Into the Woods

A few days ago the children and I ventured down to the woods. For years I have been dreaming of having the kids play in the woods, and finally my dream is coming true! Our development has a walking trail that goes through a bit of wood, maybe 10 acres or so. It's not a very old wood, most of the trees look less than 15 years old, and there are no fir trees, but I'm so thankful to have any woods at all!

As a child, I LOVED playing in the woods, making forts, playing house, etc. Now I have to teach my kids to enjoy it as well.

We were actually surprised to find quite a bit of wildlife on our adventure. Blogger is having "troubles" and I couldn't upload all the beautiful wildflowers, but here are a few pictures that did upload:

We were startled at one point to find a rabbit scurrying past us and running for its life. We think it came out of this little nest, which looked like a sweet little place for a bunny.

We found lots of interesting mud piles that were made by something, we haven't quite figured out what yet.
There were a number of tracks, these, I think, belong to deer. Andrew was certain the dog prints were actually bear prints.

We were very fortunate (or unfortunate) to run into a snake! I really couldn't believe it! But, we startled it out of its hiding place and it paused long enough for me to take a picture before sliding into the water.

Perhaps it was unfortunate that we found the snake so early in our adventure as certain children did not seem so excited about the woods after that. It's kind of obvious my kids didn't grow up in the country.

And here they are (Baby Cakes stayed home for his nap). There is a stream that runs through the woods which might provide some water play in the summer. We found ourselves a nice clump of bushes for a house and proceeded to enjoy our time.

I hope it won't be too long before we go back!