The boys have become fascinated with this little patch of woods between our house and one of the neighbors'. I suppose these woods are technically IN our neighbor's yard, but who's getting technical? I use the term "woods" rather loosely. It's actually about 8 mature trees, planted very close together, with some dead bushes and brush underfoot, all surrounded by a border made up of some pretty good sized rocks. The entire area is about the size of my living room, but to the boys, it's the woods. Anyway, we were out there this afternoon -- I sitting on my favorite rock, the boys exploring. It was chilly, so the boys had on cotton gloves, and Loic was sporting this great knit hat I got for myself in Switzerland, made of the softest yarn you can imagine (yes, this becomes important later). I hear Loic's panicked little voice saying, "Mommmmy! Mommmmy!" so I look around and can't see him -- he's behind one of the trees. I stand up and he's standing there, a look of fear on his face, stuck to this dead-looking plant type thing that's covered in burrs. The more he wiggles and tries to get free, the more burrs he acquires on his gloves and my hat! I was so tempted to leave him there and run to the house to get my camera. It was cute & pathetic, the combination of which always makes for some good pictures. But, I resisted, pried him away from the burr-plant, and stripped him of his winter accessories. I spent the next 15 minutes pulling burrs off of the gloves & hat, all while answering Laurence's never-ending questions about the annoying, prickly little suckers. Those things are persistent! And Laurence, too.
The whole episode reminded me of my first trip to visit Bill the summer after we started dating. His parents live in the country with plenty of acreage on which the various dogs they had over years could explore to their hearts' content (yeah, they even had some real woods). Anyway, their Irish Setter, Erin, ran up onto the porch one day covered in burrs. She looked ridiculous, and I figured she was uncomfortable, so I painstakingly picked each and every one out of her hair. She seemed grateful and laid down in the sun, letting me pet her for all of 5 minutes. Then, up she got, ran off, and came back a few minutes later...covered in burrs. I can only hope Loic has more sense than that darn Irish Setter. I want no more burrs in my near future.
Interestingly enough, I looked up "burr" on Wikipedia just before starting this entry, to make sure I had my terminology right (no, the site doesn't refer to anything as the "dead-looking plant-type thing"), and learned that burrs were the inspiration for velcro.
Erin certainly was a dog who liked to do the same thing over and over for attention! Like the three litters of puppies in a row (double digit litters each time!)! That's a lot of puppies!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great visual of the kids in your woods - gave me a great giggle!