Better Than the Plan

The plan:

• eat breakfast
• do a major, group-effort clean up in the basement/boys’ bedroom
• wash and hang laundry
• eat lunch
• attack some other very messy places in the house

What really happened:

• ate breakfast
• walked to maple forest
• had drink and snack
• came home so Mommy could pee, get her camera, and pack a lunch
• washed laundry
• returned to maple forest
• ate picnic lunch
• worked on stick shelter that somebody else built
• pretended we didn’t live in a city
• snipped away at rag quilt
• hung laundry

It was nice today to not hear the constant reverse-warning beep of the heavy equipment that has been bulldozing near our house all week.  The morning air was cool, the sun was shining, and after I convinced the boys to get past the pig-farm odor filling the air, we took a nice walk back on the trails after a long time of not doing so.  The bugs were too bad over the summer.  Noah was on my back in a sling and the others all made it through some dense tangles of plants with high spirits.

It was just too beautiful being back there that we had to spend more of the day there.  We returned across the newly bulldozed field, which was a lot faster, easier, and less scenic.  But we determined that we’d be able to push the jogger across it to go back, loaded with supplies.

Here is the stick fort that we spent most of our time at.  The boys worked hard at adding to the walls and beginning construction on a new “room”. 

(Don’t worry, he knows not to eat them!)

After lunch Noah and I had a tiny rest on the picnic blanket.  It was tiny indeed, since Noah quickly decided he was a kitten and I think he was rabid.

Instead we worked on snipping away at the rag quilt that I am trying to get finished so I can start on some other projects. 

Jaska had a good day, too.  

The weather under the beeches and maples was perfect – shady and cool.  The trek home across the sun-baked, bulldozed field was a little depressing.  My little fantasy life – living in the forest, watching my wood dwelling sons be inspired by nature – was over.  Back to the suburbs.  Oh well.  Now that we know the bugs are gone (mostly) we can get out there more often.  I wish my own energy levels were higher these days, but the whole thing really tired me out.  But it was so worth it seeing my boys – something is revived in them when they get in “the bush”.  Something is revived in me.  Even in a little clump of maples hedged in my encroaching suburban development on one side, a golf course on the other.  How much more when we really get back in the bush?!