It was the perfect summer day full of small marvels.  Caleb went off with a fishing pole and his little sister followed him.  I was in the house with an illness….diagnosed as the “urge to clean”.  Eventually I worked it out and flew outdoors to try to clear the smell of bleach from my respiratory system.  Jacob and Ethan were cleaning the chicken coop.  I could hear Jacob happily whistling as he worked.  Caleb and Sarah were coming out of the woods and I walked to meet them.  They were on their way to see me with a present.

They had discovered a big, handsome wild mushroom.  They found it while they were looking for fishing bait.  I thought they were the sweetest children to think of me.  I went to get my camera so I could take a picture of it.   It was about 6 inches tall and weighed about 1.5 pounds.  We rarely see mushrooms this healthy.  The underneath was full of tunnels and I saw a glimpse of a very scared bug wondering how it’s large meal/home had been disturbed.

While I was studying the mushroom under a pine tree, Seth brought over a toad.

Then they began to fish.

But they didn’t catch anything.  Caleb said he thought it was because the fish were not hungry.

Many hours later the children were outside making a fort in the woods.  I went to go check on them and do a little spying.  First I admired my newly cleaned coop and checked on my chicks, all of which are growing up nicely.  They still make their peeping sounds and are about half grown.  We let them spend the day outside in their fence now and then.  It takes some work on our part because they don’t voluntarily go back into the coop at dusk and we have to catch them and/or retrieve them from trees.

I found Sarah and Seth talking in the stream.  Seth had gotten a sliver in his foot and was soaking it in the water.

We went over to see how the fort was coming along.  The children were busy chopping and gathering suitable sticks.  They worked on it until supper time.  I left them to it and went up to the field by myself.

It is a wonderful place to see so many ordinary but (if you take a closer look) fascinating wild flowers and grasses, insects, butterflies, and birds.  This flower had heart shaped petals.  There was a bee on it with legs as golden as the flower, covered in pollen.

This colorful insect that bore an uncanny resemblance to SpiderMan was on a milkweed plant.  As I bent to look closer, it scurried underneath the leaf of the milkweed to hide from me.  We played “chase” like this until I finally just slowly bent the plant over to take a picture.  It was fun.  Outsmarting an insect is so satisfying.  🙂

The white spot on this moth (?) is actually shiny silver.  Look at it’s eyes and antennae.  (if you click on the photo you can see it bigger).

There were the most gorgeous orange butterflies.  But they were hyper-active.  They never landed.  How on earth do butterflies manage to not rip their wings as they fly around?  I decided to ignore them but all throughout my walk one would catch my eye and I would grieve that I couldn’t possibly get a good picture.  This one was the best I could do.  Do you see it?  I showed the picture to Grace and we laughed and laughed.  Caleb said it looked like a flying slug.  (He was traumatized by a slug when he used one for bait that morning.  He could not get the slug slime off his hands and it bothered him for hours..another nature marvel).

I almost saw a snake, too.  As I walked over to the stream, something dropped down to the ground to slither away…I didn’t see it…but the grass was slithering as it traveled away.  I’m sure it was a large snake.  For the rest of the walk there were imaginary snakes everywhere I went.  There is always an element of creepiness when one walks in fields of tall thick grasses and flowers.

In my mind, I looked like this in the field:

Reality was quite different, but this is the cover of the book I am currently reading.  It is rocking my world.  I grew up reading the Little House books, in fact they were the first books I read myself as an 8 year old girl.  They are as known to me as my mother’s home cooked meals.

I found out yesterday that Pa GAVE JACK AWAY to the man who bought Pet and Patty!  He didn’t stay with Laura until he died like in the books!!!!!!!!!  They had another dog named Wolfie!!!!!!!!!!!!!   To find out more you’ll have to check the book out yourself.  Needless to say, I’m loving it while being mildly disturbed, and learning a lot about editing and writing one’s story as a piece of fiction based on truth.