Our Daily Walk

We love our daily walk, so many interesting things to see and learn. We live on 10 acres of gorgeous land with a creek, four beaver dams, plenty of animals and animal tracks, lots of different trees and rocks, and old 4 wheeler trails cut nice and wide which makes for the perfect "adventure". My children start asking around 9:00am " when are we goin on our 'venture' mama?", sometime before lunch I usually give in and off we go! Molly always carries a basket or backpack for all of our little treasures, which are so lovely this time of year. Molly's favorites are the pretty leaves and Tim is always amazed by the rocks- of course! Then there is the never ending search, by all of us, to find the biggest and smallest pine cone in the woods.

Most days we stop and sit in the middle of the trail to tell stories, and look at what we have collected so far. They love to hear stories about when mama was a little girl, and sometimes they have stories of their own. Molly loves to tell about a little mama rabbit that lives in the forest with her babies ( We have the entire collection of Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit. Can you tell?). Timothy tells of a sweet bear and lion that live in the woods and take care of you if you get lost. Maddie just sits there wide eyed listening to every word.

Sometimes Timothy will carry a big rock the entire way so he can fling it in the creek at the end of the trail. Timothy is especially amazed by these huge slate rocks sticking up out of the ground, he always pounds it with another rock and puts all the little pieces in his pocket, so that mama can wash and dry them! I have been doing some serious thinking about a rock tumbling kit for Christmas, but why buy the kit when that's what we have been using the dryer for! There is a part of the trail, on the way to the big beaver dam, where we have to walk over a stream (now dried up) on a little make shift bridge. The bridge feels a little rickety and you have to walk in the middle or you will be dumped over into the water. My boy! He loves the danger! Madeline has been so proud lately, as she has finally mastered walking across the bridge by herself! This is our big beaver dam, and our favorite! We really miss the beavers. For the last few months of this terrible drought our dam has ran dry and all the beavers have left. In the Spring, when we would walk up to the dam we would hear them plop into the water and see them swim off. I hope they are able to return soon. We like to look for these short, pointed, stumps all over, they are so interesting! I am so impressed at how such a small animal can chew a tree down!

All this behind the dam was water in the spring. We miss the water but we have found some very interesting things in the creek bed like fish skeletons, drift wood, and pretty creek rocks. And look at all these animal tracks! We have found dog, raccoon, deer, and fox tracks! Oh, and Timothy will swear to you he has seen bear and lion tracks. Crazy kid! And just so we know we are still in Alabama, we find- and keep- the occasional shot gun shell. Now you just gotta love that! Maybe Uncle bubba has been out here a huntin! You know I had to bring Uncle bubba into this somehow! Oh, and did I mention that most of the way I am pulled along by the tiniest person there, saying "mone mama mone". My very talented little Madeline, pulls me along with one hand while sucking the thumb on her other hand. My sweet girl!

When we are back home we have a basket full of our beautiful findings to keep us busy till our next "venture". Do you have any good kids craft ideas we could do using these things? Stay tuned for Lily and Iris due date celebration, and a funny Tim story!