Fervor

The playgroup that K and I attend a few times a week is housed in a great facility. It is not huge but there are essentially two rooms: one decorated for the preschoolers and another set up with long tables where workshops and seminars are held. We were lucky enough to be offered the space to do some distraction-free scrapbooking once a month free of any rental cost. So five moms gathered at the centre for an afternoon of cutting, gluing, playing with markers and stickers is just for the... ahem...grown ups.
One of the ladies tipped us off to what seemed like a fantastic activity, so after C finished his professional exams this week and had Friday off to spend with us, K and I played hookey from group and we were off the the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington. As we crossed the bridge to the Gardens we stopped to marvel at the freight train passed beneath us. We headed down a dirt road and reached a pond that had two beautiful white swans swimming about. Opposite the pond was a trail so we headed down to explore. It was a symphony for the ears and eyes. We came prepared with some sunflower seeds for the chickadees. Sharon had mentioned how friendly they were and the experience was delightful. K was quickly coached as to how to hold her hand and the small birds would predictably perch on a branch close to the hand and then land on the outstretched hand, pick up seed and fly back to the branch to break open the seed. K was told she needed to be quite but that didn't stop her from encouraging the birds to come and feast or saying "There you go! You got one!" as they fed. She had a blast and giggled away which didn't seem to deter the bird from visiting her outstretched palm. We saw at least a dozen brilliant blue jays, a regal red cardinal, some chipmunks and field mice scurrying through the fallen leaves.