…apples… and Alannah. And a very fine day for a long hike with my oldest daughter. I do so love an overcast autumn afternoon for wandering backroads and tractor paths.
We headed out together after church, taking the road this time, passing the cows watching warily from the pasture.
She was the first to spot the tiny green apples. I followed her rabbit trail, watching her muse.
Conversation comes easily these days with this girl-turned-woman. Sometimes it is serious and pondering. More often on these walks it is just thinking out loud. Noticing. Exhaling.
Exhaling is important for girls-turned- young women looking down the road at a wide open and largely unknowable future just around the corner.
It is important for their mother's too, especially if they have sent other children down that road.
It is good to just BE with this girl because I know that like her brothers, each passing year now and each step she takes will take her further from home into the bigger world.
We won't always have all the time in the world for walking through orchards and gathering apples in our pockets. This is the last year of her childhood officially. Next fall she will be eighteen.
Knowing that, I consider an afternoon like this a singular gift.
Starry Sky Journal 
And what a lovely young girl-turned-woman she is!
Beautiful, Kim — thoughts, photos, daughter 🙂
What is that bird, do you know?
I believe they are Magpies, which is rather cool because they were in CO too and we hadn’t lived anyplace else with so many of them before moving there. There is a video of one here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nUr8JaIu88 We also have many blackbirds, crows, and hawks locally.
Just beautiful, Kim. Your daughter and the scenery. The bird does look like a magpie (or camp robber as they’re known here locally). We live in CO and have them all over. As a matter of fact we have lots of blackbirds, crows and hawks as well. Small world. 🙂
Magpie!!!
There now see. I am getting better at this Macbeth ; D I want a longer zoom lens because I think I could really get into bird watching. But I have to get too close with mine and scare them away.
Just beautiful! +JMJ+
Beautiful daughter, beautiful pictures!
Definitely magpies! They are everywhere down in my husband’s home prefecture, where we stayed after the big earthquake (and are, in fact the prefectural bird). I kind of miss those chatty, mischievous feathered friends.
What a beautiful post, Kim. What a treasure a daughter is, and Alannah is just simply shiny beautiful!
Kim, she looks so very grown up. Such a beautiful girl. xoxo
A beautiful blog post and a beautiful girl!
Loved this. Just loved it. Echoing everyone else — all beautiful.