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AI generated image Each morning at first light two baby squirrels appear on the trunk of the hickory tree. After spending a long cold night snuggling with Mama in their nest cavity, they're ready for the day to begin. They scamper down the tree like kids out of school. When they reach the lowest branch, they run out and tumble together, a grey knot of skinny legs and furry tails. I can't hear them through the sliding glass door, but I imagine they chitter and chatter w

AI generated image It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was shining and birdsong floated through the open classroom window. The children were sick of being inside. So was I, but being a young conscientious teacher, it was time for writing, and writing was what we were going to do. When I told them to get out a piece of paper, their faces fell and there were a few groans of dismay. I felt their angst. Then, apropos of nothing, from the deep recesses of my brain came a

I was a daddy's girl. I loved my mother with all my heart, but I adored my father. You see, my mother stayed home and took care of the family. She cooked and cleaned and taught me to sit up straight and say please and thank you. She inspected my nails and made sure I was dressed in time to get to church on Sunday morning. She was the practical one, the disciplinarian. She fretted over having a tom-boy for a daughter. She was determined to teach me to be a lady. My father,

I grew up when children weren't always under the watchful eye of an adult, when parents simply sent us outside with a cheerful, "Go play". I guess today you would call us free-range kids. We ran around the neighborhood, played games and explored the deep dark woods, which were neither deep nor dark. We used our imagination to turn the sidewalk into a raging river and the neighbor's cat into a stalking tiger. We fell down, skinned our knees and argued with each other. We lea

Ivy had come to spend the night. We did all the usual things that grandmas do with three year olds. We colored and glued and read books. We played with play-doh and stuck stickers in a book. Then we decided to take a walk in the backyard. We pretended that we were in the jungle. We walked along quietly to sneak up on wild animals. An ant became an elephant. A squirrel was a tiger. A frog sitting by the goldfish pond morphed into a Nile cocodile, and the goldfish were piranahs

I must confess that I used to be one of those people who was terrified of snakes. I think it came from my father who told the story of climbing a ladder to clean out a squirrel nest-box. When he reached in, expecting to pull out a handful of leaves, he pulled out a handful of angry snake. He dropped the snake and backed down the ladder fast as he could. My father went left and took refuge behind a trash can. The snake went right, and was never seen again. "What a funny story!

Last spring my husband and I visited the Outer Banks. As we walked along the boardwalk at Bodie Island, we spotted a water snake swimming lesisuerly among the reeds. We leaned on the railing and watched it. A woman and a little girl stopped and asked what we were looking at. (At Bodie Island, that's not considered rude, everyone shares their sightings.) I pointed down into the water and said, "A snake. Look. It's right there." That poor lady choked back a scream, grabbed

Have you ever watched a small child with a bug? They want to touch it and they dont hesitate to let it move across their hands. Little ones are curious and fearless as they interact with the natural world. But somewhere along the way, many of us lose our sense of wonder about nature. Maybe its because we had a bad experience with a bee or a biting fly. Maybe it's because an adult yelled "Watch out. That's dangerous!" I believe that we have a responsibility to teach our chi