Rainy Day Adventures

One day in February when we lived in Tennessee, the children and I were tired of being cooped up in our small mobile home. We had been inside for too long, while the torrential rains and tornadic winds blew through, so we felt like it was a good day for an adventure outdoors.

On this particular morning, I kept Josh home from school, since he was tired of sitting in the hall in tornado position all day. The rains had come and gone, and we decided to take a walk through their Grandma and Grandpa's 100 acre woods.

We lived high on a hill, and down below was an interesting fairy world filled with bugs so innumerable there was no way for us to name them all, hollowed out trees that look like bears, and funny little birds that aren't afraid of anything, but I get ahead of myself.

That morning we decided to go down into "the hollow" to simply see what we could see.

The children and I walked down a somewhat slippery slope, as the dirt road had turned into mud over the course of the past few days. We were chattering as we went, about this and that, probably sounding to the animals how squirrels sound to us. As we rounded a corner, there was a fluffy little something-or-other sitting on a log. When we neared, I saw it was a bluebird. It had fluffed itself to double its normal size and was asleep with its head under its wing. I hushed the children, so that the poor, sleepy thing wouldn't wake up. My hope is if we were a cat, or some other animal dangerous to it, it would have woken up. I still worry about its fate!

On down the hill we went. On the rocks, cascading down from above, we saw a waterfall. There had been so much rain over the past few days that the land had soaked up as much water as it could, and simply couldn't soak up any more water, so the rain water just came tumbling over the rocks. The sight and sound of it was as soothing as a lullaby.

We ambled our way along until we saw something dark and shadowy in front of us. We slowed our pace a bit as we approached it. What we saw was a tall tree that had the top of it broken off somehow and was hollow in the middle. It was big enough for the children to go in and stand up. Josh tried it out first and said that there was some kind of a bed on the floor of it, so we stopped entering some animals house without permission and walked on.

As we walked we heard a noise behind us, like an animal chasing us. We startled and turned to see our dog Graham running by chasing a rabbit. Hurry, bunny, run!

Up the hill we climbed, through the brush and trees, trying to avoid the spiderwebs that had been built between them. The kids' daddy wasn't so lucky as to avoid the spiderwebs when he went running in the mornings, and he was always brought back exotic spiders in his hair: red ones, yellow ones, greens and blues. He had taken to wearing a hat as of late, just to avoid direct contact with them.

When we'd climbed to the top of the hill, we got back on the dirt road. The children found all sorts of rocks with all different shapes, sizes and colors to pick up and take home as a souvenir of the day.

Then we went home. We were wet and cold on the outside, but warm and cozy on the inside. There isn't anything quite like spending a day having adventures in the woods!

** Steve read this and sent me his own thoughts on this time of life:

I remember those jogs.

Our trailer was just below an old dirt road that had fallen into disuse, but it cleared a path through the forest where the trees and underbrush weren't too thick.

On the downhill side of the road was an old slave wall - just stacked rocks from the hillsides. It was only 3 or 4 feet high, and was knocked over or missing in most places. I would see small animals scurry and hide in between the rocks as I approached.

It was so green! the ground was covered in a leafy green groundcover, ferns, and last year's leaves, the trees had thick green leafy canopies up high that filtered the sunlight through, Vines, both leafy green, and gnarled brown hung from them. Spiders had built their webs across the openings in the forest, including across the old road and it was impossible not to run into them.

I remember on one run, it was morning and chilly enough for slight mists to bring the forest in even closer around. My breaths and footfalls were more muffled than normal, yet with a echoing spacious quality that sounded like I was in a cathedral. birds where calling, and the normal hum of insects was quieted.

I would occasionally feel spiderwebs across my face and arms as I ran through them. And when I got home and took off my hat, there were 3 or 4 spiders in brilliant jewel colors hanging from the brim! Also spiders on my clothes. I brushed them off, and sat outside for a while just enjoying the birdcalls and fresh green air until the sun had risen high enough to burn of the mist and it started to get hot and muggy.

I am glad we had a chance to live there for a while. I am glad it was with you.
-Steve