I like living on a farm. I like fields and I like fences with birds sitting on them. I like blowing the seeds from a milkweed pod and watching them fly through the air, and I like to feel the little white fish that is left in my hands after the seeds are blown away. It isn’t really a fish, but it looks and feels like one.
My older brother and his friend have a clubhouse in the wheat field. They found a patch of tall weeds and mashed down the weeds in the middle of the patch. They didn’t mash down the ones on the outside edges of the patch because they were the walls of the hideout. When I asked to play in it they said no girls or little kids allowed. So I found another patch of weeds to make a hideout. My younger brothers and sisters helped. It was fun for a while, but I really have a better place that is my own secret place.
My favorite place is up in a large apple tree in the orchard. We have a cherry tree that is good for climbing, but it is in the middle of the font yard. It’s everybody’s tree. I like climbing up my apple tree better. Then I scoot out on one of the limbs. From my tree I can peek out between the branches and see across the field. I like to sit there and just think about anything I want.
I can hear if Mama calls, and I can climb down to see what she wants. But nobody bothers me in my secret place. I like to listen to the birds and other sounds around. Once I found a worm that looked like a stick. At first I thought it was a brown stick growing on a branch. But something didn’t look quite right. So I touched it, and sure enough it was soft. I pulled it loose and watched to see what it would do.
It crawled like a little green inchworm. First the front part stretched out and then crawled as far as it could. Then the front part clinged to the tree while the back part lifted and crawled up to meet the front. The long skinny middle part stuck up like a loop in the air until the front part stretched away again. I liked to watch it crawl around.
Sometimes I just study the leaves. I take one and pick out all the green part leaving only the thick veins. I can always find something to look at or think about when I’m in my favorite tree.
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