Thursday, October 16, 2014

A Walk in our Woods

Our woods may technically be only three-ish acres, but they're deep and full of mystery and fabulous discoveries--
peeping into a sinkhole/former well site

--and they connect seamlessly with woods on both sides so that what's actually available for us to explore seems quite vast.

Of course, the woods are also scrubby and full of greenbriers, so whenever I hike there, I bring my favorite toy with me:

I hike our woods fairly often, as does Will, and Syd is in and out of our woods and beyond several times a day, but poor Matt suffers terribly from allergies and contact dermatitis, and so a recent chilly day, after much of the summer foliage had withered and he could comfortably cover up from head to toe, was the first time he felt comfortable exploring with us, poor guy.

But now he knows why we like it so much!


 


The kids were thrilled to show him the sink hole, and the creek, and the spot where the natural spring emerges, and the "ravine," and the tree growing out of an old tub, and the old garbage dump site (we collect old glass soda bottles and brown glass bottles there), and the random section of barbed wire fence (gotta stay on your toes in our woods!), and the "meadow" where the woods finally emerges:
In the early summer, this was filled with grass as high as the kids' heads, but a bunch of construction equipment later in the summer tamped it down while they worked on those power lines.
It's the perfect little woods--big but not too big (you'd have to work hard not to eventually run into that meadow!), full of lots of excitement and a reasonable amount of danger. Every once in a while, I realize all over again that it's ours, and I find myself with this goofy, sort of astonished smile on my face.

And yes, I'm smiling that smile right now.

3 comments:

  1. I get that same goofy smile on my face for you whenever you post pictures of the kids out exploring your piece of the world :0)

    Question about power tools and the girls. Do you have anything smaller specifically for them, or do they muscle through with the regular sized ones. I'm trying to decide if I want to get at least a smaller powered drill/screwdriver for Emma as our battery powered one is heavy and cumbersome sometimes for me, never mind for her.

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  2. Your photographs are so beautiful! I'd never think of using b&w in autumn ... but it really brings out the textures of the leaves. We love walking in the woods near us, too. I like seeing what other people's woods look like!

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  3. Thanks! I like to play with black and white when I think that the light looks especially interesting.

    Mine do muscle through with the regular-sized power tools. That power drill IS heavy, although that seems to be the only one that they struggle with. I won't let them use any of the power saws yet, however.

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