Under the Sea...

Oh, under the sea!

That's the refrain I sang early this morning.

I felt like Disney's Little Mermaid exploring her childhood environment, discovering treasures and encountering creatures.

The difference? Instead of swishing my fishtail to propel myself under the water, I squished along in my dew-soaked sneakers through my family's farm pasture where a river runs through it.

The wetness didn't hinder my enjoyment as I discovered:

Bracket fungus resembling coral reefs.




A risk-taking wasp hanging on a spotted touch-me-not.





A spider web – more than three-feet in diameter – shimmering in the morning light.

(Its enormity made capturing the whole web impossible under this lighting. Only after I circled and marveled at the creation did I wonder from where its creator watched me. Oooo...)


Three kings' crowns stacked on top of each other...
Or at least, that resemblance.

(Decades ago, my dad taught my siblings and me how this hollow-stalked plant could be pulled apart at these joints and, like a 3-D puzzle, be reconnected. Because of this phenomenon, Dad's family dubbed the plant: joint weed. I've since learned its formal name is horsetail.)

A one-eyed troll sipping from a straw.

OK, maybe that's a stretch with this tree knot.

(Today Dad explained: more than 50 years ago, his father attached a metal "L-shaped" brace into the tree, so the pasture gate could swing on it. Eventually, the tree grew over the brace, forming the knot, and then began absorbing the gate post.)


What fun to let one's imagination run back to the days of youth and...

Under the sea... Oh, under the sea!