“Wait a minute! You’re going too fast!” Kate followed Darlene down a path she had not seen before. She stretched her neck and stubby legs as far as she could. Concentrating on speed, the descent into the ditch surprised her. She slowed on the wet rocks when she 
saw where they were headed.
She’d avoided this edge of the woods because of the awful whooshing noises. Her Uncle Harold had been smashed flat, an ugly, gruesome mess his shell could not prevent. Her neck retracted some with that awful remembrance. “Darlene, Mama said to stay away from the road. Terrible things happen here.”
Her friend kept on walking around a curve in the ditch. “It’s okay, silly. Look! The great big super-noisy machines that were here just before the last big rainstorm did this.”
The ditch now went under the road! They walked through the smooth-rock tube and came out the other side as safe as could be. Climbing up the ditch, she looked around at this side of the woods. Then she looked at the dreaded road. Oh no!
“Darlene, over there! That’s Daddy at the side of the road!” Her Dad was going to cross the road to find her! The path back was too long, how could she show him a safe way across?
Her Dad started across the road, his neck stretched out very far.
Kate went to her side of the road and a big noisy car rushed by. She panicked, then withdrew her head to see her Dad was okay, his head slowly emerging from his own shell. He resumed trudging deliberately across the road.
Another big noisy came, very loud 
and slow. Kate trembled as it crept toward her Dad. The big green noisy stopped very close to him. A two-legged animal, a human, got out and picked up her Dad. The human set her Dad down on Kate’s side and went away.
His head raised very high when he saw her. “Kate, I told you not to cross the road!”
“Dad! Let me show you the safe way across!”
The very first time I travelled from faraway San Diego to the remote reaches of a Western Kentucky forest, I fell swoopy-doopy in love. The Realtor I’d visited was in Elizabethtown. I wanted to build a cabin in the woods. Nada, nothing available, all the woods being sectioned up and bulldozed for subdivisions, sadness. The hour I was to leave the motel for the airport, she called and breathlessly rushed to say she’d just had a miracle pop up on her screen.
To me, a creek symbolizes a powerful force that can be beautiful and life-giving but can also cleanse the landscape in a flood. This water is precious to the life of the woodland flora and fauna, the flowers and the fawns. The rippling sound warms my weary heart. The water can dry up, leaving the woodland parched and sad. Then it returns in glory. What better way to commemorate the Resurrection?
I have another painting I started a few months ago and abandoned when the weather started getting cooler and when I got a few bundles of beautiful new cloth to sew. I decided on making thermally superior long johns instead of painting, go figure. BTW,
they’ve been so phenomenal that I am eyeing the materials to make more (sew I can wash this set more often)…
Morning Weather Report: “A heavy frost was spotted in most areas of the city.”
Oh yes, isn’t is getting cold in the evenings! I’ve had to dig around for my sweaters, coats and long johns and all…cheapskate that I am, I keep the thermostat at 50 degrees F and pile on the warmth. That’s better than 40 degrees like I did 2006 though 2014. Getting soft? The cats seem to like me much better now.
