@cryotosensei's Parent's Corner post from today reminded me I haven't posted in this series in awhile.

On Thursday it was a beautiful late summer's day in our neck of the woods. My original plan was to go to Home Depot in the late afternoon and peruse the selection of kitchen faucets, as I am looking to replace ours in the near future. It's not an immediate need but an inexpensive thing to upgrade and a minor project for me. My wife will be pleased on both accounts.

My daughter loves to "check things out" at stores so I asked her if she wanted to join me. She enthusiastically agreed. We had to make a quick stop to drop off some recycling at the local dump (or whatever it is called these days).

We dropped off the recycling and I commented to my daughter that it was too nice a day to be walking around Home Depot, is there something else she would like to do. She replied "feed the ducks". As many of you know we live on Lake Huron (well not directly on- it's a 5 minute walk from our house) and by the Harbour in our town you can usually find many ducks, geese and even a few swans swimming around. The best place to feed the ducks is at a small boat launch a bit of a ways away from the docks where the larger boats launch from. It's just an area you can back into unhitch your boat and take off. It rarely gets used though so if you have enough tasty treats you can have it covered with ducks in no time.

I agreed that feeding the ducks would be a great way to spend a late summer afternoon/evening. We went to the store and bought some oats (I recently learned ducks shouldn't be fed bread but oats are ok) and drove to the park where we could walk to the area we feed the ducks. However, our plans got changed again when my daughter noticed the local splash park was still open. As soon as we got out of the car and she saw water spraying into the air and drenching the happy children below she had decided, what she really wanted to do was go splashing. She said "Daddy, the splash park is still open" (we thought it closed when kids went back to school), "can I go". I replied "I don't have a towel or change of clothes for you. I thought we were going to feed the ducks, how about we go to the splash park tomorrow". She begrudgingly agreed and then I thought to myself I better check the weather for tomorrow. I glanced at the weather app on my phone and it showed rain, or clouds or a mix of the two for the next few days. I put my phone away and abruptly said "let's get back in the car, we have to go back home". Shocked, she replied "awwww but we just got here". I said "don't you want to go to the splash park? I need to stop at home and get you a change of clothes and a towel". She excitedly started running towards the car. I guess that was a yes.

After a short drive home, packing a bag with a towel and change of clothes we were back at the park in less than 20 minutes. As we got out of the car I said "go have fun, please don't drink the water and when it's time to go it's time to go" and my daughter ran off towards the splash park as I walked behind with her bag and a couple bottles of water in tow.

And the splashing began!

My daughter ended up splashing around and playing with the other kids for almost two hours. A couple of time extensions were well negotiated by her along the way. She had an amazing time. I spent most of the time enjoying the weather, watching her play and chatting with the other parents/guardians. I definitely checked the price of bitcoin and stacker news at least a couple times.

Once she was done getting drenched, It was time to get changed and dried off and head home.

As we walked towards the car my daughter said "Thanks daddy, I had a lot of fun, but I know we need to go home now". I replied "do we?". She looked at me puzzled and I said "we didn't feed the ducks".

So, we dropped the bag and wet clothes off at the car and grabbed the oats we had purchased and ventured off to the aforementioned boat launch to see if we could corral some ducks to feed.

And boy did we!

We caused quite a stir amongst the duck community. Battles were had but in the end everyone got fed.

Once our duck feeding was complete we wandered back the long way along the harbour trail to return to where we had parked. The sun was beginning to set over lake Huron and we took a moment to take one last glimpse out at the water.

As fun as it may be to shop for faucets at Home Depot, sometimes you just need to grab the little one by the hand, or let them grab you by the hand, and see where adventure takes you.

Thanks for reading.

Sats for all, GR