Tickling the Trees...

It has been a very busy week here on Apple Valley Way...so this evening I took a little extra time to spend with David, my three year old son.

We went to the chicken house and collected the eggs for the day...checked on the week-old baby chicks, counted the flock to make sure every one was roosting for the night and locked the chicken house.

Next we listened to the tree frogs and spring peepers singing around the pond; then we threw sticks in the pond which of course frightened the frogs into silence.

The Labs were barking so we gave them some rawhide treats to chew on...they wanted to run and play but it was getting too late.

Feeding the goats and ducks was next on the agenda. Bread crumbs from an old loaf of bread and french fries from McDonalds were on the menu. (They do get normal animal food--grain and hay--but this was "snack time".)

Having fed all the animals, David wanted to walk around the house, so we did--four times. He told me how we were making a circle as we went around the house. Then he wanted to walk close to the walls of the house and decided that now we were walking in a square...(actually a rectangle, but I thought it was interesting that his three year old mind conceived of the difference between a wide sweep around the house being a circle and the close walk around the house being a "square").

The last time around the house I noticed that the goats were disturbed and staring at something down by the lower pond. I went in the house and got a high beam flashlight. Well, the "varmint" turned out to be the neighbor's cat who just needed a drink from the pond.

Since there was a gentle breeze blowing, I decided to set a spell on the front porch and watch the animals and enjoy the country evening. David wanted the flashlight so I let him play with it.

He was shining it up in the trees, moving it back and forth rapidly, saying, "Daddy, look at the fire...look at the fire."

Then he changed his strategy. He started shining the light on one tree and then moving it up and down the tree branches and laughing. "I'm tickling the tree, Daddy. See, I'm tickling the tree."

I laughed with him, gave him a big hug, and thought how blessed I was to have a three year old that could "tickle" trees with just a flashlight.

Just part of a DAY in my JOURNEY...

Be blessed,

JDB