Winter can get a person — or a family — down, due to short days and very chilly mornings and evenings. While glaring impatiently at the aging temperature gauge outside the house one morning last week, waiting for it to budge out of the 30s, I sipped my hot coffee and thought about the healing and warming nature of adventure.
It was just such a day years ago when I was doing pretty much the same thing (I swear, I think there has always been something wrong with that temperature gauge) and listening to my kids bicker in the back rooms. I glanced out the back sliding door at the dog, who was kinda shivering and just staring at me like I was supposed to do something about all of this. As usual, the dog was right. I’m pretty sure that dog believed he could out-think me and that if he was in the house and I was out in the backyard, we’d have a much better-managed family situation. I never wanted to argue that point because as usual, he’d probably be right.
I figured I’d better take his silent but glaring advice this day and do something.
The wife was kind enough to feed us all and then we got the outdoor clothes on. By 10:30 a.m., the weather was turning comfortable — for a sunny January day — so I led the entourage down the driveway and toward the neighborhood creek bed (San Jose Creek). It was me, three kids and the dog, who was willing to let me think I was leading but was careful to bring up the rear where he could watch everyone and make sure we were alright. I could almost hear that dog thinking back there. What’s worse, I pretty much knew what he was thinking, and of course, he was right. Oh, the wife? She stayed at home to enjoy a rare moment of peace. She’s wise like that.
I had a BB gun in my hand, probably because I grew up with either a BB gun or a fishing rod (sometimes both) in my hands. No reason to change now. I taught my kids to respect hunting weapons, whether it was a gun or a fishing rod.
On that day, we got in some good target practice down in the creek bed. The kids are all very good shooters. One little critter got right in front of the target and my kids were tempted, but I told them to never kill anything they didn’t need to eat. Bluebelly lizards aren’t very tasty anyway, so they readily accepted the lesson and shooed the critter out of harm’s way. The dog smugly agreed. I could sense it. He knew a nutritionally deficit situation when he saw one.
We spent the day hiking around and exploring. At one pool in the small stream we watched fingerling fish try to find food and yet remain safely camouflaged. They looked like steelhead. San Jose Creek has always been a steelhead creek, when flows allow, and now that the lower end of it has been rebuilt to allow resting spots for returning steelhead, I sincerely hope the creek will soon return to a highly-productive spawning habitat. We just need more rain to open the Goleta Slough to the ocean and then continued rain to maintain the flows necessary for steelhead to make the uphill swim, spawn and then return to the sea if they wish.
Even the dog enjoyed watching the pretty little fish scatter and dart for shade when he jumped up and down at the side of the pool.
By midafternoon when the temperature began to drop, we brushed ourselves off as best we could and marched (in the same order) back to the house. From that day forward, I felt that the dog’s faith in me was at least partially restored.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
