Jungle Walk

The kids and I went for a walk in the bush this afternoon. If felt like a walk in the jungle. The underbrush is incredibly thick and lush. The sweat pea plants creep and crawl, snagging little feet. The ferns are taller than Jo, whose head occasionally got lost in the leaves. The good thing is that the bush is too thick back there for poison ivy to grow (not enough sun filtering through the branches) so we didn't have to worry about that. It was quite an adventure for the hikers under 3 feet tall. They felt like real explorers.

About 15 feet down the trail we were dive bombed by bugs. Those mosquitoes behaved as if they hadn't had a good meal in days. Despite our coating of bug spray and layers of fleece - the weather is quite chilly today- they had a good snack on us. Our foreheads are peppered with swollen dots where they got us.

We wrestled our way out of the bush at the end of the driveway and climbed over the hill. On our side of the hill there is a lovely miniature river winding a canyon down the driveway. This is thanks to the regular rainstorms we have been having several nights a week. It is just perfect for floating leaf boats down and watching them shoot the rapids. That kept us busy until the bug bites got too itchy to ignore anymore.

After our dose of "fresh air" we were quite happy to come in the house for clean pants (Jo) and a snack of our own to help replace all the blood we lost on the trail.