An errand at Farm & Fleet (yes, me. at Farm & Fleet. I get around.) put me close to the Edna Taylor Nature Conservancy. It’s an odd little place – several ponds, marshlands, a postage stamp forest – all behind perhaps one of the least attractive commercial areas of far-east Madison (and there’s a lot of competition there).
Warm sun. Pond noises – of ducks and frogs (those gargling sounds, they’re frogs, right?). A light breeze. I am, for the first time this year, too warm.
The Eda Taylor park touches on the Aldo Leopold Nature Center. Quite the little crowd there today. Families. Children, moving around from one spot to another. An egg hunt? No, it is the Annual Leopold Day or Fest or something – a demonstration of life in times gone-by.
And the kids, they get into it. The fun of doing laundry outside, on a scrubboard. Like my grandmother. Hanging it out to dry. Until the next kid pulls it down for another washing.
Or, the sampling of the dripping sap from maple trees and when watching the slow drip gets too boring, looking to the maple tree for other amusements.
But mostly, the children get a thrill out of this wild card of a day, the day in March when we can all throw down our wraps. The bold ones take to the earth and water without restraint…
…while the geese and turtles watch in amazement. Human antics. Who can understand why it is that we behave the way we do.
