Going Inkless

I encountered a toad the other day as I was preparing a garden bed for planting.  He nearly went unnoticed, being the same size and colour as a clump of the soil I was working.  But he hopped, and dirt doesn't do that. A toad is a very ordinary thing to find outdoors in spring time, but I reflected that I haven't seen many of them lately.  When I was young, there wasn't a day in the green or brown seasons when I didn't see a toad, a turtle, a crayfish, or some similar small creature up close and personal.  In recent years, these encounters have been less frequent, mostly just during camping trips.  Rarely, there will be some accidental visitor to "human" space.  A few years ago, during a torrential rainstorm, a toad had hopped into the library with the morning deliveries and had to be redirected.  Around ten years past, I rescued a crayfish from a hotel pool.  Still, the daily contact has been missing. Maybe part of my critter filled childh...

     I haven't really ridden a bicycle in almost twenty years.  The qualifier is in that statement because there have been a couple of opportunities to spend some insignificant time pedalling.  A few years ago, my husband joined me on some long walks in the state park, me on foot and him on his bicycle.  The bike was gentler on feet and joints, and I did take a turn in order to demonstrate that I am too short to use his bicycle. But that sort of thing is not what I would consider really riding.      Despite the lull, there was a time when being on a bike was as much a part of my life as swimming, running barefoot up and down the lakeshore, or sitting in the branches of a mulberry tree.  Before that phase, there are memories of learning to ride, of standing in the driveway with tear-streaked cheeks, kicking my bike.  My knees and palms were bloody and crusted with dirt and tiny stones.  Our home at that time offered only grass...