Ok, there's a story to this photo. It's our nature shelf, with items collected from over 25 years of my husband's working in the woods. There are items ranging from crystals to bird skulls, arrowheads to trippy twisted bits of wood, rattlesnake rattlers to old bottles, interesting bits of rocks, birds nests, and pieces of broken china. When John found something interesting he would bring it home after work to show Gen and Bree, our daughters, and myself. These things would then go onto the shelf. 25 years of memories.

We are both city kids who moved "back to the land" in the 70s. We grew our garden, raised chickens for their eggs, raised goats for their milk, had geese for the heck of it—dogs and cats, birds because we love animals. John was lucky and got a job in the woods. First he worked fixing an old wooden flume that served as our towns water system, later he got into reforestation.

Things have changed, we still live in in the same house but gone are the geese, chickens and goats. The garden is still here, but is not as large as it used to be. John works with trees but it is in more of an orchard type situation.

(No creatures were harmed in procuring the items seen here, all were found—including the birds nests, which were found on the ground. The cockatiel eggs were sterile. This is only a portion of the shelf.)