This may look like a bag of crap, but really, it's full of wondrous and spectacular treasures.
Don't see it? I'll explain. Last Saturday, when I'd been working pretty much twelve days straight, at some point I realized that I was starting to turn into Jimmy Jet in that Shel Silverstein poem. So I decided to take an hour and go take a walk with the girls -- oh, and because The KoH had to work that Saturday and I could no more spend another day in the house with both girls than I could have tried out for a tight end position on the Pittsburgh Steelers and started in the next game. To make it more interesting, I took this idea from the Frugal Family Fun website that I'm currently obsessed with and decided to have an Autumn Treasure Hunt. I gave the list and a pencil to The Dormouse and we wandered off into the woods behind our house, praying that The Goatman or The Bunnyman didn't get us. I promised The Dormouse a blog post of our adventures so here's our list and a photo essay of what we collected:


Autumn Treasure Hunt

something that is alive

Our Something Alive caught us by surprise when we looked up to see this leaf suspended in mid-air. I postulated that a magician had been down the trail just before us, leaving random levitating leaves in his wake, but The Dormouse rejected my theory and instead found this gal:

a marbled orb weaver. She was so big that I'm pretty sure she could have tried out for the Pittsburgh Steelers and blown the competition away.

A little later on, we found this guy:

Random Frog. (too lazy to look through all the Google images to figure out what kind he is) Needless to say, these two are the only things that didn't make it into our bag and get carried home because we are wildlife warriors.

a leaf with jagged edges


an interesting weed

This weed wasn't all that interesting to me, but I guess when you've under four feet tall, you see the world in a different way. A much closer way.

a dry leaf

This leaf couldn't be much dryer.

a leaf with smooth edges

See? This, I would have put in the "interesting weed" category. But then again, I'm not the treasurer hunter.

three acorns

We had almost given this one up for lost. We stared at the ground for nearly an hour and never found a single acorn. Then as we were on our way back home and exiting the forest, I stopped to take something out of The Caterpillar's hands and this what was in it. I'm still not sure if she was really looking for them or not.

a seed from a tree

Is a gum tree pod technically a seed from a tree? I vote yes, because I was getting tired of chasing them around in the forest.

a twig


a pinecone

This was another really hard to find item, as there are no pine trees in the woods we visited. It was also another item we found just as we were leaving the woods to go home. What it was doing there, I do not know. But we finished the list, so I'm not complaining.

a handful of grass

You'd be surprised how many handfulls of grass we had to pick to find the right handfull of grass.

a red leaf


a yellow leaf


a green leaf


a smooth stone

This one almost caused a need for dry clothes. Also, there may or may not have been a dead turtle in the water right next to it. I went with the, "Oh I think he's probably just sleeping" excuse. Wonder how long before that will cease to work?

three little pebbles

There was quite a bit of discussion as to whether the stone above was also a pebble because it was not much bigger than these pebbles. It fell on disinterested ears.

wild berries

I can never remember if these are poisonous or not. I just subscribe to the "don't put any wild berries in your mouth at all" camp.

a leaf bud


a piece of bark


a tiny bit of moss


So that's it for our Autumn Treasure Hunt. Maybe next time I'll actually bury some treasure.