The little one was restless and bored yesterday morning, even after I dragged her to the grocery store with me. So, we went to the park for a walk. It was the first sunny day in weeks, but still cold, particularly when the sun was hidden by clouds.
We hit several unpaved trails that meander along streams and bridge ponds. Brian was a little uneasy about Aya’s shoes getting filthy – and they did, after we wandered along one of the paths and I suggested it would be a good idea to ford a creek.
It wasn’t that good of an idea, but at least Aya enjoyed the experience.
In response to Brian’s hesitation about traipsing through creeks, I retorted ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ and immediately realized I was turning into my mother – who said the same thing to me and Lil on a backpacking trip when we were 10 or 11. (We had expressed some trepidation about following a deer trail — and we did ultimately get lost in the woods. In retrospect, it was kind of cool, but Lil and I were horribly grouchy about it at the time.)
Brian was right, though. Aya’s Skechers were a complete mess when we got home. I admitted he was right – and spent a half hour scrubbing the mud off my kid’s shoes.
Nearly all of the trees were completely gray and naked. A few of them were still spangled with autumn leaves. However, there were hints of spring. There were buckeye seeds littering the ground, each sporting a ghastly pale shoot, a tendril questing out toward sustenance. In meadows, the grass was tall and thick, and some of the wild iris plants were were shoving up new blades.
It was also warm enough for some flowers to unfurl.
Aya found a gray ladybug huddled on a cement bench at the outdoor mini-amphitheatre. I have no idea if it was dead or alive. She kept trying to wake it up. Despite the violent winds a couple weeks ago, one of the trees at the amphitheatre was still hanging on to its fall colors – just on the lower branches.
We saw a throng of mushrooms working on decomposing a rotting tree stump. Some of them were small and black-and-gray, looking like something that would grow near the Black Road in Guns of Avalon. The more spectacular of them were large, flat, and tan, deepening to dark brown near their peaks with pale gold gills.
Moss was growing everywhere. On stones, trees, the banks of creeks. I love moss. I want to live somewhere with a lawn of deep, lush moss instead of grass.
The ground throughout the park was saturated with water, mushy, muddy, messy. The air was thick with the smell of thawing muck and life, of horses, oak bark, toyon, and green things. It felt like home, recalling childhood memories of playing with reeds and mud in the late winter vernal pools in my parents’ pasture.
Lovely pictures. Moss and Mushrooms.