I am sitting on my deck enjoying a beautiful sunny day. The birds are singing, and the squirrels are searching for food. The flowers have started blooming but I haven’t seen any butterflies yet. I have seen a few fireflies about dusk dark, and I don’t believe there are as many fireflies as there used to be. I can remember as a young child, we would catch fireflies and put them in a jar with a paper lid that we had punched hole in so they could get air. Before we went in for the night, we would empty them out and let them go their way.

Days like today, I like to think back to my younger days. We lived next door to my cousins, and we were always playing together. We would play in the woods, oblivious to snakes, by gathering pine straw and spreading it on the hillside to make a place to use our slide on. We would use a large piece of cardboard for our slide. After we got tired of this, we would explore the woods. We found where, years early, someone started a 1 room log or pole cabin. The roof had caved in, so we did not go inside. We returned to this place several times over the years.

We did not know walking in the wood was called hiking until we got in the boy scouts. our scoutmaster would take us hiking and camping on Coldwater and Cheoah mountains. Exploring the wood was relaxing then and is still relaxing. I still love the woods so much that I live in the woods. Our house is surrounded by woods.