Life: Idiotropic

It's sad, really, how fast time goes by. Just next to the base is a lovely forest that almost entirely surrounds the base and spreads into nearby villages. It's full of maples and oaks, birches and evergreens, and all sorts of mosses and wildflowers. When I first walked through it I thought that I might go there every week just to take a walk and enjoy the beauty of it. Sadly, after living here almost a year, I've only been there 4 times.

But, on this day, needing to get out and not feeling like a full-day excursion, I took the girls on a nature hunt through the woods. Each was equipped with a bucket or bag with the stipulation that they could only collect what would fit in said bucket or bag. We collected birch bark, pinecones, acorns, leaves, and many flowers and plant leaves to press. The girls saw all sorts of beautiful mushrooms and saw the tunnels that the bugs built inside a decaying log. We talked about birds and dragonflies and spiders. It was wonderful and they got excited looking for natures little treasures.

Arianna picked all those puffy seeded dandelion heads, made her wishes and blew. Luci picked grass and found a very nice stick in the shape of an L. Elise toddled along, happy to be there, but not yet caught up in the spirit of collecting, and Tiara, unenthused at first, ended up having a wonderful time finding pretty little things to get crafty with later.


The highlight came at the very end when Tiara let out a scream worthy of even the scariest horror film and ran 6 feet from where she's been walking before. She pointed to the place where that terrifying beast sat lurking, and there, peacefully sunning himself on the path, was the sweetest honey-colored baby salamander that I've ever seen. The little girls were quiet and still, mesmorized by the little guy. I picked him up and let him walk around on my hand before letting him go.

When we got home the girls got shoeboxes and sorted their treasures between woody things and the fresh things. All the fresh flowers and leaves were pressed in my old medical dictionary and all the pinecones and other woody things were put in their boxes for a craft day to come. Then we went outside and collected some leaves from our yard to do rubbings. I put my little nature collection into a nice old flowerpot that I wasn't using and it looks very nice.

Sometimes the simple things are best.