The days are getting shorter. The sun now returns to child sized days. Bedtime is once again round eight in the evening.
School starts. Memories linger.
This summer was one where our family traced the state of Washington in our travels. Our connection to the land and the people has grown. We know the trees that are burning across our lands in these awful fires of 2017. We have traveled by road and by water around our state.
I am full of gratitude for the time we have spent in nature. Here are a few small memories that I want to preserve.
We camped without any agenda. Therefore the kids were able to make their own discoveries. In three days at Lake Wenatchee the boys watched chipmunks, ground squirrels and douglas squirrels eat vine maple seeds, hide in tunnels, chase one another, and munch on doug-fir cones.
They also saw a pileated woodpecker, then two woodpeckers, both eating bugs from beneath the bark of the ponderosa pines. The boys followed them barefoot. Then, one ran for a camera, but it was too late. No photo, but the birds have imprinted themselves on the minds of the children.
A family nature hike deep in the north cascades with song, friendship, and a waterfall as well as bright colors of wildflowers in late afternoon light among the burned out trees from the 2015 Wolverine Fire.
Invented games of pinecone baseball.
Playing catch, then distracted by deer.
The solar eclipse in the zone of totality.
The red sun in these days of wildfires around out state.
Wonder.