the sleppys

This morning, as Dad was leaving for work, I stepped outside to look for a particular caterpillar. (Yesterday, we found it on the wall of our house, looking for a place to begin its metamorphosis. I didn’t think that the wall was a good idea, so I put it back on a stalk of porter weed that’s next to the milkweed.) I found the caterpillar in its “J” position, already changing its colors to a darker shade. Ty mentioned that ten days from now, we’ll see it emerging from its chrysalis as a butterfly.

I wanted to take a picture but couldn’t locate my phone.

In a mere five hours, it changed from an upside-down caterpillar to a bright, yellow-green chrysalis.

*****

Kyle surprised me in Spelling class during home school. Of 20 Dolch words (common words), he spelled only three wrong: Were, Said, and There. His reading has improved since we started reading aloud from the Children’s Bible. He still has trouble with longer words that have a lot of silent letters, “frightened” for example. He is understanding what he is reading, for we discuss the stories afterward. Right now, the boys are reading the books I & II Kings, drawing and writing their own interpretations of the stories (David, Solomon, Elijah).

This morning, Ty, Kyle, and I went north a few miles to attend a home school group meeting. We had been to that group’s meeting in the past, but the schedule doesn’t work for us on a regular basis. Today, however, we had the morning open.

It had been raining and drizzling for the past six hours, so the roads, playground, and benches were wet. The picnic tables that are used for meeting purposes sit under the pavilion, so they were dry.

But there was not a soul in sight.

No big whoop.

The boys and I went back down south, headed to Bill Sadowski Park. I called Dad to let him know the change of plan, and he suggested that we hike the trail that we usually do not hike when we do it all together – with the two babies and the rowdy rocket girl.

We took our walking sticks with us when we left the van, but we had only two, which prevented us from doing any off-trail hiking. I found a sturdy, fallen branch in the middle of the trail that made a good walking stick. We went off the trail and looped around back onto the trail. We had to climb over fallen trees and avoid three banana spiders’ webs – not that banana spiders are dangerous, but they are just a little creepy.

We reached the fork of the trail that leads either to the canal (where we always go) or up the ridge, which is not natural ridge but the ground that had been dug up to make the canal. The boys and I (and our walking sticks) walked up the ridge. Knowing that the neighborhood kids use the place a hang out, we found it surprisingly clean.

The trail was narrow, with tree roots’ sticking out. Fallen branches, too heavy to clear, lay almost horizontally at hip level. A couple of times, I was afraid that Kyle would lose his footing and tumble down the hill. He wouldn’t have fallen far. But the roots to stick out, and the hill is made of small rocks of limestone. Falling off the trail would have been painful.

The farther we traveled up the trail, the thicker the foliage. There were some very large trees right in the middle, and we had to climb our way around it using its roots for support. Some roots were so high and thick, that we used them to grab a safe hold.

Finally, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, literally. I could tell the end of the trail was close because the slope went steeply downward. I instructed the boys on how to go downhill with little risk of tumbling. The trees were thinner, and I could see the grass that lies beside the canal. When Ty, who walked the rear, safely walked off the trail and into the open grass, we all agreed that that was the best trail ever. We named it Sadowski Ridge.

I threw the impromptu walking stick back into the hammock and thanked the natural preserve for a great hike.