Three Minutes in Nature

Normanday #46: The squirrels sure are busy.

Summer is ending. Some of you will be spending much less time outside as the days get colder and shorter. Get outside while you still can and write about what you see, hear, and smell.

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day September 23 (put “Norman Likes Cake” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want next Monday. Include your first name (or, even better, use a pen name) and age (unless you’re tortoise-old). If you’re a published children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

Here is he single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes…

…about people you observe anywhere at all.

Ralph

I’m sitting along a small pond. A little ways off is a dad fishing with three little kids. It’s a weekday afternoon. Maybe the dad is taking the day off from work.

“I got a bite! I got a bite!” one of the kids yells. But when he pulls the line in, all that’s there is the orange bobber. Did he really feel a bite or was he responding to what his dad had just said: “I think we’re just going to go home.” The kids beg not to go home. The dad keeps saying, “We’re just going to go home.” But they don’t leave.

The dad calls one of the little boys “Cole” and tells him to set down the pole so there isn’t another accident, whatever that means. The boy’s pole is at least twice as tall as he is. The dad casts the line. It sails and dives, like a kite, a gust of wind making it dodge and soar. The boys aren’t interested in fishing any more since they can’t hold the poles. They start playing in the nearby field. The dad standing there with the pole looks like maybe he’d rather be at work.