It seems that the race is on. How fast can we get to December 21st?

The sky darkened its soul, the wind crept down the back of my neck, and a few Bluebirds were heard twittering about. Then I glimpsed them, his color as deep a blue as the depths of Marlborough sounds. The pair of Bluebirds arrived with in time to re-claim their winter bungalow, already planning future baby Blues.

It never felt so good to get out hiking, breathing the cool air here at Bryon's Hill in The White Clay Creek Delaware State Park. My Sweetheart had a clever chocolate mid-hike snack, which brought smiles all around and quite strategically, quickened our pace. While we paused to unwrap our goodies Alyssa asked in her most serious tone, "What if a great big knife came out of the sky and chopped the world in half?"

Lewis asked for clarification,
"Do you mean right through the center where the lava is stored?"

"Yes."

"Well, then?"

He began to seriously ponder this notion (as if they entered a mind meld or something out of Star Trek), when she interrupted him, "All the people would fall out into the universe. Right, Mom?"

Since I really was no authority on Astrophysics and such uses for cutlery I answered her question most cleverly: with another. "What do you think would happen?"

Of course, she couldn't resist telling me about her theory that the aliens would eat the people simply, yet undoubtedly because they have big sharp teeth. Then Lewis interrupted Alyssa and proceeded to correct the details of her theory, "There is just no way people fall OUT of the planet. They would fall OFF the planet."

"Oh, Lewis, you are quite right", Alyssa concurs, stuffing the candy wrapper in her pocket. She turns to run ahead to Papa when she suddenly stopped, looking around. "Mom, come on. You are going to lose us if you take one more picture."

I can't help myself. I'm in this race, too. I'm in competition with yesterday and tomorrow to see and absorb as much as I can in these few short miles. Family time, nature time, our time to share and revel in all that abounds around us. What awakens, what stirs when we find our selves trekking such terrain? Today it was Imagination, Laughter, and an off beat brand of Insight.

Falling in slumber, in time with October's lullaby, an old Elm tree is caught eternally cold, exposed, and dormant in a clay world that will soon celebrate the dead. The tree's capillaries reach for the sky, ever growing desperate, willing its dying leaves to stay, draining its green goddess Chlorophyll, & darkening her palate to crimson and gold.

One mottled scarlet leaf, bruised as one would a strawberry, catches my gaze. Savoring sweet color divine -it is the eye that feasts today.