Nature Walk

Friday I got the rare chance to take Lillie and Jack on a picnic and a nature walk. With Chloe being so little, that's hard to do by myself, but my mother-in-law took Chloe for a couple of days so I bit the bullet and took the two oldest out. We had a great time! Nature walks have become kind of a tradition in our family, a tradition that I hope to continue as long as we can. It really teaches the kids appreciation for God's creation and the looks of wonder on their faces when they pick up a feather or an acorn (something so simple, us grown-ups don't even pay attention to most of the time)just brings a simple sense of joy to me. I packed us a picnic lunch and we headed off to the state park in hopes of seeing our duck and geese friends again. The lake was way down. So much so that there wasn't a whole lot of water for the ducks to swim around in. I have never seen it that low and it was a bit disturbing. I don't think I realized how scarce water is getting around here until I saw that. Well, we ate and meandered down to the shore. We didn't have to wait long until a big goose waddled up on shore. He scared us awful good, though. He had a hard time waddling up the incline close to the shore where we were sitting. All we could see was the top of its head over the shore line. Then, it flapped it's wings and flew up , right in front of us. I'm sure Jack was so scared he wet his diaper, I know I would've if I had been wearing one. I mean, it was close. I gave the kids some day old hot dog buns and showed them how to break little pieces and throw it to the goose. Jack broke his bun in half and threw both pieces to the bird at the same time. He has no patience. Here are the pictures I took.