Sunny Weekend, Part 1

Today is cool, grey, and wet. Yesterday was, too.

But last week! Oh! Last week, we had four warm, golden, sunny days in a row!! We loved it! We needed it! Everyone felt good, and we all got outdoors and savored the good weather. Our Town had some cool community events happening that weekend, and the timing was perfect to go and enjoy the activities outdoors.

Friday night I drummed downtown with a group, and people gathered on the sidewalks to listen and dance. I love when that happens, when we see people's joy because of our drums. I drummed for three hours, and my hands were slightly swollen and bruised when we were done. I loved it! Drumming is healing. It enriches me. I am thankful to God for giving me the joy of drumming with friends. And I am deeply thankful to those friends for teaching me to drum, and for letting me drum with them at events like this. Drumming deepens who I am; it gives me something I can't put into words. I only know I am somehow a better, stronger, happier person when I have drumming in my life. It is a gift from God to me, and I love it!

I didn't get pics of the drumming, because of course, I was busy. But Amy did, and you can go see them at her site here.

~~~

That was Friday, and Saturday dawned just as sunny and beautiful. In the morning, Daughter and I went to the park with the walking trails and we walked. I hadn't wanted to. I was ready to just sit. But I am so glad we went! We have been at the point in the season where the leaves are not budding and only the grass is green.

Most thing are still bare and brown.
(I find it hard to see the beauty in this.)

Those four days of warmth made a huge difference, though, and now things are starting to wake up.

I love that veil of green that comes when the bushes begin to leaf out, before any of the trees are showing green. It almost looks from a distance like a greenish mist in the woods.


I am so thankful for the five (more or less) senses that we are given. Seriously, they are they means through which I enjoy life, see the beauty, feel the breezes, experience all the other gifts that surround me. Our senses are a magnificent gift from the One who designed us! Thank you, God!! And those senses were soaking up a lot of beauty at the park!

We saw an intriguing log...

We wondered how the tree could have grown to have such a twist in it the length of the whole trunk.

I found a plant that I don't know yet, just budding along the water's edge. Anyone know what this is? (edit: I just learned that this is a marsh marigold. It's kind of nice to have a son who's a biologist.)

We saw skunk cabbage,


little yellow flowers,

strangely shaped trees,


and the sparkling sun reflecting on the water.



I heard invisible birds (I couldn't see them) singing an endless variety of songs in the tops of stark, leafless trees...


...Water laughing it way over rocks in the stream, and the sharp screech of a grass whistle from my sweet daughter.



I smelled the woods, the stream, and the fields. Each has its own scent, something I don't usually notice.

We felt the warm sun, the gentle breeze, the rough bark, the scratchy branches, and the scrootchy mud. If you've stepped in wet mud that sucked at your feet, you know what scrootchy means.



We found a tiny pink blossom, the delicacy of which made me want to just stop and study it. So beautiful!

(edit: Same biologist son tells me this is called a "spring beauty"... appropriately named.)

We walked through wet mud, green grass, and dry sand, over tree roots and boardwalks, past raspberry bushes, strawberry plants, blueberry bushes, apple trees, dead leaves, and horse poop.




Daughter wanted to catch a little garter snake, and I let her go chasing because I was confident she would not catch it.

She surprised me!!

And there followed a difficult conversation about why we could not take it home. Ouch.

But all in all, what a great morning! She was pretty disappointed about not bringing home the snake, and after lunch I decided to take her downtown for another fun event that was happening.

I'll post about that separately. Keep reading.

:-)


(PS - Thanks to my son who knows about plants and their names. He's a great resource! He's also a great person. I like him quite a bit! (-;)