What The Kids Did

If I have a favorite subject for photography, it's my kids. When Phoebe was a baby, I was shooting film, and I'd go once a week to Wal-Mart with a canister or two of film, and an hour later I'd get a stack of prints that would choke a hog. I miss those prints, so nice to hold in the hand, but I can't imagine having to curate as many photos as I take now, much less use chemicals to develop them and paper to print them.

She was pretty darned adorable.


Our kids' best memories live on a laptop now, and that works fine for us.

How do they amuse themselves when we're in North Dakota, with no television, no computers to speak of; just time and the wind and the grass?

They walk.


(Note Adventuring Sticks.)
There was a long period during Bill's Big Day when we tried to lure some recalcitrant yellow rails out of the thick grass and into our binocular view. It looked like this:

which by any measure is pretty darn boring, a bunch of people staring fixedly into the marsh like addled spaniels. If you don't really care to see a yellow rail, you're going to bug out of a scene like that pretty quickly.

While we searched, Phoebe and Liam went adventuring on a two-track road. One thing was sure: they wouldn't meet any vehicles.



When we're traveling, the kids are a seamless unit, turning to each other for fun and solace.

They laugh and play.

And they appreciate. They adored our evening at Dakota Sun Gardens. While we talked, they experienced the place, and then they ran and grabbed us and showed us every wonderful thing they'd found.

And when they miss Chet Baker, they find another animal to love, be it hugely pregnant barn cat

or supershiny, supersweet, supersized black Lab.

I think what I love most about them is how they take care of each other. They're a blessing and a joy.

And they are Ninjas, as evidenced by this rare action photo.