Grow up?

Rabbit to Bear:

It's hard, I know. But together we can get through these tough spots.

Unicorns, dragons, teddy bears, and dinosaurs. I really enjoy them. If they are really small, I like them even better. They are easier to carry in a pocket or section of a backpack.

Toys sent to me by
a childhood friend

Some of my garden
'toys'

I mean come on, don't we adults need to play once in a while too?

I did have toys as a kid and I wasn't a disadvantaged kid at all. I think we did pretty well. We had those funky hard plastic and brittle legos. We had little soldiers, we had erasers that we used as toys instead of erasers. I had a dragon, my sister had a pink kitty, and I don't recall what my brother had. We always were 'setting' up battles on the ping pong table in the basement with the soldiers. We made the Kitty Motel out of legos. 

We did horrible things to our Barbie Dolls and once hung our GI Joes from the iron beams in the basement with clothesline rope. 

In the summer at the cottage we had wooden blocks that had come from construction of the tiny place we lived in. 

We had marbles we had decks of cards.
We had the outdoors. My sister and I had trolls.

Summers were spent with no phones and no TV. Play time was what we could make of it when not working in the garden with our grandparents or helping with the processing of vegetables.

Oh well, I digress. 
I like toys. I like to take them out and use them for Still Life or stories. I used to do that with Morris and his collection of toys. 

I asked my childhood friend if she thought I was nuts and she said "No, I just love that you still find time to play and keep your mind creative."

As a kid I always made up stories to go with the things I was playing with. We'd set up toys be it the rubber erasers or perhaps our stuffed animals and we'd dictate what we imagined they were saying.

Bones to Unicorn...

Wow I thought you all 

were extinct too!

I love unicorns and mythical creatures. I have forest critters too and for a couple of years, my neighbor kids adored the adventures of The Doe Story. I took photos of a deer figurine I had and she had wonderful adventures in my woodlands with unlikely characters.

Dino to Doe: No worries!

I'm a vegetarian now!

I shared those online for her kids. 

It morphed into other stories too.

I'm glad to know that that kid that is still inside likes to come out to play once in a while.

After all, who can resist neat little toys? 

So many of those toys were donated.

Cast off soldiers find their way often into my pockets:

Halt!

The Creek Bears

at the Desk

The toys entertain me when I am at loss as to what I might want to photograph. I like taking them out into the forest and finding places to pose them.

Rabbit to Bear:

I'll sit with you.

Maybe I will never fully grow up. I guess that is okay too. 

Wait until you see my new Dragons!