Outdoor Inspiration

I've always loved the out-of-doors. I think this was instilled in me as a young child when we lived in Washington State and my family enjoyed lots of camping and outdoor activites. There are lots of pictures of me as a toddler in high chairs and playpens outside - even out in the snow.

My Alma Mater appealed to me partly because of its beautiful, spacious outdoors (surrounded by mountains which I miss greatly here in Wisconsin) and because the weather allowed you to spend so much time out-of-doors. John and I spent a lot of our early dating days watching stars from the middle of a field and going on long hikes in the state forest adjacent to TAC.

Now, here in Wisconsin, the winter weather and summer bugs create some limitations, but we enjoy our own acre of land (such richness for a suburb-raised kid from Silicon Valley) and I'm in love with windows. One reason why Ria thought we were like the family in Madeleine L'Engle's Meet the Austins was that I've been known, more than once, to drag "whoever is still awake" from their beds to go out and look at the stars on a beautiful night. Though we live a few hundred yards from a school and there are a few lights in the church parking lot across the street, our view can be quite beautiful right from our yard.

Well that was certainly a long intro to my story list I had planned. Here are two big-time favorites (these bring tears to my eyes just thinking about them); I'll leave some others for the kids to share later:

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. Such a wonderful picture book about making the world a more beautiful place. Involves flowers, libraries and traveling to exotic lands. What could be better? John has a few Taiwanese business associates that we've become rather good friends with. Some have come to our home to visit, meet the children, play in the snow, walk on a frozen lake with us, etc. When one of them invited John to visit his family when he was working in Taiwan, John wanted to bring a present to the man's young daughter. He wanted something that, while not overtly Catholic (the family is Buddhist), still shared in some depth some essence of who we are. He chose Miss Rumphius!

Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson. Terrific family story - the father of an modern urban family comes back from war shattered. His wife comes up with an idea that if he spends some time at her grandmother's old farm way out in the country, it might do him some good. I don't want to say more and ruin the story. Don't miss it!

I'm also hoping to post some time on some gardeners I've known who have inspired me.

By the way, this post is partly to console us because it's FINALLY opening day at one of our very favorite places in the world - Old World Wisconsin - and we're not yet well enough to go (it's a bit rainy anyway). We buy a season pass every year and often head down there for spring and fall afternoons (after the school groups have gone through and things are amazingly quiet). We only missed it one year when we were super busy getting our old house ready for sale. The spring is especially nice with all the baby animals.