Picking Up Sticks

Picked up sticks

One of the first rhymes I knew as a child began, 

   One, two, buckle your shoe
   Three, four, shut the door
   Five, six, pick up sticks
   Seven, eight, lay them straight.

For ten years now I've been doing that—picking up sticks and laying them straight. I think I read somewhere after we moved to SW Washington that it was important to keep the woods cleaned up to lessen fire danger. That's what got me started. But my main reason is to keep the fallen sticks and twigs off the paths through the woods.

Kind of like life. Debris keeps falling on us—things that waste our time or make us ill. We have to be diligent about keeping our lives cleaned up or  we might find that we've tripped and landed on our faces!

Actually, I haven't landed on my face yet walking through the woods, but I have landed on the other end tripping on blackberry vines.

---