Juno Tic Tacs

September means that we are now picking up buckeyes when we take a walk around the neighborhood. Picking up buckeyes is an annual event that Abbie and I look forward to - I have to say that I get as excited as Abbie does. It's like finding Easter eggs or sharks teeth on the beach or any other unexpected treasure. When I see that dark brown chestnut color shining between the grass blades, I get a little tingle.
When we first started picking up buckeyes, we only knew of one tree in the neighborhood. A year later, we discovered another tree, and this has caused our finds to multiply. The trees are very different - one tree only drops a few buckeys, but they are really big! The other tree's buckeyes are smaller but way more plentiful.
Yesterday, I had to make myself stop picking them up b/c our bag was about to break. It was hard to walk away from the motherload!
Each day that we pick up buckeyes, we leave 3-4 on the doorstep of my friend's house. Abbie usually puts the buckeyes on the doorstep, rings the doorbell, then runs to catch up with us on our walk. My friend's children like finding the surprises. My friend decided she would start collecting them in a bowl for a fall display.
Yesterday, my niece was visiting and we decided to take her with us on our daily walk and daily buckeye pickup. (The location of the buckeye trees is a well guarded secret.) My niece started talking about the scene in Juno when Juno stuffs her friend's mailbox with packs of Tic Tacs. Needless to say, a lightbulb went off in my head.
We wrote 4 rhyminig clues and put the clues and one buckeye in a baggie. We snuck to my friends house and tried to be stealthy in broad daylight while we hid the clues. The last clue was supposed to lead them to their mailbox. We stuffed the mailbox with a gazillion buckeyes and made sure that they would all come tumbling out when the mailbox was opened. Abbie ran to the door and left the first clue and rang the doorbell. While she was running to our hiding place, she lost both flip flops in their yard, but the girl kept running!
It was really fun to stuff their mailbox, but it was also pretty exciting to be crouched down behind the hill waiting for them to make the final discovery. Sometimes, one of us would pop up to see which clue they were working on. We were like gophers! We have a lot of walkers in our neighborhood so we had to "act casual" while being stealthy and crouching - not easy!
My friend had a good laugh about her mailbox, and told her daughter not take the buckeyes out until she took a picture - it's a scrapbooking moment.
When we got home, we told Paul all about our adventure. He wondered what kind of "box" we hid the buckeyes in. I told him, "the federally-owned-you're-going-to-jail-if-you-tamper-with-it mailbox."