This whole being responsible thing takes a lot of time, let me tell ya. <g>  We had a whirlwind first week of Allen home last week.  We are working hard to tighten up routines and schedules which got a little loose over the last two months.  It is a necessity if we hope to get in all the hiking and camping we have planned and still stay on top of school and chores and home repairs.  

Charlotte Mason would have smiled to have seen our kids sloshing around the creek at the caravan complete with galoshes and nets and then later braving the windy shore of Lake Erie.  Though no one uttered "nature study" to them they were certainly doing just that.  They thrilled to find sea glass and shells and even an animal tooth during these treks.  It always makes me happy to see them so enthralled with their world but even more to be able to explore a new place with people who know it well.  

Rebecca's Annie:

creekside:

Kieran:

I have never seen a tree man til I looked out Rebecca's kitchen window.  I am told they are not all that uncommon but it was another 'wonder'-full thing to me. I think I must have one.  Maybe one on every tree lol!  No doubt the caravan children were puzzled over the crazy lady taking pictures of their trees but I had to get a picture of him:

Aidan

tomorrow – the shore…..

It has been many years since I visited the Midwest in the springtime.  This year, as always, there were blooms spilling over the walkways and weighing down tree boughs everyplace we stopped.  The grass was insanely green. You forget how green green can be.  You also forget that children raised in totally different region have completely different ideas of what spring looks like.  

I read an essay in a magazine the other day where the author was sharing the story of going back to her childhood town with her children.  She was met by riotous flowering shrubs and heavily perfumed air. She was overcome with memories prompted by the surroundings, memories which her children did not share having lived in a very different place all their lives. They did not share the same nature cues, she said. 

I have thought about that a great deal.  For all my growing up years spring came drizzling in with cool, damp days and muddy footprints at the door.   The lawn was spongey, filled to capacity and then some with the snow turned rain.  The sky was often gray but the ground was green – and red and purple and yellow, for there were the bulbs tucked into every corner.  I knew the names of them all – the crocus which came first, the hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils.  Finally the irises which marked the end of spring and beginning of summer in my mind.  

For my children spring bursts onto the scene unexpectedly. One day there is blowing snow and the next the sun beats down and coats are shed.  It all happens with little warning.   The grass turns from deep gold to a pale green seemingly overnight.  They sky is blue. The last of the tumbleweeds blow from the fencelines.  In the fields that line the roadsides, calves appear by their mother's sides.  The pronghorn are on the move.  The meadow larks take up their nests again in the few large trees out front. They chatter and swoop low when we walk underneath to the mailbox. The ground squirrels dart across the road, tempting fate. This is springtime in the West, which they know so well.  These are the rhythms buried deep into their psyche's and what will come back to them in sudden snatches when they are grown. 

So the sometimes soggy, always exuberant, Midwest springtime meant something different to them than it did to us no doubt. They thought it was beautiful, if a little foreign.  It did not trigger any long forgotten memories for them however. Lovely as it was, it was not home for them.  I enjoyed sharing it with them but it was wonderful coming home again and seeing them slip eagerly into their routine once more. Be it ever so humble… : ) 

Tess, once again proving that the ninth child does not in fact get photographed less than first child lol!

So Drew Carey was right.  Cleveland rocks!  Last week saw four of the most restful, laughter-filled days I have enjoyed in a loooong time.  You can forget about pictures of Cleveland hot spots (though there are pics to come) because Rebecca and I spent the better part of the week in our jammies with mugs in hand while kids played game after game – ball games, board games, animal games, Star Wars……

There was a column in a periodical I subscribed to years ago (no longer in print) that was called What is in Your Hand?  Instead of planning for future projects which necessitated more purchases it gave innovative ideas for what might already lay beneath your nose. It helped me to look around before looking at the store.  It also helped me to see the abundance that was already mine.