Rowe Family Blog

Last week we went swimming for the first time this season. Jude’s not a huge fan, nor is he a fan of his snazzy little floatation suit:

But, Elijah jumped right in and started swimming under water as if we’d never had a winter in between our summers.

The girls have taken a little more warming up (i.e. adding Jude’s baby raft to their arsenals of floating equipment), but now that’s we’ve been swimming 3 times, they are officially old pros.

Hello, summer. It’s just so good to have you back around.

Elijah has been planning his garden for a couple of weeks now. And here’s the thing about Elijah: he will not be dissuaded. He’s made diagrams and garden charts.

So, despite my very non-green thumb, I caved and let the boy plant his garden (afterall, he is so meticulous I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to keep everything alive and growing…) sidenote: We have one tomato plant already and many mornings we wake up to find it’s pot has been knocked over. Elijah’s solution is to hide in a tree all night with night-vision goggles and pelt the culprit with berries. He’d have done it too, if it wasn’t a school night.

Anywho, we went to the store and he painstakingly picked out all his vegetable seeds and plants, anguishing over the lack of eggplant and raspberries, and then came home to get to work. He divvied out jobs: he was to plant, Ava and Audrey were to locate worms, Jude could slide and/or practice napping, and I could cook the vegetables after they were grown (but not the broccoli, because everyone likes broccoli more when it’s raw).

Grace urged me to post sometimes, so here’s my two cents.

Sometimes Elijah reminds me of myself as a kid.  I was intense, forgetful, yet imaginative and passionate.  Other times, though, I realize how different he is.  Those who know me now will scoff, but as a younger (elementary-aged) kid, I was frequently a top baseball player on my team, and I loved church basketball.  I spent entire summers shooting hoops with my next-door neighbor.  Yet Elijah is no more interested in sports than I am in Pinterest.  He’s delightfully different.

At the end of his Spring Break last Friday, I had Good Friday off. So I asked what he wanted to do for a “boys’ trip” day.  He wanted to take his Tennessee Field Guide to Birds to Radnor Lake. 

Yes, bird watching.  And so we went. 

As we neared he asked questions about what we might see with increasing anticipation.  I told him what I’d read on Rador’s website: that there are owls that hunt during the day and visitors sometimes see them.  Having read a George Mueller biography recently, I was inspired to pray a very sincere and confident prayer that we would see such an owl up close and personal.

Not two minutes into our “hike” we heard a “who–hoo-ho-hooooo!”  Turning towards the sound, we spotted a giant bird gliding directly toward us.  He swooped up quickly and landed on the tree right in front of us–on a branch not 7′ away!  He stared at us inquisitively for several minutes, and we back.  Elijah’s face was priceless–Christmas morning pales in comparison.  We watched him for about 10 minutes as he swooped down into the creek bed to “fish” and back up to a close branch.  Elijah nervously giggled and intensely studied; he grabbed his book and compared owls.  Yes, it was a Barred Owl.

After this encounter, we saw no less than 30 box turtles on logs in the lake, a Great Blue Heron fishing adeptly (a female as Elijah quickly pointed out), a Pileated Woodpecker (the size of a crow with a bright red tuft on the top of his head), and a giant snapping turtle crossing the trail (Elijah stayed back a few paces, knowing what their jaws are capable of).

After such an experience, most kids would love a Happy Meal.  Elijah, knowing French Fries aren’t good for you and that fast-food burgers “have chemicals in them”, preferred his favorite meal: “fish sushi”.  After he devoured 2 1/2 entire rolls, we went for a spin at a go-cart track (probably the least exciting part of the day for him) and then back home. All the while, he kept saying things like “I’m SOOO glad we saw a barred owl. We saw a few rare things, but that was my favorite.” In true George Mueller style, I was moved to pray: “how kind of you, God, to answer such a prayer”.

Elijah came home to talk his sisters’ ears off about his experience. He’s been drawing owls ever since.  He told Grace it was his “best day so far”.

Me too, buddy. Me too.