outdoorsy I am.
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