family tree

My folks recently moved to a house on Lake Anne in Arkansas, so I was super excited to see their new place. They have about an acre of woods behind their house and it is brimming with birdlife... hummingbirds and woodpeckers being my two favorites to watch so far. I can say that I will never take birdsong for granted again. When I step outside here, that is all I hear, and it is fantastic. I was looking forward to it, but it was so much better than expected. I just want to sit outside all. day. long.

Of course my mother wanted a picture of all of us, so I decided to have everyone sit on this fallen oak tree. I'm really excited about these woods you see. I learned that I really need to buy a remote for my camera. Using the timer for this one was challenging to say the least. I only had about four chances to run up the steep, rocky hill and jump up onto this tree that came up to my eyebrows when I was standing on the ground. That's alot to do in 10 seconds. (Now I'm thinking that the time might be able to be adjusted on my camera.) After the 4th snap, I was too tired to get up there again. I didn't even make it the second and third time! So considering, I was pretty happy with the result. (Fern was also throwing one heckuva tantrum during most of this, so the fact that she is smiling is pretty amazing!) The flowers are from the woods all around here. Not sure that I like this collage but thought I'd post it since I spent the time to make it. More of our trip to come...soon.

{You can click it to see it larger :)}