Morel bell for old ranch house

Now I can really ring a bell for lunch.  It even brings Doco (usually) from the squirrel barn workshop.  And it sounds beautiful (if a bit loud right in your ear).

Carl Schlichting bell and Rabi'a banner

a swing in the willow

Just before suppertime on her last day of almost two months at New Denver, with the help of assorted parents and third cousin Samuel, and last-minute drilling of rope-holes with Doco, Ellen had a swing in the willow tree.  Lovely!  Alice and Lily had left three weeks ago - it'll be waiting for you next summer.

With a newly-cut cedar plank as the bridge across the brook, with many armloads of dead twiggy willow branches hauled to the burning pile by Ellen and Alice earlier in the summer, and with the continuing rapid growth of a happy willow with its feet in the marsh, the 'secret place' gets more and more inviting.  On this special occasion, we grownups were given fern-frond tickets to enter to view the swing and even try it - but, alas, the space between the ropes favours those less broad of beam.