Katie kneading bread.

No, I don’t know what Iris is putting in her mouth.

Recurring subject: people I love doing every-day things.

We rode the carousel at the museum,

got photographed in the town photo

(everyone is frowning because the sun was in our eyes),

hung with the big kids in the Norway spruce grove,

watched some sack races,

and generally acted cool.

“Williams Woods may be the best remaining mature valley clayplain forest in the Champlain Valley. This forest type is composed of white oak, red oak, red maple, white pine, shagbark hickory and white ash. Associated species include hemlock, sugar maple, beech and bur oak. Although this forest type once covered thousands of acres in the Champlain Valley, woodlands like these are now rare.”

—The Nature Conservancy

Iris learns to walk on a boardwalk.

They were playing Rocks are Money.

With enough rocks, you can pay someone to take you for an airplane ride.

Later, that person might give the rocks back and ask you to clean his room. If he is your big brother, it might work.

But Iris robbed the bank,

and paid off Tallulah

to drive her around the block

in the getaway wagon,

leaving a trail of ill-gotten rocks and un-ripe apples in their wake.