Walking in the Sunlight ~~ a Quil Dancing writing assignment

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Quilly is the boss of this writing assignment. She said, "Since (traditionally) May is the month of flowers and gardens, your story should include a garden, some kind of critter or creature, and this wonderful log. (Photo courtesy of SouthLakes Mom.)"

Her requirement was to stay under 500 words. So I will try doing this [made it with 488 words]:

Walking in the Sunlight

When I walk in my garden I love to do it towards evening when things are cooling down a bit. But today I wanted to see how the tree surgeon had fared with my large old tree. So my dog Bruce and I went during the heat of the afternoon to ‘inspect the premises.’

When we were approaching the tree I could tell there were troubles. The tree was gone, entirely except for the stump. The stump wasn’t much to see. Tree worms had hollowed out the entire trunk of the tree. No wonder it had looked bad.

But now it looked even worse with its large gaping wormhole. Too bad we didn’t choose to come in the evening and we wouldn’t have been greeted with this ugliness. Well, we are here.

“Bruce, what in the world are you doing messing around in that hole?”

I didn’t expect an answer from Bruce, asking a question of a dog is strictly rhetorical. But just then he did answer with a wild and vicious series of low growling sounds.

Peering down into the hole I could see what the trouble was. A mother kitten had moved her brood right down into that hole. People and animals know that I am a softy for baby kittens. But what kind of a home would this old hollow stump make for them?

About that time I saw a buzzing overhead and something flitting back and forth over the stump and us. Bruce growled even fiercer. I sent him back to the house.

Then I knew; it was the garden fairy who would visit from time to time to help make my garden a little softer in nature. This time she commanded me to bring out some ancient baby blankets that I had been saving since the children outgrew them.

I brought them back and under her direction placed them neatly in a protected area down in the stump. Then I moved the kittens onto the blanket gingerly. They still had their eyes closed and looked rather ugly laying there. Now they were out of the sun much better than their mother had left them.

My fairy had one last request. On her last visit she had brought me a garden fairy statuette. Would I please get this sculpted fairy and place her on guard over the kittens’ new home?

So I did. The garden looked a little better with the fairy there. Her name was Arwin, the friend of all the gentle creatures of the wood and field (link).

Soon I planted some new summer flowers around the stump. The mother kitten had returned and seemed to love this new home.

I surely am glad that Bruce and I elected to come out in the hot and do our walking in the sunlight.

And the kittens, the mother cat, Bruce and I, and Arwin lived there happily ever after.

Garden pictures taken by Jim (me) at Albert-Kahn Gardens, Paris (link)