This week I have had the delight of have my five year old granddaughter, Matilda, with me while I work in the yard clearing away away about 25 years of pine and spruce needles covering a bed of about five inches of wood chips. The trees were cut down and the roots ground earlier this spring, leaving me with a massive clean up job.
Tilda has been just tootling around, helping here and there, collecting pine cones, bits of interesting twigs and several nice rocks. At one point she came to me with a stick and said “Nana what is this water on the stick?” I replied that it was sap, which is basically the trees blood, and continued on with my work. Next thing I knew she had a hospital set up for the sticks. It was in a sheltered corner of the porch and had an assortment of bark, landscaping fabric, tiles… whatever she could imagine into a part of her stick hospital. She found some plastic and wrapped it around the sticks as band aides, and asked for some tape. Soon she had several patients in care, receiving various treatments. “This one just needs rest, Nana.” She collected quite a few sticks, and at one point declared with frustration “I just can’t look after all these sticks!”
Having Tilda with me in the yard is always an adventure with fairy gardens, a hospital, laps around the yard, picnics on the deck with our parkas on, and beautiful rock collections. We pull on the roots together and feed the birds. What could be more wonderful than being able to share such enthusiasm for anything and everything.
so cute