Walking in the Woods

I’ve been a bit out of sorts lately. Too busy. Too much being sociable, making smalltalk with people I don’t know very well. (Funny it’s taken me so long to recognize my major trigger. Too much of a good thing, I end up feeling overwhelmed, like I need to hide back in my shell! Hmmm. Is it any wonder Finn’s socially troubled?!)

Sorry, got sidetracked for a moment there! Anyway, so Niamh and I ended up in the reserve yesterday for some time out after playgroup (not the naughty-corner kind of timeout, the good kind)

Not five minutes walk from us, there’s this bush reserve. It’s not big – just big enough that by the time we walk into the middle the sound of suburban traffic has (mostly) disappeared. It’s home to a couple dozen kangaroos (mob, I believe, is the collective noun), favourite hang out of all the native birds in the area, and in the summertime, hundreds of tiny skinks sunbathe along the path. I love it. I grew up in regional Victoria, so in some warm fuzzy way it’s like a little piece of home.

We partly headed there yesterday so I could get a picture of my paper crane:

This is for Eve at foldingtrees.com – she’s collecting 1000 ‘peace cranes’ folded from recycled paper and photographed in peaceful places or on peace monuments. (Read more here). Mine is folded from a 10cm square of paper cut from a security envelope – the patterns inside those envelopes are lovely!

So there we were. Photographing cranes, hanging out, goofing off…

I didn’t expect to come across the roos – they’re usually about in the mornings and evenings, and keep out of sight during the day. But there they all were – just chilling out, like us, not far in from the path. I managed to switch camera lenses, get close enough, and keep the wild child quiet enough to take a bunch of photographs. I counted seventeen – the most I’ve ever seen in there all together. Well… eighteen, if you count the little cutie hanging out in mum’s pouch there 🙂

So nice. Feeling better now. It’s good to have all that just five minutes away.