That first snow caught us off guard when it came a few days earlier than expected. The children dressed themselves in whatever combination of hats and mitts they grabbed first and ran out the back door. It was a snow visit, lasting just long enough to make one pocket sized snowman.
"When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I'll know I am growing old."
– Lady Bird Johnson
At least for a little while. The girls brought in the last basket before the freeze. It isn't an orchard, just one sturdy tree of very small and rather sweet little apples perched at the edge of the yard just before it drops off down the hillside. The moose and deer sampled. The girls gathered what it shared, carefully washing each and piling them into the basket on the counter.
Lord this humble house we'd keep
Sweet with play and calm with sleep,
Help us so that we may give
Beauty to the lives we live.
Let Thy love and let Thy grace
Shine upon our dwelling place.
– Edgar Guest
There's battles to build and cities to burn
carpets to muddy and waking to earn
Someone's to something and
something's to learn.
Venturing out from home. Ride with us?
It started out as a small kindly errand. Little Red set off into the forest….
A pleasant task for a pleasant day…
At her cottage waited dear, sweet Grandmother, feeling a little under the weather.
Unbeknownst to both Grandmother and Little Red, a conniving wolf was shadowing their every move, plotting against them.
When Grandmother answered the door, expecting her young visitor, she was in for quite a shock…
Gasp!
A skirmish ensued…
…alerting a woodsman passing through the forest some distance away…
Little Red, however, was none the wiser as she approached the door.
… though Grandmama did appear very poorly.
Until it became clear that it was NOT grandmother at all!
Little Red ran for her life, pursued by the wolf. Fortunately, the woodsman arrived just in the nick of time and saved the day.
He was quite pleased with himself….
The cast and crew:
Happily ever after. As for the wolf?
Rumor has it he made a pass at the producer after the final performance…
…or (Little) Girls' Night Out. We like to take a couple kids at a time out for special fun events that might be more relevant to just them – a particular movie or concert or whatever. When their daddy was out of town Alannah and I took the little girls to the fall festival at the nature center. Brendan was on the fence and decided against going in the end.
The nature center is one place that always feels like home to me. In all our freakishly mobile married life we have never lived in the same place a second time.
Ever.
Never, ever.
I can't really stress enough how different it is to be back in a place you once lived very long ago. Many things have changed. The nature center has not. We came every month when the older boys took classes here. It is something of a comfort to me to be here again. A rare concrete link to that other life.
On this night there was cotton candy and game playing and wildlife shows until well after dark. Very exciting when you are 8. Or 48. : )
“I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more… though I know that IS the noblest ambition… but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me… to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born.”
LM Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams
I am not convinced Anne did not in fact choose the noblest ambition. What could be more noble in the end than strewing little joys along the paths of others?
Sharing a happy thought of mine: Autumn in England, in all her damp and earthy glory.
The little girls daily schedule is very gentle and undercommitted. (thank goodness!) Instead of a fixed list of activities we try to do a 'fun day' on a regular basis. This week we took them to the State Fair. It has been years since our last visit and they have no recall at all.
This was a perfect iconic fair day. Animals, exhibits, rides, and fair food. Fabulous break for all of us.
Thats my guy. Nope, you volunteered. You're stuck now. ; )
We are back to school officially and I am LOVING it. Now if I just had about 4 or 5 more hours in every day or if sleep were more optional than it is for me life would be pretty ideal. As it is, I make notes and compose posts that never see the screen because yeah…. sleep. Food. Sports.
Since I am this far behind I figured I could just roll all those unpublished summer posts into the ubiquitous back-to-school essay theme this week. The Badlands trip was incredible. Temperature and timing came together to make for a perfect visit that started out nicely enough and got better by the hour.
I was going to share geography books and I will. However you will humor me, please, because I just finished another book that will be right up near the top of my list of books-I-pray-my-daughters-and-close-friends-read.
I just finished.
Sigh.
I had to save those last 20pages for alone time because it was pretty certain to be a big emotional event. It was. I locked myself in the guest bath until composed enough to reenter society. Whew.
The book? Oh yes. That would help. It was Mrs. Mike, a semi-biographical novel about a young Irish-American woman who leaves Boston for a Canadian outpost around 1900. It's a thrifted paperback copy we've had forever and it didn't give me so much as a hint as to how compelling it would end up being all those years it sat on my shelves. It read like a quick romance, initially, which meant you arrived at the gut-socking parts completely unprepared for the thinking and mourning and thinking some more that you would do.
To me, there are significant similarities to Strangers and Sojourners by Michael O'Brien. If you've read one and not the other I am telling you now you should. Pain, strength, and beauty are all illustrated in such a way that it makes you feel braver, more grateful, and less concerned with petty things. You realize, "When little things perspectiare so important, it's because there aren't any big ones."
Sometimes a novel can make you think more deeply about faith and family than a theology volume can. This was one of those for me. I pray the perspective embeds deeply in my heart.
While in my head I am still vicariously wandering through northern forests and gliding around crystal lakes tonight I'm pulling out pictures of one of the most idyllic places we passed through this summer. Part of Black Hills National Park. Breathtaking.
Starry Sky Journal 