Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Spring has truly begun

If the blooming flowers and fully-leafed out trees don't give spring away, Unruly surely does. How do we know spring has arrived at our house? She quits wearing shoes, entirely. As soon as she gets through the door after school, the shoes come off and don't go back on unless I force her to put them back on with threats of tossing her in the pond. I can't count the number of times I've had to mop muddy little footprints off my kitchen floor or yell at her to GET OUT! of the horse pasture without shoes on! Finding a glob of chicken poo stuck to the bottom of her feet isn't unusual. Pedicures? Forget about it.

How else? Let me count the ways:
1. Frogs and toads become regular visitors into my house. Uninvited by me and quickly evicted as soon as I learn of their presence.
2. Armloads of wild flowers picked by enthusiastic kid hands must find homes in baskets and vases before they wilt and drop their petals everywhere.
3. Worms are saved from my garden hoe on a daily basis. Unfortunately, sometimes saving them from a deadly whack of the hoe means they end up in a chicken gullet instead.
4. Unruly manages to locate every bird nest within a 1,000 foot radius of our house and I have to help her check on the hatching status of the eggs nearly every day.
5. A variety of bugs learn what it's like to live inside a jar.
6. Little bare footprints leave deep, muddy impressions along the creek as she searches for frogs, toads, turtles, minnows and snakes.
7. When she catches her first snake of the season we'll have to have our annual "what's poisonous, what's not" talk again. Garter snakes and black snakes are okay. Water moccasins and rattlers are not.
8. Keeping clothes on her becomes more and more difficult as the weather warms up. Already once this season I busted her bouncing on the trampoline in all her natural glory. The kid has NO modesty. None.
9. The inquiries to be allowed to go skinny dipping become more frequent. The pool isn't open yet, but the requests have already begun.
10. Some of the seedlings in my flower beds will undoubtedly fall victim to her indiscreet weed pulling.

4 comments:

Kathy said...

Delightful!

Anonymous said...

Why DO they have to bring in every little bug and put it in a jar???

MP said...

Good for her!!

Sona said...

And that's what living in the country is all about!

Would you rather she be skateboarding the sidewalk to the local 20'x30' "park"?