Salamanders

Each year, my inlaws haul our camping trailer to their house and store it for the winter in their yard. They have nice, wide open, mostly tree-free space; we have hilly property that's full of trees.

A few weeks ago, it was time.

As Clarence and his dad worked to hook the trailer to the truck, the girls and I stood nearby with Grandma, chatting. The guys jacked up the tongue of the trailer to take out the cement blocks they had under it. Underneath was a surprise. Two salamanders.

Clarence tried to hand them to Julianne but there was no way she planned on taking them from him.



For whatever reason, she changed her mind.

At first, they were cold and just laid on her hand.

Then they seemed to wake up and started to scurry away. She wasn't quite as keen on holding them anymore.

The girls played with them for a few minutes, then released them into the garden.

Hopefully, Clarence's mom didn't have flashback nightmares to his childhood when he put a big washtub with salamanders under his bed and she, unsuspecting, pulled it out to see why he'd have a washtub under his bed. The dark skittering movements drove her quickly from his room-never to return, as the story goes.