There's Magic in the Air

photo by http://www.thegraphicgroove.com/

I love this time of the year.

The sun is out to stay and there is fun to be had.

The days are long and the kids are getting tanner and blonder as the days pass.

We spend the days eating watermelon and playing at the park with friends.

We ride bikes and horses and go on Sunday drives.

We go to free movies at the Library to get a break from the heat.

We eat our lunch outside nearly every afternoon and play in the florescent green grass and watch the silly chickens look for bugs to eat. We make homemade lemon ice and chocolate slushies for desert.

We hike up to waterfalls and find caterpillar piles and watch beautiful butterflies flutter around the spectacular wild flowers.

We find little mountain streams and take our shoes off and walk in the cool rushing water.

We find robin eggs that have fallen from the trees and inspect the oh so delicate shells and try to find the nest it fell from.

We go to farmers markets and fruit stands and buy baskets and baskets of fresh strawberries and huge watermelons and corn on the cob.

We swing from the tree swing hanging from our willow and see how high we can get before our toes start to touch the droopy leaves.

My kids are constantly climbing trees and scraping knees.

The kids play in the pasture grass that is almost as tall as they are. I look out the window and see three little heads bobbing up and down through the thick grass, waiting to be cut and dried and bailed to feed our cute horse next winter.

We bask in the sunshine and wish it will never go away.

I watch my kids as they are going through yet another season and wish that I could just push pause to make these days last a little longer. I try not to think about their babyness vanishing before my very eyes.

I relish the fact that they still see the fairy dust floating in the air and are in awe that real live fairies must be near.

They pause to listen and watch, eyes full of wonder, in hopes of catching a glimpse of their magic.

They know they are really close when the fairy dust floats over head.

It gets really thick this time of year. Sometimes it's so thick it looks as if it were snowing, it collects at the edge of the grass in white cottony mounds. Other days there are only a few specks of fairy dust floating through the otherwise clear summer sky. They flit and float on the breeze attempting to land at the edge of the lawn, only to be caught by another warm draft and pushed upward yet again through the air, floating away on a breeze and finally coming to rest on an outstretched finger or at the feet of my baby.

We went to a nearby park the other day and Dubs and I found the best discovery of the season. As we were walking through the park we found the biggest pile of fairy dust we have ever seen.

Then, we looked up.

We discovered sheer wonder.

Huge pillowy piles of fairy dust in the leaves of the tree.

This MUST be the fairies homes!
We found out where they live!
We are so lucky!
Shhhhh, it's a secret, we can't tell you where they are.
We watched for a long time to see if we could catch one unaware.
As we looked more closely we discovered that a wild cherry tree was growing above the fairy tree. That must be why they live there, they LOVE cherries. We were sad that we could not reach the cherries to have a treat for ourselves, but we felt better knowing the fairies would have plenty to eat.
I don't know if the fairies will stay there once all the cherries are gone. They may move on to find other, more delicious food. I don't know if they'll be back next year. But just for right here and right now the fairies are in full bloom.
We are perfectly content to play in the fairy dust and bask in the magic of this thing I like to call
childhood.