"Trolls or No?"

I have no idea how you feel about trolls. Or especially how you feel about talking of them to young children. I mean, you could get them too scared to sleep in their own beds at night.

Well, a month or so ago Mary read grandson Caleb Merle "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". At the tender age of two and a half, it made quite an impression on him; especially the troll.

And it just so happens that Myron and Heidi's house sets on a little piece of higher group between two small streams. And crossing both of these streams are little bridges.

Doesn't this look a little "trollish" to you? You can almost see one peeping out. The sawmill is just on the other side of this creek and patch of woods.

This one looks like it could come right out of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". See all that green grass on the one side?

Anyway, I just couldn't resist.(I'm a firm believer in children developing a little imagination) I told Caleb one day, "Look, I see a troll bridge!"

He ate it up hook, line and sinker. And ever after that they've been the "Troll Bridges".  Caleb uses a "w" for most of his "r" sounds, but in "bridge" he leaves out the "r" altogether. So it comes out "twoll bidge".

Now, Caleb and me are great buddies and almost every morning when I stop in to pick up Myron on the way to work, Caleb comes running out on the porch in his jammies to talk with me a little.

Nothing like a visit from Caleb to start your day off right!

 We talk about whether a bear came to see him during the night. Or about the "twoll bidges". (You can see both of them from the porch.) We talk about the things we hear running across the creek at the sawmill. He could tell you if it was "Jr's loader" running, the skid-loader,  a forklift, or the chipper making a big gnawing racket as it eats up a big slab from the sawmill.

One morning awhile back we were visiting (and I hadn't said a word that morning about trolls) and I heard a chain saw start up across the creek at the mill. I said, "Hey, I hear somethin' over at the sawmill!"

He got a great big grin on his face and his eyes were shining. "The twoll is cuddin' wood!" he said.