The sycamore trees are shedding their bark.  It is a lovely thing.  Great curving curls of thin bark litter the road and grass in the cemetery.  This annual shedding is a great source of entertainment.  Last week when I was walking my dog, there was a sound of frantic scrabbling overhead.  I looked up to witness a squirrel desperately trying to gain purchase on the trunk of a sycamore tree.  Each attempt to find a hold ended with the bark peeling away under its grasp.  Very quickly the poor squirrel over-balanced and crashed to the ground not far from where Hazel and I stood.  The look of surprise on my dog’s face was beautiful.  I could imagine that she was thinking that the squirrel was a gift from the sky just for her.  Thankfully the squirrel had hit the grass and not the road and it took off quickly, before Hazel could react.  That moment was an added bonus to the usual entertainment that sycamore bark provides.  The joy of stomping on it.  There is the general crunch of walking through it, and the scrape and scratch of dragging your feet as you pass through.  The absolute best is when you come across a length of curled up bark and you stomp on it.  The crack, crackle, crunch noise, feeling it collapse under foot, pieces of it dancing away with the impact, the shapes created, and the feeling of happiness of a good stomp.  I had an epiphany that stomping must be my thing: slush stomping, mud puddle stomping, rain puddle stomping, sycamore tree bark stomping, and bubble wrap.  Ooo, big pieces of bubble wrap , the kind with the big bubbles….