Do you ever think that life shows you, gives you, just what need, when you need it, as you need it?

Case in point, entering every day into the world of gentleman farming at Totem Hall, I pass a little corner in my home.  Until yesterday, I never paid it any mind.  It was just stuff.  But for some reason, for some reason, yesterday was different; I sat down and, as if for the first time, I saw the stuff of dreams, stuff of boys…

Blessed, our family has always lived surrounded by nature.  Nature has all sorts of bugs, butterflies, tadpoles, and baitfish that need catching by young boys.

My two sons and I like to hunt and fish.  After summer camp one year, one of the little rascals, maybe both got the idea of bow hunting and fishing.  So we bought an archery set.  Now the only thing left is the bow, the arrows are long gone.

I take long walks on our land.  Because of the possibility of running across a rattlesnake or water moccasin, just about all the time I’ll carry a stick with me.  For me, it’s better than a machete, which is too close quarter.

My part of the world has quail.  Sometimes even if your dog sets and holds, the bird might be a bit reluctant to get up and fly.  The boys use this strap to beat the bushes in hopes of getting the bird to move along.

Both the lacrosse stick and baseball bat are relics of the past.  My oldest son earned a varsity letter playing lacrosse at Avon Old Farms School.  My youngest tried baseball when he was much younger, maybe not even ten, in the end deciding the sport was too slow for him.

I did not even talk about golf, or tennis, or squash, whose tools of the trade you can see in several of the pictures.  And there is no way I can possibly describe how much fun I had teaching and then getting bested by my two, just a great way for me to grow up and stay young at the same time.

Okay, I staged this scene, but still, why not a bit of poetical license, after all we are all adults here.  The oldest is off to college in Savannah by the end of the weekend, moving into a home with four other roommates.  God help the poor landlord.  Then our youngest son leaves for Virginia and the start of his boarding school career next week.

Time moves along downstream like a river, always present, always changing, always there, never there…