I was walking into the kitchen behind Seth.  He was shuffling his feet.  He turned to me and said, “mommy, you have wheels, I have caterpillar treads, see…” as he did a little moon walk on the linoleum.

This morning we hit Sandborn park for a dark, gurguling, dappled preschool field trip.  Here in the cool damp of the redwood grove surrounded by moss boulders, shrouded by canopy we arrive bounding, and splashing in our brightly colored puddle boots.  It’s incongrous, like when the tourbus of americans arrives at the remote Tuscan monistary.  Every  time we come here I die a little.  In the buddhist sort of way.  Yet the kids seem to witness it and carry on.  Perhaps they process the experience faster, or differently?  Or they are to young to pick up on meditative spaces – I doubt this.

Well regardless of my adult sensitivities we found life anyway.  Two salamanders, one banana slug, a millipeed and many catepillars.  All of which suffered poking, picking upping and general mistreatment.  At one point Seth stepped on a salamander.  Fortunately Jim pulled him away in time, and the salamander remained unscathed.  However, this forged a bond between Seth and the creature.  When the salamander headed for the safety of the stream Seth put his hands to his cheeks and said, “Oh no, he is going to hit his head on that rock”.  ~ So sweet of you to look out for your new friend.

By the end of the morning we found a much brighter more appropriate pond.  Especially for Zoe who’s matching pink hair tie, shirt and boots just didn’t suit the sobriety of the occasion.  A big sunny splashing bender insued and  Seth got to feeling really at home.  So he took off his clothes and walked naked the last 1/8 of a mile to car.

We spent the afternoon at Nicole’s birthday party.  Well not at it.  We did everything at Oak Meadow except hang around with the Hansens (not because we don’t love them, Oak Meadow is just too darn distracting).  On the train I was graced with an extremely well articulated and long winded lecture about how we were coupled to the car infront of us, and the many ways in which we could possibly come uncoupled.  ~ You know Sethkins you are a great public speaker, especially about topics that you feel really passionate about!  Thanks for showing me a great time at Oak Meadow.  Love + Mommy

Any good gardener would say that a garden gone to seed is a bad thing. But around here we can’t help ourselves. Who could toss these into the compost pile.

Seth could not resist spraying mommy with this realistic flower that he uprooted from the compost pile.  I think the bees were rubbing off on everyone because my goodness I’ve never witnessed such zooming in my life!

Yummy.  Linda once told me that Verbascum makes everything look better in the garden.  She was definitely right!  Look at that negative space.  Makes you want to break out those pastels and mosh on some Canson.

So, this was the funny looking bug I was talking about the other day. I think it’s some sort of weevil, but in anycase it was busted punching holes in the rosehip.

Welcome to Bellespring.  Home of flowering kale, finnicky dogs, and other assorted comments.