Even as a child, I was fascinated by what I saw as small worlds, miniature gardens. Last month my niece came to visit. As we walked down to the barn one morning during her stay, I noticed that the snow fleas * were out, in force. It is a bit hard to pretend that they aren’t there when the snow is literally peppered with them, jumping around. If you aren’t familiar with snow fleas, you might know them as "springtails". As she reached down to grab a fistful of snow, probably to eat, I said, (not wanting to alarm her or gross her out too much) ooohhh… look, the springtails are here! At this point I’m thinking that she’ll never want to play in the snow after seeing all of those bugs. But, a wonderful thing happened. She said, ‘It’s like Horton Hears a Who. There’s a whole world in my hand.’ And that was the start of a wonderful conversation.
On my last good snow shoe hike, I found these little gardens, worlds unto themselves.
When I see something like this, my imagination kicks in..
Someone should write a book.
* Achorutes nivicolus
Comments
5 responses to “walk with me wednesday.. small worlds”
If you write a book I promise to buy it for the library. 🙂
The photos triggered some hazy memories from my own childhood. The details are lost, only the wistful nostalgic ache remains. I was that child, too, seeing small worlds everywhere, some real, some imaginary, and the best ones a combination of both. Thanks for reminding me.
What an amazing universe we live in–
it is good to stop and ponder the wonder of it all…and let the imagination take over.
(is it just me, or does that last photo look like an elephants trunk?)
Let’s see. You write well. You take stunning pictures. You have the vision. Who should write this book? Hey! Maybe YOU could write it! I’ll cheer, encourage, and buy several copies!
We have snow fleas too. You’re right – a mouthful of those would be truly gross! I love the “small worlds” in our larger world. That’s how I learned about all of the transformations a ladybug larva goes through before hatching out as a beetle- on one of my eggplant leaves 🙂