Nature is a wonder

Today, between two general conference sessions (http://conference.lds.org), I had promised to go outside with my boys.  To my grief it had started to hail, rain, snow and the wind was fierce.

Of course, I had set myself into spring mode and was an unwilling participant at first.  But we had an amazing time outside, although it was cut a bit short because we were not prepared for the weather.

Next to our house are the woods.  We are in luck because the ice-age has left it's mark here with huge boulders, nooks and crannies that are marvelous to play around.

oh sorry, wrong picture.

Here we go...

OH NOES, THE GROUND IS MOVING

Anïas, Illïus and Xavier are standing next to a birch tree with an ant hill that measures several feet in circumference, and about a meter above the ground.  Illïus and Xavier were really uneasy standing so close to the ant hill.  The ants have just woken up a few days ago and were hustling about all over the place in droves.

We climbed up the hillside to the part where old boulders had been dropped and formed a little quarry where water had pooled.  One can skate here during the winter.  It is amazing.

As we got deeper into the woods, Anïas called out that he found a squirrel.  Someone had left a bit of tree graffiti of a squirrel posted on a tree trunk.   Illïus was all surprised and wondered why anyone would paint a picture and leave it in the woods.

We finally got to our final destination.  A large plateau on-top of this hill that is just a bunch of huge rocks and boulders.  There is a camping fire place.  This place was not mapped out on the local map, but we just stumbled upon it a few years ago and have been here a lot since then.  The kids love this place.  So much to do and conjure up game wise.  A truly magnificent place for fantasy play.

One cannot tell, but we have had hail, rain and snow on us for about an hour now.  As we are about to head home to take a warm bath, we take a new path down the hillside.  To our great surprise we found a real amazing cottage.  And the mystery ensued.  Who built it?  When was it built?  Are there any people here now?

It had a fireplace, a bench and to my children's cheers... it had marshmallows in there.  I wouldn't let them eat it, but we cleaned up some garbage that had been left in the cottage.  Someone had built a nice fireplace as well.  It was real dry inside that little house.  We found a receipt of a cash withdrawal among the garbage and figured out that this was build September of last year.  So exciting to watch the kids try to figure out who the settlers were.  One can only imagine how people felt in the old times.  Good and bad.

We grabbed our garbage bag with marshmallows and soda cans to head home.  But that turned out to take time as well.  Anïas, Illïus and Xavier picked up any garbage they could find on the way home through the woods.  On the picture below we hit the jackpot.  Some dog owner had tossed several bags of dog poop in the same spot at the end of the woods.  Of course I said we had to take those bags with us...  this picture really cracks me up.

Fun times.  Effortless.  Spontaneous. Cost nothing.