Skipping Town

We're still here, still surviving--thriving--with only a dorm fridge and a cooler, and though there has been more rain and lightning, our power has stayed on. It's been another few days of quiet and relaxation. We've spent most of our time at the pond, the girls' favorite spot: feeding fish, spotting tadpoles and salamanders, fishing with long sticks for great hunks of algae, tempting frogs with long grass stalks to jump and chomp. Today, as a kind of blessing or omen, we spotted the pond's fabled snapping turtle. We were all on the dock, tossing bits of bread in to entice the fish, when suddenly something larger, much larger, emerged from the deep. It was beautiful and terrifying, and it hovered there at the surface, its long, wrinkled legs treading water, and watched us. Then it swam serenely away, under the algae leaves. It surfaced one more time while we played, and then it was gone. Neither Andrew nor I really believed the turtle was real. We've heard a...

It's my favorite time of year: our extended stay off-the-grid in New Hampshire. We're here for eleven days this time, our longest stint ever, and so far it's been the usual mix of complete bliss and vexing, unpredictable difficulties. We arrived very late Wednesday night, and had a perfectly lovely time for most of Thursday: pulling out the toys from the barn, filling the wading pool, visiting the frogs. But right before the girls' bedtime, a huge storm blew in--deafening thunder, terrifying lightning. At one point, all the lights in the kitchen blazed on, and I saw smoke by one of them; then--nothing. No power. A power outage seems to be a given each time we come up here. Still, we never seem to remember to get batteries for the flashlights or stock up on candles. Andrew found one small working flashlight, and we tried not to be too worried about the fully stocked fridge. We decided to just go to sleep. Around midnight, we were woken up by the fan in our room whirr...