Listening to the Wind

Yesterday I was in a yucky mood. First day of cycle and all that. The kids were getting wild, and I sent them outside. J asked if he could take R to the forest pathway at the end of the street. I knew the younger kids would want to go along too (and he's not quite ready to watch all of them). So I went with them.

And boy, did I need it. Way more than they did. {{Deep Breath}}
We walked slowly as the path disappeared. We looked at flowers and bugs. As we got further in, I told the boys (the littles - the biggers had long ago abandoned us) to be quiet and listen.

It took a few tries, but we finally did it. The wind started behind us up the hill, whooshed past where we were sitting, then continued to roll down the hill. We could see the leaves quaking and branches swaying.

After awhile we could hear birds and bugs, and possibly lizards crawling through the undergrowth. We watched ants and spiders and butterflies and beetles.

We collected sticks and looked at their shapes and examined fallen bark and pine needles. A decided we needed to build a nest for the birds, so we put the sticks down in a circle, and put a pine cone inside. On the way back we touched flower petals, leaves and grasses.

I needed that.