Walden-ford

I went to the woods (with Mother) because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

But then we passed a snake, which I would have been fine with, but Mother had to stop and point and yell 'look, look, a snake! a snake!' until finally I had to turn and look at the small slithering creature. And just when I was back to breathing normal and thinking that maybe snakes aren't so scary, Mother reminded me once again that there was a brood of snakes in our own backyard. And suddenly I didn't need to discover nature any more.

At the end of our walk in the woods, Mother also insisted on taking a loop instead of walking home the way we had come from. The loop was much, much longer than we had anticipated.But afforded some great views of rural life tucked into our well manicured suburbia.