Gold!! (......Hey, It Could Happen)

Unbelievably warm January weather lured me outside.  As amazing as it seems, there was still ice on the frog pond.  I scanned the banks looking for something to hurl at the ice.  A rock!!  Yes, a rock should certainly shoot a hole through the ice!  To my surprise that rock, a second rock and a ruler-sized stick all skidded to a stop on the ice.  Aussie Pup stepped with front legs into the pond's edge to get a mouthful of ice (y?  idk.).  A few tadpoles swam away from the bank...weird.

The tiny stream that empties into the frog pond invited me to walk it.  Aussie Pup and Harry went along.  Water winding its way to the pond trickled quietly around piles of rocks and wads of dead leaves.  There were raccoon paw prints in the soft silt.  Almost unconsciously I started looking for wild cougar prints...you never know.  I broadened my search to include something cool...like an arrowhead or an intact pterodactyl skeleton.

Guess what happened..... Nah, not that.  With every step I took up that little stream, my internal odometer turned back until I was 10 years old again.  My search shifted again.  My kid self started looking exclusively for gold.  I used the palm of my hand to "pan"  holding the sediment in the sunlight hoping against all odds that there would be even a piece of gold the size of a glitter molecule.  My adult brain said, "Impossible!"  My kid brain said, "Don't you mean 'improbable?'"  (precocious kid brain......overachiever!)

You know that feeling when you sense that someone is watching you and thinking you're the biggest idiot that ever drew a breath?  Well, I don't know who was watching...maybe it was my boring adult conscience....but I stopped looking for gold.   When I told Cowboy about it, he said I should take a little plate out with me next time.  I smiled and said, "yeah"  all the while wondering who that was wearing the Cowboy's body and clothes...then it dawned on me .... it was his kid self.

It isn't warm enough to wear this outfit.....yet!