Who’d dare to breathe this fern-thick bird-rich day?

On Saturday last, we went (as we do every year) to the mountains of western Maryland.  There we seek out apples and pumpkins at orchard stands, and then, if the weather is good, retreat into the forest for a picnic and a walk.

The trail is (almost) always the same one.  A few times we have tried different places to picnic and walked on different trails, but we return to this particular one because we like it, and because, as my sister says, it is tradition that binds us together as a people.



The trail itself is (almost) always a little different each year.  Old trees die and new ones grow, rains wash the stream bed, mushrooms and mosses make their way across fallen logs and stones.  Half the pleasure of the walk is in the sentences that begin 'do you remember the time when ...'; the other half is in the ones that begin 'hey, look at that!'



John Frederick Nims