Oatmeal didn't settle so well this morning, so I asked Sam to go for a little walk with me.

At the end of our street there lies a tiny ravine with a little stream running through it. Sam loves the little path that cuts through it, hops over the stream and emerges onto the next street over.

It's mostly nettles and blackberries and we often have to pick out the trash careless people toss down there, but it's also a marvelous bit of wilderness.

Today we noticed how much nice wet sand had collected on the river bed. Sam started piling it over a log and I took a stick and made spirals... Soon we had built quite an ornate little village complete with leaf storage enclosures and big smooth castle-like mounds with pretty pebbles on top.

It felt good to be there with my Samboy, crouching there in the wet sand, looking up occasionally at the sunlight filtering through the jungle of ivy-laden trees and spiderwebs, burying our hands in the fine soft wet silty sand that welled up between our fingers almost as squishy and malleable as clay. Sadness welling up in me too, for the missing Daniel, building cities in the sand together...

Ouch! Sam cut himself on a broken bottle shard as he was washing his hands off in the stream. Yikes, dirty glass! Luckily we weren't too far from home and rushed him back for emergency soap and bandaid attention.

Po' boy. He took it well though.