Written for the ALEC MidSummer Frolicks contest where it came in second place.

Summary: Sometimes summer family reunions can be constructive – literally!

Many thanks to Fiondil and Alassiel for the beta.

Summer Project

The sun lingers longer in the sky each day. The eldest grandmother shows us to the place where we will play. Her choice is lovely for its empty loneliness. Grasses frolic about in the breeze. Gaily they twist and turn their delicate stalks. We apologize to them for coming here. They do not like us much. The trees and bushes rejoice and seek to be near us. We tell them to stay away for now.

My kin of the wood meet like this every year. Joyfully we lay down our burdens. Each of us has been gathering bits and pieces all year in preparation for this. We are so excited!

We move about much in our impatience. The Eldest grumbles and calls us “hasty”.

Hasty is bad.

Arms at our sides, we remain still. She bids us wait. And wait we shall.

When the time of deciding is over, she calls to us. In groups of two, she herds us to our places to play.

My friend Rowan smiles at me. She and I will work together this time. The Eldest says Rowan is calm like deep roots. She is a good match for me to settle my impatience.

Moving with the ease of many years’ practice, we go back and forth to our supplies, making as we go. Using the bones of dead trees and lost branches we make four flat pieces. We lash them together with little vines and stand them up. One of them has a small swinging piece to be a door.  It will keep the animals out and the wee folk in.

Rowan mixes mud and pebbles together. Her gnarled hands move like roots seeking water. I love watching her blend the earth and stones! I help her shape a place to put her hollow stem of rocks and mud. This time we will put it in a corner. I like it in a corner better than in the middle of a side.

I collected many stray feathers in my travels since last time. Feathers are so very soft, but hard to catch! Especially when they snag on branches and lay on the forest floor! I like the blue ones the best. I place handfuls of them on top of Rowan’s little mats of straw. Eldest says beds like this are the best. I have never slept on feathers before. It would take so many feathers to make a bed for me! The birds would have to change feathers for years!

Next Rowan places a flat rock to be a table. I collected some smaller ones to be chairs. Then we build a canopy for our little house. It will keep out the rain. Eldest says the mud and pebbles Rowan fashioned must stand out above the canopy like a tall tree. She says this is safest and makes certain this is always so.

Carefully we break our remaining sticks into tiny pieces. We stack small neat piles of them near our little house. We always have so very many left over! Eldest says this keeps the trees of the forest safe in their winter sleep.

Last we make a garden of plants which have flesh surrounding their seeds. Each one of us speaks to the seeds and kisses them before we put them in the earth. Soon the lovely flowers will bloom and bear fruit.

After many turns of sun and stars, we finish. Eldest inspects our work. With a gratifying Harruummph! Barroom! she blesses each house. We all smile our pleasure and join her in a song which lasts deep into the night.

I have never seen the wee folk come to a house we have made. Eldest says they seek them in autumn when the trees grow weary and lose hold on their tired leaves. Perhaps one day, Eldest will let us stay and see. But not this time.

Now it is time to wander and begin the gathering for next year. With joy I catch my first blue feather. And my journey has only just begun!

The Eldest smiles at me, shaking her head. I am being hasty again. I stash my feather and begin singing the feather song as we melt into the forest once again.

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Note: A friend of mine recently took up making fairy houses. To me the most logical folk in Middle-earth to construct houses for the “wee folk” would be the Ents.