I was writing about slowing down…observing…wee things.

I posted this photograph.

Lots has happened since those two mice made tracks in the fresh snow.

A rabbit enters into the picture.

Either a crow or a magpie seeks out mouse activity at the location.

More mice.

I often think about the patterns, light and colour in nature.  No need to go tripping into the mountains to see the remarkable possibilities or to experience the narratives.  They surround us.

Alex Mulvenna gave me, as a gift, Andy Goldsworthy and David Craig’s book, Arch.  The year she left my class, I had been telling the students how much I would dream to own an Andy Goldsworthy coffee table book.  The gift is a treasure to this day.  Alex is now a woman.

Photograph borrowed from Writes of Way http://writesofway.com/2009/12/16/striding-around-the-arches/

Looking back, I remember the poetry assignment that I shared with my students every year in language arts.  Our school edges on a ridge and below, stretches the Bow River and an exquisite valley…Fish Creek Park links with a wildlife corridor that stretches all the way to the mountains.  We are very blessed.

Some time around May, every year, I assigned the students haiku poetry, but the hitch was to base their poetry on natural sculpture that they had constructed in the river valley.  I spoke to them about the sculpture’s fragility and that it must incorporate the potential for falling victim to the wind, rain, collapse…that purely natural elements to the location needed to be employed.  The project, designed to overlap Easter vacations, seemed, from my end at least, to be consistently successful.  I also asked that the students archive their project.

I continue to have two of these projects out in my studio.  I cherish them.  I cherished all of them.