Hmm… What is that?

 It was a remarkable 43 degrees out today.  Unheard of on the last day of December in Maine!  I went out snowshoeing in a field in back of my house and found all kinds of beautiful dried gasses.  Many reminded me of Dr. Seuss characters with their odd formations and twisted, curly leaves but there was an odd object that I kept finding as I tromped through the field - galls. 

Galls

A gall that I found while snowshoeing.  Picture by Eliot.

It is spring

the growing green stalks

are creating storage of food.

I’ll need sustenance

during the long, cold winter.

I bubble up my mixture

and irritate.

I crawl,

surrounding myself

inside what will be

my edible sphere.

I sleep,

waiting for spring.

When I will eat

an escape hatch.

- a poem by Sheila

Sometimes a walk outside gives reasons for a fun writing project.  I wrote the poem about galls after doing a little research.  Encourage your child explore winter and chances are good that topics for writing will be abundant.

One of my favorite blogs for poetry is The Poem Farm.  In this site, the poet Amy LV has been writing a poem everyday and shares where she gets her inspiration.  Lately she has been on a non-fiction spree.  It inspired me to write about the odd formation in the field called galls.