This afternoon we stumbled upon Rivendell beside Rush Creek in Bankhead Forest. It was magical. We couldn’t understand why the Alabama woods were so clear of underbrush that we could stroll through like characters in an Austen novel.  Then we remembered the wildfires of last fall.

We wandered through in separate directions following our own rambles as one beauty led to the next, breathing cold air and smelling water and tree trunks. I really did catch glimpses of elves in convocation.

Can anyone go to the woods on a Sunday afternoon without thinking of the morning message? It was on obedience.  I looked at the mosses and barks and confirmed that it only made sense to obey a God who spoke breath-taking matter into breathing being.

And we were dressed for a party, not a hike. Which made it all the more dreamlike.

Amongst the ferns, a thousand hood-shaped leaves on the ground told us this was a cow-cumber grove. I didn’t know cow-cumbers travelled in groves.  🙂

In the crook of her elbow, this Entwife had an eczema.

The elves love January. They are almost material in that bare month.

In the Addison Hyatt’s Market ladies’ room – back in civilization, but still elfstruck – I wondered at the situation that made that sign necessary.

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