The Die-Hard Naturalists

A beautiful field of sunflowers... a dismal grey sky... a Starbucks... and three girls sitting on a red-and-white "Caution" fence with nature notebooks.

Today, as the sky was horribly colorless, we went out for a little color and found a field of sunflowers. We sketched them in the rain, Mariel, Cornflower and I having quite a time. (I am not so sure about Mother Auma. She patiently sat on a rock and sketched, not without enthusiasm.)

Then we had to go, as drizzles turned to drops and drops turned to large disfiguring splatters on our notebook pages. We couldn't leave without taking a little beauty with us, and Mother Auma lent her car keys to cut the tough stems of the flowers. We rushed for the car and finished the coloring inside.

And, with it so wet and the Starbucks so near, we went and got some hot chocolate.

Flowers sure are beautiful, especially with all this rain. By Sunday, Hurricane Ike will have worked his way far enough inland to where we are. That will make the flowers even bigger and more lovely, like this one from our yard.

Photos, Photos Everywhere- and memories of a little house

I was looking at a stack of old photos (from when I was about 4 or 5) while Mother Auma sorted another stack into an album (a typical scene from our house this last week). I came across some from our last house. First there were some from a hands-on museum called "The Science Place" and then some from the house.

We had, then, a little wooden house, only about 5-6 ft tall, in the corner of our backyard. Mounted on cinder blocks with a muddy patch behind it, the little cabin was a central figure in our pretends back then. As I looked at the picture several memories ran through my mind. I turned to Mother Auma.

"Do you remember our little Troll doll? And how we buried her purple hair in the mud behind our playhouse so it would turn brown?"

"I remember something of the sort," grinned Mother Auma.

"And how we gave our dollhouse people beautiful smooth brown clothes? That mud was just Play-Doh to us," I laughed, remembering also that I liked to squish around in it barefoot.

Another stack of pictures featured my 5yo birthday party, in which the little house was also a big player. A friend of mine is in one, right before opening the little log door, and another shows 2yo Mariel teetering along the stepping stones to the log cabin. The little house was a home, a hotel, a castle, Laura Ingall's log cabin, and anything our active imaginations could think up. I remember writing things like "Ore Clubhous" and "Ore Hotel" over the door in pink or blue chalk, and taking the little plastic table and chairs in there and sweeping and being called "Mommy" by baby Mariel.

Oh, sweet, careless days of seven years ago.