Did They Have a Nature Badge in Brownie Scouts? Shockingly, I Don't Think I Earned That One.

There are families that go camping together and hiking together and on nature hikes and whatnot. That is not my family. *

Growing up, my dad was a big hunter and golfer. My brother played every sport. I played softball one summer and got one (1) hit the entire season. One. Which pretty well ended any athletic aspirations I may have had.

When I look back on leisure activities of my youth, it’s me and a book that I tend to remember.

But. I also distinctly remember playing kickball most every spring afternoon after school, the smell of clover and wild spring onion (which as I've recently learned, is actually garlic. But you know what I mean). And jumping on the trampoline for hours at a friend’s house down the street. Climbing trees, too. I used to love to climb trees. When we visited my grandparents in Houston, Miss., we ran wild when we got to their red brick house on a hill; You’d think we lived in the heart of the ugliest urban sprawl the way we somersaulted down the hill to the vegetable garden, like we’d never seen trees or grass before.

The Sunday before last, I spent the afternoon walking around the woods. Not by myself, of course, or I’d still be out there, because I couldn’t tell you north from south for anything, much less which direction the cabin was where we’d started out. I had about forgotten how peaceful and revitalizing it can be to be outside. Really outside, not in a park or a backyard but someplace wild, elemental, peaceful.





I took so many pictures of trees. I can't even tell you how many.


I haven't even scratched the surface of the tree pictures, in case you are wondering. We ambled a mile or more and it was lovely - a soft spring day that in the shade was a mite cool yet strolling in the sunlight felt just right. The sky was that impossible shade of blue and the grass had that kicky lime tint you see only when it's fresh and new during early spring.

Besides the trees, there was also a little waterfall.
It sounded every bit as peaceful and wondrous as you might imagine, the water splashing down the rocks onto the mossy creekbank.

Meanwhile, inside the cabin.





I am one of maybe two people on the planet who would find this noteworthy and wonderful.

I climbed on top of a piece of furniture to photograph that thermometer. That 1970s bank thermometer. My mother worked for that very bank in Belzoni, Mississippi, back in the day. That little bank is all grown up now and has a number of banks all over the state, which is impressive coming from a small farming town in the Delta. Don't try to tell me otherwise. I remember that logo fondly, which is a testament to just how sentimental I am over the oddest things, such as a place my mother worked for a few years while I was growing up (even if that bank did use to send my brother and me birthday cards every year). The two towns advertised on the thermometer? That would be Belzoni, where I grew up, and Hollandale, where the boyfriend grew up. Awwwww. Me = the biggest goob you ever knew.

Step outside onto the porch and look up.
When it's raining, that right there is bliss in your ear.

I cleverly titled the above photo Tin Roof Sunday.** Because I am clever that way. And also, am big goob!

Where we were?

Oh, that's right - TREES!



Look at these outbuildings.

They're old, probably a hundred years or more.


We picked daffodils.


I took one last tree picture before we left.
That may be my favorite one from the afternoon.

Just a piece down the road:
That church is old. I believe it dates to the mid 1800s.


This Methodist one is about the same age.

I only took about a dozen pictures of that door.

We peeked in the windows and it looked like a lovely, quiet place for church - the interior was spare and Quakerish without being severe.

I'm looking forward to visiting again. JUST THINK how gorgeous those very same trees will be this fall.





* Now that I think of, actually, our family did camp out once at the Grand Canyon. In November. When it was snowing. My dad brewed coffee the next morning (early the next morning) over the campfire and I think was very, very happy about that. So actually, maybe it’s just ME who, for some reason, has selective memory, almost as if I’m discriminating against nature itself.

** Tin Roof Sundae -- Tin Roof Sunday Get it?

(Any guesses as to why it's called Tin Roof Sundae? I don't know. It always makes me think of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.)