So Beautiful and I were out Friday evening and Saturday morning. Late Friday night we received the following phone call:

Daughter 3, in tears: “I have glass in my thumb!”
Mom: “How did you get glass in your thumb?”
Daughter 3: “My Abinadi picture was on my bed and the glass broke!”
Mom: “How did the glass break?”
Daughter 3: “[Daughter 1] was jumping on the bed!”
Daughter 1 is 13 years old, occasionally mature for her age, and on this occasion is responsible (along with daughter 2, age 12 tomorrow) to get everybody in bed by 8:30. She also knows that permission to jump on the bed ended when she was five years old.
Mom (rolling eyes): “Let me talk to her.”
Daughter 1, amidst floods of sarcasm design to camoflage guilt: “What.”
Mom: “What are you doint jumping on the bed at a quarter to 10?”
Daughter 1: “What?”

Well, I’ll let it go at that. If you have adolescent children, you understand. If your adolescent children have learned to control themselves, I admire you. We’ll live through ours. When we got home on Saturday I asked Daughter 3 about the glass in her thumb. She looked at it, puzzled. “Oh, uh, I guess it fell out.” Maybe it wasn’t very far in.

Aside from that, the kids behaved themselves honorably. And I have decided that I will not set up so many projects for myself that I have no time left to play, like I’ve done the last two years. So Saturday after dinner, I had all kids but the youngest two lace on their boots, throw on their coats, and toss the dogs in the back of the Jeep. We’re going rambling.

The spot pictured above is about eight minutes from our house. It has state Fish & Game signs on it and the road had been free of snow for less than 24 hours before this picture was taken, so I thought it was high time to go a-wandering. You can see here our five oldest daughters, and that multi-colored wad in the middle is the dogs, Hank and Honey. We wandered out beyond the transmission tower in the distance, came back around the slough you see there on the left, and walked through trees toward the mountain until dark. Then it was time to head home.

There is something secret, quiet, and rich in the early spring. The soil is cold, the vegetation smashed flat, the mud abundant. Water seeps everywhere, snow lies in the shadows, and everything seems suspended in sleep, bereft of the snow, but not yet awake. The cold wind lifts your hair; but makes no sound. Except for the wild geese, the air is silent. Clouds creep along the mountainside. Water drips from the long conifer needles. Everywhere the land is silent, waiting–curiously similar to November, but awakening to life instead of drifting to sleep amidst the snow.