Miriam gave me a half smile as she told me she wasn’t sure she wanted to fool with all the fishing madness today.

I totally agreed–the park is very far from our house, and I was leery of all the sunny places there. . .

and, Xay had a diabolical plan to catch fish and bring them home (!) for dinner.

I couldn’t put my finger on my discomfort, aside from the fact that the day at Lakeview park just drags on and on. . .

And then, talking to Miriam, I realized that it was that homeschool thing.

“What homeschool thing?” she asked. “That thing where they research a subject to its final conclusion. They dig, and dig, and dig, until they exhaust that subject.” “Yeah,” Miriam agreed, “And then they can move onto something else.”

So, I reluctantly agreed to take the kids way out to Lakeview park. It’s a beautiful park, and one that everyone likes, so that’s nice. All the other mothers brought fishing supplies, too, even if it meant going to the store on the way to the park.

I’d called Julie beforehand to ask if she, or rather her son Sage, could catch some worms. Meanwhile, Xay went out and caught about 5 worms himself in our backyard. (I had flatly refused to take him to the tackle store to buy something that everyone has in their yard!)

At the park, however, everyone pooled their resources. I saw that someone had brought a cupfull of mealworms–they were so neat, it looked like someone had bought it. Actually, Julie had bought them; she said they couldn’t find any worms in their yard.

When the mothers made their way to the dock, we saw that the children had caught about 5 fish already, and were going strong. Isaac, Miriam’s son, had caught a fish, and couldn’t get the hook out. It had pierced the fish through the eye.art/science_001/IMG_6796.jpg

Xay called out, “William!” His friend hasn’t made it to Wednesdays at the park in a month, so he was thrilled to see him. Isaac excitedly showed his fish on the hook to Jack, William’s brother, and Jack helped him get it off the hook.

Soon, Jack and William were catching fish, borrowing other peoples’ poles. They had spent part of their summer on their annual fishing trip with their father and uncles.

All the children enjoyed picking up the still live fish from Xay’s bucket. The fish would flop around in their hands until they got a little sluggish, and someone would urge the child to put the fish back in the bucket. Camillo, Miriam’s vision impaired son, was especially thrilled with the feel of the fish in the bucket. The challenge was to let him play with the fish, while keeping their dog away from the bucket.

All the mothers were ready to go well before the children had had their fill of fishing, and playing near the lake.

Rose and Laurel, Julie’s daughters, had both dipped in at the shore and collected shells before we left. Miriam’s daughter Annalese had fallen into the lake, trying to judge how deep it was. I was surprised at how white her clothes still looked after that, and how serenely Miriam responded to her. “Now we have to smell lake on the way home,” she told her.

Most of the boys stopped fishing to play baseball in a different part of the park, while Yanni babysat the fish. When Annalese found out that they couldn’t bring any fish home, she and some of the younger children started setting soem of the fish free. They had caught 10 in all, but we managed to bring 6 home.

I had told the children that I would have no part in the scaling, gutting, fileting of the fish. This was their project. Yanni pulled out her chef book to find out how to cut up a fish. Curtis told them they had to kill the fish first.

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It took a long time for the biggest fish to suffocate, but Yanni and Xay persevered. I didn’t even want to look, but I told them to take pictures. They even took movies.

Now Yanni is frying up her tiny filets. I just got a taste. It was good! I’m not sure what kind of fish they were; maybe we should have googled that. Annalese said they were bluegill or sunfish. I’ll take her word for it.