As some of you may recall, the Li’l People came to me from Jules over at Mean Girl Garage. I won her drawing about a month back and my prize was the Li’l People. They arrived in fine shape. Hickory was a little suspicious at first so being the responsible person I am, I had him sniff the box for explosives and/or drugs before opening it.
Once the Wonder Dog gave the “all clear” signal, we unpacked the little people. They were all there: the fat kid, the cowboy, Kanye West, the train engineer, the old hag, the dog, and comb over guy. They’ve spent the last couple of weeks exploring the CatLady’s house. Then last Sunday dawned sunny, crisp and cool. Perfect for exploring the environs of Rochester.So Vlad and I decided to take the Li’l People for a walk at the Thousand Acre Swamp. Or rather, Vlad and I were going for a walk and I insisted on taking the Li’l People with us, much to his chagrin.
The Thousand Acre Swamp is run by The Nature Conservancy. As such it is a preserve, so no domesticated animals are allowed. There are plenty of animals there already... deer, raccoons, herons, coyotes, snakes, etc. We felt slightly guilty because we had to sneak the Li’l Dog in with us. (Although, we first made him promise not to chase the deer.)
The Li’
l People helped us sign in... so the authorities knew whether to go rescue us if we didn’t return by dark.
Then it was off to hit the trails.
We set off down the path. The leaves were plentiful on the ground, so we had to keep a close watch on the Li’l People to avoid stepping on them.
At the end of the long lane, we came to the boardwalk that winds through the swamp proper. The Li’l People enjoyed watching the multitude of birds that live at the swamp and kept their eyes peeled for frogs, fish & snakes in the water.
Mostly we just saw leaves in the water.
Soon after, the boardwalk wends it’s way through the cattails. They’ve not yet exploded into fluff, but are still in the process of drying out. Soon, though, soon! If you’ve never played with a cattail just as it’s about to release its seeds, you haven’t lived. If you get them just at the right time, you can run your fingertip along the brown, velvety section, which in turn creates a sudden burst of light, fluffy seeds. The air around you soon becomes a storm of flying fluff, which sneaks up your nose when you breathe in and causes you to sneeze. Good times! Good times!
Coming to the end of the boardwalk, you enter the woods. Beneath the canopy of trees, there are decaying stumps and logs, ripe with green moss and ferns.
We stopped for several photo ops, which totally embarrassed Vlad as he was worried someone would come by and see us.
Not so nervous, though, that he wouldn’t let Kanye stand guard while he took a leak."Vlad, I'm really happy for you and Ima let you finish, but I just wanna say, Niagara Falls has the most impressive fluid output of all time!" *
*Thanks to Nanodance for improving this line!
From there we entered a section of the woods that was filled with creepy looking vines... perfect for getting into the Halloween spirit. You certainly wouldn’t want to spend much time thinking about what it would be like, fumbling around in the dark in this particular place with zombies after you! Be afraid! Be very afraid!
But eventually, the undergrowth thinned out. We found a couple of cool old trees that had great hide-out potential. The Li’l People asked if they could spend the night, but we had to remind them about dogs not being allowed in the park in the first place. We decided to move on.
Vlad found a tree that had grown over a fallen log... which had since disintegrated. Made for a fun photo op.
Finally, though, it was time to head back through the woods toward home. A good time was had by all and since no one observed our photo shoots with the Li’l People, Vlad is still speaking to me. I’ll just have to work a little harder next time in my attempt to humiliate him in public.
Until next time.....
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Disclaimer: No Li’l People were harmed or lost during the making of this post.
