when we were young

For me, it's impossible to think of Vermont in the summertime without thinking of my friend Sophie and the zillions of hours we spent barefoot in fields, scavenging in the forests: generally completely unattended. We gathered twigs and branches, rocks and ferns, leaves and moss, imagining and constructing tiny houses and villages in tree trunks and shady hills. I don't know how much actual time we spend doing this, but my kid memory is full of these tiny architectural designs.

Like building sand castles there's something that I still love about pulling tiny bits of the world together to make a little home even if only for imaginary things.

Last weekend, Drew built a raised bed, and there was a large gap at the bottom which I was going to fill with a little stone wall.  I went into the woods with a big orange bucket ready to rustle up rocks, but within moments I was filling it with long branches and moss instead. This is how it goes. Moss, branches, ferns and me for the rest of the afternoon, 31 going on 7. Completely in heaven.