Killing Time or Filling Time?

Dear Diary,
I walked a new path yesterday morning.

We moms have the pleasure of dealing with down time.  That 20-40 minutes of time spent between dropping one kid off at soccer, bringing another to piano lessons, and waiting that half-hour or more until said children need to be picked up again.  It's not long enough to go home and come back, and if we are lucky, we can run to a store to pick up milk or other needed item.  We can feel really efficient on those days-- when we've put our down time to "good use."

But sometimes the stores aren't open at 8:00 a.m., or they aren't within 5 minutes of the drop-off point.  That's when we need our office or our library in our car.

Oooh, I got 20 minutes.  Did I leave my book at home? 
Rats, I left the mail on the counter; could've run to the post office. 
Where's my iPad car charger, I can't finish my game of Solitaire!

We moms are masters of efficiency, even in our down time.

Take yesterday.  Probably our last 75-degree day of the season.  I had 30 minutes of  time to kill, er, down time, after dropping the kids at school, and before going to the dentist.  The library isn't open then, but there is an area behind it I have been curious about.  I decided to use that time to go see it.  It's a designated open space called Library Springs.  Here is my mini photo album.

These boots were made for walkin'. 
After a couple of days of rain, and going into uncharted territory, I wasn't taking any chances!

 

A few paces into the woods and I found this growing out of a tree. Can you see it?

 

When I walked around the tree to get a better shot, I found another!  There were more, even higher, in other trees.  Cool!





OK, that's not my photo. 
But imagine seeing six deer high-tail it across your path.  That is what happened! 

 

I saw a few springs along the way.  This is just one I happened to take a pic of.
Hard to tell, but I was up high, looking down onto the spring in the distance.

 

All this (and my other undocumented sightings) was just a 20-minute walk through the forest behind one local library.  Not a bad way to  kill -- I mean fill -- those minutes!

 

Fleetingly Yours,

LJ