A Marsh Morning

FarmBoy and I took our Saturday morning walk into the marshes again this morning, and we were delighted to find a path we had not been on before. As soon as we stepped onto it, we realized we had disturbed two little brown rabbits. One darted immediately into the bushes alongside the trail, but the other scurried for many feet down the middle of the path ahead of us, in full view. I am pretty sure that was so that we would be certain to acknowledge that he was sporting a truly fabulous and unusually large white tail, which was worth risking all to display.

Before turning around at trails end, which was a sidewalk and a road, we breakfasted on wild blackberries, which were growing so high as to look more like a blackberry tree than a bush. Then, on our way back from where we had come, we were surprised to realize, in the lowest-lying part close to the marsh, that we were walking among numerous shiny yellow-green frogs. There must have been hundreds of them, thumbnail sized, springing like popping corn for several yards, among the tall grasses on either side of the trail. We walked ahead single file, with our eyes fixed on our feet, to be sure we didn't step on any of the little guys.

Back in the woods closer to home, we saw a tiny squirrel, gnawing away on a nut as he perched on a tree branch. Nothing surprising in that, but a joy to witness all the same.