in the woods

Saturday was glorious! Perfectly autumnal with a beckoning breeze and cool enough to delight in the sunny warmth on your back. We hopped into the canoe and went paddling in the pond we live on. We saw loads of turtles and even ate the last of the summers blueberries that clung to the nearly leafless bushes. On the way home we stopped off to take a walk in the woods- well, we wanted the kids to explore while we found a sunny patch to kick back in. That even worked for about 10 minutes but then the idea of hide-n-seek took hold of Ava and there was no changing her whine (I mean her mind). Once we were up and about, I was glad to be moving and after the way-too-easy-to-find-the-hiding-kids game, Ava and I got to building this:

We've had fun making these tree sculptures before, but usually we make them between 2 branches in a tree with little twigs. This was supersized and really fun to make. All the materials were scattered about on the ground around us, and we only needed to break a few dead branches to make them wedge nicely. We decorated with the fallen yellow leaves by wrapping them and poking their stems through the leaf like this:

So, what makes this so much fun? I'm not sure. I think it might be that we are working on some big project together, where art is usually solitary. The materials are beautiful, we are in the woods, it smells good... We love to make all sorts of art and joy can be found in many ways, but being there together with sticks and leaves and sun and without any agenda, well, that sort of fun is second to none.