Fall at the Lake

We spent last weekend at the lake house on Lake Champlain with Grandma, Hapa, Micah, Becky, Phoebe and Fisher.  The weather was unsettled at best, but we found plenty to do despite the periodic rain showers. Saturday morning we made an outdoor fire and lounged around the lawn watching the kids run wild, and then we headed south to the Champlain Bridge where HaPa had discovered an "atlatl" championship was in progress.  If you've never heard of an atlatl, either you haven't read "Clan of the Cave Bear" recently, or you are just like the rest of us (aside from HaPa)...it's a caveman weapon consisting of a small rod of wood that you fit an arrow into and use to chuck said arrow into the air, and into the side of the nearest woolly mammoth or sabre toothed tiger.  How we know about these today (fossil record? cave drawings?) I don't know, but there appears to be a group of people out there dedicated to keeping the sport alive.  The northeast regional competition included people of all ages competing for both distance and accuracy in atlatl throwing, and we learned that there are even atlatl-specific hunting seasons in two states, Alabama and Missouri.  Of course, there were atlatls for sale, and Aiden in particular was smitten.  So was HaPa.  Two atlatls and two arrows later, we trucked back to the lake house to try them out in the nearest field.  Everyone had a go, I think, besides Haley and Fisher, and it wasn't as difficult as you might imagine.  Kind of like throwing a lethal "chuck-it" for a dog.

Saturday afternoon found us fishing in some spitting rain on the dock.  Both Haley and Phoebe had success reeling in perch after perch after perch on the Spongebob Squarepants rod, while Aiden practiced his casting  off the deep end.  When he was done practicing, Aiden turned to worm fishing too, and promptly hooked a sunfish which was promptly chomped by a northern pike.  A furious fight ensued, ending with Aiden catching only the sunfish with a ring of tooth holes in its side.  We spotted the pike about 5 minutes later lurking near the dock though, and with one cast Micah had it on a lure and landed it for Aiden to admire.  We declared it a joint effort in the end.

In celebration of HaPa's and my birthdays, we had raw Glostah oysters before dinner (at least a dozen were consumed by Aiden and the second dozen split between the rest of the oyster suckers present) and a nice baked manicotti dinner with a crazy ice cream/sorbet layer cake for dessert.  Sunday morning it was off to Shelburne Orchards for a 2 mile running race through the orchard rows.  Micah was actually the fastest guy to finish the race at only 14 minutes, but due to a technicality (he signed up for the 2 mile "walk" on accident) he didn't officially win.  He did slay the walking field, though!  Aiden, Andy and I ran together on this one and when we finished everyone had hot cider and cider donuts and picked a few bags of apples.  By this time the sun had come back out for good, but it was time to head home to do chores and get ready for a new school day on Monday.