Today, because Corin's school was out and Seth's was in, I had a rare solo day with my elder boy. These days Corin is interested in adventures, and though the gang of boys in the adventure stories to which he likes to listen happen to find buried treasure or rescue kidnapped children every second day, adventures like that in our quiet valley are a bit hard to come by. Undaunted, we set off for the Rattlesnake, equipped with his adventure necklace (lanyard, compass, two golden pens, one tiny swiss army multi-tool) some sandwiches and our current chapter book. Corin wanted to go back to the spot we'd visited as a family, whiling away this past Saturday afternoon. On the riverbank we'd stacked rock cairns in a rash of spontaneous construction. The rock piles were beautiful and oddly graceful. And we both wanted to see them again, so we didn't mind that our adventure carried us down a path we had recently trod. This time, however, Corin paused every twenty feet to lay stick arrows in the trail, just in case any other adventurers wanted to follow our lead. Arriving at our spot, we were pleased to find the rock sculptures had weathered the intervening days, and I was particularly happy to see a few spiders had been busy launching lines among them, their thin filaments catching and keeping the light.

As Kenneth Grahame characterized the river in his delightful opening to A Wind in The Willows, so it was today along the creek. All was a-shake and a-shiver - glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. Corin and I sat beside this tossing scene, read a bit, ate our fare, explored the bank, and watched, every now and again, singular leaves twist from their branches and somersault toward the water.

After a bit of this sort of dreamy, sitting adventure, we walked on. We decided between us that anyone determined to find us would have to rely on their own wood-lore, and from there on gave up marking our trail with arrows. This was a boon to our pace. Corin led us on a trail, new to the both of us. It wound lazily uphill, dappley and fragrant. Though we didn't come across buried treasure, we were rewarded with some other great finds, amassing a hankie full of quartz and several blanched bones. One of the particularly nice things about this adventure was that it demanded quiet walking: careful muffled steps and no talking. I realized I could go in for endless adventures like this... listening to the wind soughing the p.pines, and ravens calling in the distance. All in all, a lovely way to pass a day with my boy.