“That’s not uuuuuuusssssss,” he said dragging out the last word as he pushed his big wheel into motion and moved down the road towards the next sign. It was part of the game we had spontaneously invented during our first morning road walk. We would stop at the green and white firemarker signs and read the numbers, looking for our own place. “Two, Eight, Four, Zero,” Sam would say. “That’s not uuuuuussssss.” And off he’d go. At every driveway along the 2-mile out-and-back walk. Every morning after breakfast we would head out with Eva in the stroller, and Sam and I would race to the next mailbox or slow to pick the wild thimbleberries. We looked at butterflies and mushrooms growing from trees. We counted the number of trunks on the river birch trees. We explored rotting, fallen trees for evidence of woodpeckers and squirmy bugs. We pulled at the long vines of ivies growing along the gravel. We tickled each other with the fuzzy seed pods from wild grasses. We squatted to look at wild orchids and purple spiderwort and dandelion fuzz that just wouldn’t shake itself loose. And all the while distant woodpeckers tapped for ants and the surf of Lake Michigan pounded just over the trees. These walks were perhaps my favorite part of every day, and I’m so glad Sammy shares my love of nature big and small.
"I love this forest, Mommy!"
Picking wild thimbleberries
Checking the colors on a dead butterfly
What boy doesn't love sticks?
Tiny orange orchid-shaped wildflowers
And oh yah, Eva was there too
Door County 2011 Memory #1 - The Beach
Photos from previous Door County Weeks (2004-2010)
1 comment:
Thank GOD you found someone who loves every intricate detail of the wilderness as you! I just don't think to stop and look at all of that ith girls. But, I can tell you, girls also love sticks and apparently frogs!!!
Post a Comment