wild in the woods

I grew up a tomboy. And if its ok to use that term as a 30 year old woman, I'll still claim it. Don't get me wrong, there are occasions where I like to put on something lovely and doll up, but for the most part, I'm not so glittery. I'm barefoot. Muddy. Probably scratched up a bit. But smiling the whole time.

We've spent a lot of time in the woods lately. Iggy has stepped up his level of concern about the creek to ultra-high. (Actually, as he put it, "Mom. No more messin' around. It's time to get out the big guns.") The creek is ridiculously low. Some parts are flat out dry. The fish are dying. The geese are gone. Iggy requested we get the DNR involved. Apparently, the DNR represents big guns.


We've driven around the area to see that all the water levels in the area are low. But in the 23 years I or my parents have lived in this house, we've never had parts of the creek go dry, even in years much drier than this one. So while I understand that we're in a dry spell (apparently), I don't get why this year is affecting the creek so much more than years past.

So we've spent large chunks of time figuring out what we can do, and if we can or should do anything. The DNR is taking their sweet time in repsonding to us, and since we live on an official "wetland", there are rules about what exactly we can "fix" and how we can fix it. Ah, don't you love rules? It will certainly be sweet if they can contact us before it completely dries up.

We side-tracked from worrying about the creek and directed our attention to the paths in the woods. After all, decided Iggy and Ooky, if someone is going to come out and help us with our creek, it would be nice it the paths were easier to walk on. Its been a couple years since we went out and trimmed the paths. Hubster was in charge of the weed whip and the occasional chainsaw. The boys were happy to be able to use handsaws. We trimmed back the lovely original paths, because as Hubster says, its no fun to be walking in the woods and be fondled by stingweed or thorny branches. :)

Trimming the paths also made a whole host of other lovely things accessible to us. Things we couldn't quite get to before because various pokey greens and browns had grown up around our path. Yesterday, we ate a lot of raspberries. :)

The evening ended just outside of the woods, at the campfire ring where we cooked over the fire and waited for fireflies. More sawing on scrapwood, nails were brought out, creations were constructed. Iggy asked for the three hundredth time when the DNR would contact us. Ooky wondered if they would land a plane in our backyard with equipment to help the creek. :) Ah, to believe in the help of those more powerful than you.

Sweet dreams, my wild woodsmen.