For the Love of Trees

Yesterday was the very first time I stepped onto a golf course.

I discovered I like them. 😎

So many reasons to like a golf course.

Beauty. There is beauty there. LOVE the green grass…even the brown grass in the wintertime is fantastic. So unified in its color of death. AND…it is super cushy to walk upon. Soft on the feet. Like walking on marshmallows. Poofy. Reminds me of the Crocs my kids bought me last year. Donovan is obsessed with them. Nice to walk in.

I loved the quiet there. It was really peaceful. Love me some peace and quiet. All about that!

On a golf course, I found water, trees, peace, and the beautiful colors of nature mixed with the patterns and symmetry man creates as they develop the landscape. It is a mixture of both Father’s creation and man’s creation all wrapped up in one gift. Delightful.

It made me want to try to learn golf. Just for fun…ya know. Not going to get too carried away here with a sport…but it piqued my interest. 😉

I also discovered I LOVE the sound of the iron impacting the ball. SMACK!!!!!!!! Such a wonderful noise. Glorious to my ears. Music!

Got a present too…a lovely red ball. Colored balls…brilliant…make it more fun!

How have I missed this for 52 years????

Glasses

Did I play golf????

Nope.

Not there to play golf.

So why was I there you wonder????

Looking for a lost pair of prescription glasses.

We didn’t SEE them. 👁️

🤣 😂 😜 👀

Did you SEE what I did there?

I couldn’t resist.

The glasses are lost…we came home defeated in our quest to find the glasses, but I got a great walk in on a beautiful course and learned quite a bit about golf in the process.

I learned what the term fore means. 🤣

I always wondered why John Malkovich (playing Lucien) in the movie Secretariat yelled FORE. Now I know. That clip of the movie makes so much more sense now. Wondering why I didn’t google that long ago. 🤔

Isn’t learning fun? I think so.

I raised up adventurous children. Feeling like it behooves me to use less rather than more here in this area. If I shared all their adventure stories…the hate mail would eventually pour in spewing out what an irresponsible parent I was. My kids got themselves into some interesting situations on their adventures as children. Even more than they are willing to fess up with their momma still to this day as adults.

The Missing Sandbox Mystery

I have yet to learn what happened to the Little Tyke dinosaur sandbox I bought for them. It was expensive and large and went missing one day. The lid was still there but no sandbox.

After a thorough interrogation, all I learned was that my three children were unified in silence. Lips sealed tightly shut. No opening their mouths to snitch about what happened to it.

My suspicions…those three kiddos thought they could use it as a canoe and float down the creek in it. I suspect it is either buried at the bottom of the creek bed or floated down the creek when it flooded and became lodged in a log jam downstream somewhere.

Our home was built in a hillside overlooking the bottoms which had a creek on the backside of the bottoms. Our home had a 12ft by 40ft deck on the backside overlooking the bottoms. The entire back wall of the home had large windows and a patio door. When building the house, I wanted a full view of the beauty that surrounded me. Large windows and no curtains.

One day while cooking food, I looked out the window to see our Radisson canoe upside down being carried down the hill towards the creek. Three pairs of legs and feet peeking out from below it. I decided they thought they could float the thing down the creek. THIS is why I suspect the sandbox is buried in a muddy creek bed to this day. 🤨

Field Trip

As homeschoolers, we took many wonderful educational field trips with the other local homeschoolers. Lots of great memories with fun people learning about a variety of things in this world. One field trip was to a local woman’s home who made goat milk soap to sell. We all gathered around in her kitchen and watched her make a batch of soap. She educated us on her technique. How she chooses her scents. The different ingredients and what properties they have. We learned a bit about science, chemistry, math, etc. Super fun.

When she was done with her demonstration, the moms gathered around the soaps for sale to check them out. Meanwhile, the kiddos had a snack and then bounded out the door to play outside.

Moms began to gather their children and leave. I am usually the last to go. I have LOTS of questions scrolling through my mind I need answered. One mom said her goodbyes and walks out the door. A few minutes later, she storms back in…MADDER THAN A HORNET. NOT KIDDING. She was HOT under the collar. She yells…someone’s children are up at the TOP OF THE TREE out here. NOW…she didn’t handle it well at all. Super triggered…she was. She KNEW those kids were mine…and she simply could have pulled me aside and gently said…hey…your kids are at the top of this tall tree out here…you might want to check on them.

Her behavior was not how I would have handled the situation. I used to hate telling people we homeschooled because of the perception people had of homeschoolers. Really didn’t want to be grouped in with a derogatory…negative viewpoint most of the world has regarding home educators. I wasn’t like a typical homeschooler…set apart even in a set-apart group of people. In saying that…I felt like her behavior…again cast a negative bent on the homeschooling community to this beautiful woman who invited us as homeschoolers into her home.

Just own It

For me…I always just own it. As soon as she started yelling about the kids in the tree…I said out loud…THOSE are my kids. I was 100% sure about that. No one had to convince me which kids in that group took it upon themselves to find a great climbing tree and shimmy up that baby. That screamed my children. I couldn’t keep them OUT of trees.

I walked outside…locating my children and the said tree. Sure enough…I looked up at the top and there they were. It was TALL. They were all smiles. Happy little larks having conquered the tree.

I said…ok…guys you need to come down from the tree.

The picture of this evergreen tree on this golf course is the same type they climbed. It was a wonderful climbing tree. So many branches that it was an easy climb…and no real risk of falling very far because it was a spider web of branches inside that thing.

Being the last one to leave, I said to the woman…that was my kiddos in your tree. I apologized if it offended her in any way. She laughed and said…every single one of my kids and grandkids has climbed to the top of that tree. She agreed…it was a great climbing tree. We both laughed at the other mom’s reaction toward the kids climbing it. She was from the city. We determined part of her reaction was due to the difference between city folk and country folk. The mindset is so completely different.

One Last Story

I am going to attribute this incident to a child-directed science experiment…regarding levers and pulleys. We did home education.

Walking out the front door one day, I see Mitchell encased in a homemade harness. It was built out of rope. Being the youngest of the three, poor little Mitchell was a toy for the other two. Mara and Donovan had decided to make a harness to hoist Mitchell up into a tree. They had thrown a rope around a large branch of a tree and were slowly hoisting him up into this tree using a pulley system. All thought up and built by the three of them working together. I was aghast at the sight.

Just so happened their dad was pulling up while this scene was playing out. The first words out of his mouth to me…I am pretty sure that Mara and Donovan have just ruined Mitchell’s chances of ever having children. 😂 🤣 The poor kid’s groin…he was not escaping that harness. They had him wedged in there nice and tight.

Thankfully, we have evidence that Mitchell can indeed have children. As I type this up, Bobbi is developing his daughter in her womb. We are all excited about meeting the little bundle of Joy in April. Believing there is no chance that little girl won’t have a full head of curly hair someday. Mitchell is currently growing out his curly locks so he can at least have a man bun one time. 🤣 He is almost there. We believe it will be a good look for him.

Children are the BEST!!!! Even in the adult stage…I am head over heels in love with them. They bring joy to my life.