A Walk in the Woods

Hello Bloggers,

I happened across this image the other day and I was reminded of my childhood when I spent a good deal of time playing in the woods. Lunch was a mason jar full of Koolaid and a can of beans or a peanut butter sandwich.

Life back then wasn't fancy, which allowed young minds to dream. I can recall lying on my back in the middle of a hay field watching the cloud creatures drift by. There were black raspberries to pick along the fence and grasshopper spit on the tall grasses.

I can picture sitting beside a stream to watch the waterbugs skate across the surface and the brilliant red cardinal flowers that liked their feet to be wet at the water's edge. I remember that the plants along the water were very different from the ones in the fields.

I remember the pipe where an artesian well flowed into a trough for the cattle and the pink salt block the farmer placed nearby to keep the cows and heifers healthy. There were wild geraniums and colombine along the road there, and further from the water, evidance in stone fossils that the entire area was once underwater. I recall the fields too steep to cut with tractor and bar where wild strawberries carpeted the area, waiting to be picked and made into shortcake and jam for winter lunches.

I can remember walking in the woods for hours will no thought of danger. Somehow my brother, sister and I always had faith we would find our way home, and we did. We never did worry about finding our way home, but we did lose a kitten one time, I can only hope it found a good home, although the possibility exists that the poor thing became a larger animal's dinner and re-entered the world of kitty karma to be reincarnated as a new and braver cat.

I don't know if today's children have such a rich playground. Television drama teaches us that there is danger behind every bush and that untended children can be spirited away by evil souls with mayhem in mind. I would like to believe there are still children in the world who make the world their playground. Wouldn't you?

I guess that is all for the moment. Take a walk on the sunny side today if you can, Terry

Terry L White -Author of the Chesapeake Heritage Series
"Travel Through Time With Terry"
http://www.terrylwhitesblog.blogspot.com