White Winter Walk

I've had the photo from our walk at Shaker Lakes as my avatar on Facebook for quite some time now and looking at it all the time has put images of the hills at Squires Castle covered in snow into my head. No idea why, but there you are. Thus, it became imperative that we make it out there and see it for real. As soon as we started walking, the boys started whining and Jon called from home, where he was locked out of the house, but we went onward anyway (Jon got a neighbor friend with a key to come let him in).

We spied a lonely little glove on our gnarly tree.

We discovered tracks. These belong to dogs, but Aleks found deer as well.






Aleks and I had a long talk about the point of school and about his future. He ignored everything I had to say and kept talking about the walk and other things. He eventually decided that he does not want to be a lion tamer or a snake charmer as an adult. Or a plumber, though he did not illuminate for me why precisely that is. In the end, he said he'd like to be a paleontologist or a miner (he's very into gems and gemstones). I may be getting a bit ahead of myself with all of this, but my laziness in combination with reading a book about families that included lots of perspectives other than my own on all manner of matters has inspired my fear and anxiety of late. Thus the talk about it to involve Aleks and see what he thought.

He didn't really. Think, that is. The future is out there still for him. Way out there. I should learn to get cozy with that. Every winter I go through this. Sigh.

In the end, I know they're healthy and happy and I've got nothin' but love for 'em.