Smugglers' Notch Resort Magazine

One of the universal truths about family vacations is that they are often memorable for exactly the opposite reason you had intended. We were reminded of this last summer during our visit to Smuggs, when we booked what sounded like the perfect summer evening excursion: a sunset canoe trip down the Lamoille River. I envisioned a lovely evening, where our three- and five-year-old boys could learn a few lessons about nature. Oh, lessons were definitely learned, but all the wild life that night was in the canoe! Here’s what we learned from our adventure that summer evening.

Lesson number one: If you are planning a family adventure with small children, it might be best to consider a time other than after a day already jam-packed with outdoor activities. After a full day of swimming, running, playing, sliding, climbing and adventuring with the Smuggs day camps, both boys were falling asleep in their dinners. “But I don’t want to go on a canoe trip!” wailed my five-year-old son Tristan in a bona fide meltdown as we dragged him away from an early dinner at Riga-Bello’s. Luckily, they napped on the brief car ride to the outfitters just outside of Jeffersonville. Thank goodness for power naps!

Lesson number two: Don’t be shy about asking what to expect when you book an adventure. We truly had no idea what to think when rather than simply piling into a canoe at the outfitters, we climbed with several other families into a shuttle van pulling half a dozen canoes and were driven waaaaaaaaay upstream. I’m not sure how far we went exactly, but seemed like somewhere near the Canadian border for all the time it took us to paddle back (thankfully downstream!) to our waiting cars.

Lesson number three: What makes perfect sense to adults is subject to interpretation – and adaptation -- by kids. As we pushed off from shore, the guides suggested we remain quiet in our canoes lest we frighten away the wildlife. A suggestion that might sound quite reasonable for most of the participants. But I remember thinking to myself, “I have two little boys in my canoe who have both already vastly exceeded their daily allotment of patience and cooperation. It’s all I can do to keep them still enough to keep us from getting tipped into the river. You want me to keep them quiet on top of that?

In the way that only three-year-olds can do, as we paddled along my son Simon interpreted my constant exhortations for silence in his own unique way. For the entire two and a half hours that we paddled down that river, Simon did not stop talking once. He spoke, he babbled, he sang, he bellowed. Every time I shushed him, he whispered for about eleven seconds and then went back to chattering cheerily in his usual ‘outside’ voice. I kid you not, that child uttered more syllables in that one evening than he has cumulatively to date in his entire lifetime.

Luckily for us, the other voyageurs seemed generally bemused at Simon’s relentless commentary. In hindsight, our kids were the youngest ones on the trip by a good four or five years, although the family with four ‘tweens to teens also seemed to have their hands quite full. I was grateful for the sympathetic grins of fellow parents, even as I could read the looks of “better her than me” on their faces as we warned the boys again and again not to lurch unexpectedly from one side of the canoe to another.

Lesson number four: It ain’t over ‘til it’s over (a companion lesson to Number Two, knowing what to expect). Dusk was settling quickly into darkness by the time I recognized the beach near where we had parked our cars. I had hardly exhaled my huge sigh of relief when the guides motioned for us to paddle over to the side of the river a mere 300 yards from the end of our trek. They told us that we had one last “tricky spot” through which we’d have to manoeuvre, a bit of white water (!) with rocks to the right (!!) and a giant submerged tree stump (!!!) to the left. Had I had any energy left whatsoever, I might have laughed.

The guides explained how to best navigate this final injustice, including how to orient your body should you be tipped into the drink. Watching the other canoes successfully navigate the obstacles gave us some confidence, but as we approached the water swirling from stump to rocks I was sure we’d all end up swimming. To the boys’ credit, they must have read something in either the whites of my eyes or my husband’s white-knuckled grip on his paddle. Regardless, they were nearly still - and blissfully silent - as we shot the rapids with nary a splash.

In the end, the only wildlife we saw that night was a bunny rabbit in the parking lot – but that may have been because we were concentrating more intently on keeping everybody relatively dry and in the canoe than enjoying the scenery. I know now that inside voices sometimes do belong outside, and that “quiet” is a relative term. While it was not exactly the idyllic evening of communing with nature that I had envisioned when I booked the trip, it was undoubtedly one of last summer’s most memorable evenings.

Danielle Donders lives in Ottawa, Canada and writes Postcards from the Mothership, an award-winning blog about her adventures with her family. You can visit her blog at www.danigirl.ca.


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I don’t remember planting my first garden.  And I don’t remember eating the first vegetable from a seed that I planted.  What I do remember is being in college and excitedly telling my Dad about planting radishes and eating them for the first time.  He said, “You planted radishes and ate them when you were five, don’t you remember?”  In fact, I did not remember and really thought that I was doing it for the first time at 18.

I have come to realize that gardening was such a common part of my childhood that I barely remember it at all.  It doesn’t stand out in my mind because it didn’t stand out in my life; it was integrated.  Just like learning to read or swim or ride a bike. Many of us don’t remember these things, as important as they are, because deep inside it always felt like we must have just known how to do it.  So, after being a little embarrassed at first for not remembering what I thought should have been a landmark event in my childhood, I now kind of feel proud and happy that I didn’t remember.

This experience, of forgetting and being reminded of gardening as a child, happened before I had my own children.  But right then and there I realized that because of how valuable it was for me, I also wanted to garden with my children as well.  Not just plant a few seeds every once in a while, but garden with them so much that someday, they too might not remember ever learning to do it.

Now, at 33, I have two little girls, ages 4 and 7.  Every year we have had a garden and for two years they have had their own as well.  They have planted with me and my wife, who also grew up gardening so much that she doesn’t remember learning. The girls increasingly are also planting on their own.  It is helpful that I own a seed company, High Mowing Organic Seeds, so that we have a few extra seeds to spare as they “plant” them the best they can.

I am touched by the joy that I see in my children’s eyes as they dig potatoes, build compost piles, or pull up a big weed and find a beautiful bug.  The connection that they have to their food and environment is entirely natural and while we grownups try to be “localvores” and connect with the farmers in our area, they are just doing it because they know no different. And I have begun to remember more of my own childhood gardening now, doing the same things, at their age.  I am remembering through their activities, joys and triumphs.  And that has been quite a gift.

So, if you hadn’t already guessed, I strongly encourage you to garden with your children.  It doesn’t have to be big or even in a garden itself (think window boxes).  In doing so, you will give them something that will help them through their lives as they make eating choices and I would argue, even voting choices.  Because it is through gardening that many of us gain an appreciation for the natural world and experience its wonder firsthand.  This deeply affected me, led directly to my choices of career and lifestyle, and informs my decisions about what I want this world to look like.  Don’t underestimate the powerful seed you will plant in your children when you join them in the garden this summer.

If you are wondering where to begin, start with big seeds like beans, sunflowers, squash or pumpkins.  Or start with veggies that they love; carrots, most likely.  All plants need different amounts of care but the first and most important consideration should be the soil. "Feed the soil, not the plant" is a basic tenant of organic gardening.  When you create healthy, fertile soil, you will be most of the way there in creating healthy plants.  Therefore, add compost and aged manure and if you are starting from scratch or are gardening in containers, begin with good, clean topsoil.  These supplies can all be purchased from your local garden center or plant nursery.  Keep it organic and look at labels because sometimes chemical fertilizer gets "sneaked" into some of these things.

What else do you need?  A basic how-to gardening book from the library will help with learning about when it is safe to plant everything so that it won’t get damaged by frost.  But the best way to learn is to find a gardening friend to help you. If you are in a community garden, renting a plot, it will be easy to learn by simply walking around and seeing how and when everyone else does things.   And if it doesn’t rain every week, then some watering will help, especially when seeds are first germinating or transplants first go in.

Don’t worry about your kids planting seeds too close together, they will have fun and the plants will definitely give you something worthwhile.  After a while, you’ll be going along very well, so if you haven’t gardened before, don’t let it intimidate you.  What I would encourage you to share with your children is the joy of learning together and the pleasure of seeing the fertile earth produce under your family’s stewardship.  We will need all of our children to become adults who understand what taking care of the earth means, and you can best teach them by planting seeds.  And maybe, if you are lucky, they will find themselves to be careful stewards someday and forget when they ever learned how.

Tom Stearns is the owner of High Mowing Seeds, a family-owned seed business in northern Vermont dedicated to supporting sustainable agriculture by providing gardeners with the highest quality certified organic seed. Visit www.highmowingseeds.com for the company’s complete product line, including gardening books and tools.
 


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