#49. Drumlin Woods Aflame<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m ready to go,\u201d Liam announced.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have warm clothes and a coat?\u201d His mother asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheck,\u201d Liam said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have your hat and hiking boots?\u201d Sarah asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheck,\u201d Liam said again, resisting the urge to add: If it\u2019s any of your business.<\/p>\n
Liam woke up in the car as they crested the last ridge to Grandma\u2019s farm and looked out the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe woods is on fire!\u201d Liam exclaimed, instantly awake and alarmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook again,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cThe sun woke up before you did and has lit all the tree tops.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does look like the woods are on fire,\u201d Mom said. \u201cThe Maple and Beech tree<\/p>\n
leaves are just at their peak color now and that sun sure does light them up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that poem Granddad used to say? \u2026Something, something\u2026before the foliage flies, there\u2019s brightness in the trees and fire in the leaves.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, look. There\u2019s Grandma putting up our American flag.\u201d<\/p>\n
The farm kitchen smelled of fresh, baked bread and fall foliage as the sun light and family streamed in.<\/p>\n
After a big breakfast and the dishes were washed, Grandma said, \u201cLet\u2019s put some trail mix in our backpacks and go for a hike. I have a special place to show you.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were no objections from Sarah or Liam. For once they agreed on something, but then again, things were always different at Grandma\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The fall sunlight warmed the tops of their heads as wispy, white clouds scampered in the cobalt sky. It was a day for whistling, so they did.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Liam raced off into the meadow and shouted, \u201cSarah, look what has happened to the milkweeds,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, Grandma,\u201d Sarah said, \u201cmost of the milkweed pods have burst and fluffy seeds are blowing everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s carefully pick off the pods that have already spread their seeds, but the halves are still attached,\u201d Grandma suggested. \u201cAfter they\u2019re thoroughly dried, we can use them as the wings on our corn-husk angels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandma,\u201d Liam marveled as he pulled up a tall plant, root and all, \u201cwhat little bird could ever be small enough to use this nest?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is actually a Queen Anne\u2019s Lace, Liam,\u201d Grandma said. Do you see the tiny bird in the bottom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d Liam said. \u201cCool.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt smells like there are carrots around here,\u201d Sarah stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, another name for the Queen Anne\u2019s Lace is Wild Carrot.\u201d Grandma explained.<\/p>\n
While they munched their trail mix, they looked around for more matches to the Yew-Go-Wild cards. They saw hundreds of butterflies had congregated on the Goldenrod and Asters in preparation for their migration to Mexico. Liam tried to catch one of every color leaf as they fell from the Maple trees and match his palm to find a perfect fit. They even argued over which of the Beech trees was the tallest and had the smoothest bark.<\/p>\n
Later that evening as they toasted marshmallows over a camp fire near the pond, Grandma said, Isn\u2019t this great? I love having you all come to the farm. Every season is special here, even in the dead of winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy? There\u2019s nothing to do here in the winter,\u201d Liam said. \u201cAt home, we go swimming at the YMCA all winter long.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur pond freezes over and we go ice skating,\u201d Grandma said. \u201cAnd when the snow blankets the bog and lines the bare tree branches and dried weed stalks, we strap on our snow shoes and follow the animal tracks in the snow. It is so quiet here that the only sounds we hear are made from our skates scraping on the ice or snowshoes shushing along the snow drifts.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur breath comes out in puffs and seems to turn to ice crystals in an instant. Occasionally, a tree will make such a loud crack as it splits with the deep-freezing temperatures, that we fear hunters are in the woods. If we keep the birdfeeder full, all kinds of winter birds come to visit, even when the roads are too icy for cars to get through. We spend long hours poring over the seed catalogues, repairing the tractor, and snuggling under the warm quilts I made when your mother was a little girl. When we hear the brook that feeds the pond, gurgle beneath the ice. Then, we know spring can\u2019t be far behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarah chose a quilt for her souvenir and Liam chose a pair of snowshoes.<\/p>\n
As the car pulled out of the lane for the long ride home, Liam could turn just enough in his seatbelt to wave to Grandma Grace and Granddad out of the back window. Then, he closed his eyes to dream of being a mighty tracker of the elusive Snow Shoe Rabbit. It never entered his dream that it would be the last he\u2019d see his grandparents.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey! You Got Eyeballs In There? By Kate Chamberlin As Grace grows up, some of her stories are happy, some trying, some enlightening, and a few themes are sad, but, they\u2019re all the warp and woof of what goes into the tapestry of life we call Family. The daily living skills and techniques demonstrated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1165,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions\/1165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/katechamberlin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}