After taekwondo Friday night, we went out for Indian food.  I was in the mood for curry – spicy curry.  With this head cold that I was fighting, I decided that it may help.

As we were waiting for our food, Indigo began telling us how they were trying to catch the leprechaun in their classroom.  I guess they have nets and everything.  This led to DJ telling the story about how she and her K/1 class found leprechauns outside of their classroom in the flower beds.  Indigo immediately asks how they found them.  Did they actually see them?

DJ and her friends found mini baseball bats, balls, hats, and gloves.  They also found some plates, I think.  This lead to a great debate among the class as to what to do with their find.  Some of the kids wanted to use it as evidence of the leprechauns, while the other half of the class decided it would be stealing to take it from them.  In the end, they left the leprechauns belonging where they were.  On St Patrick’s day a few days later, the class found leprechaun footprints all over the classroom, and I believe, gold as well.

I had totally forgotten about the leprechauns until that moment.  After they found the stuff in the classroom, DJ had come home and announced we had to make a blueberry pie for the leprechauns.  Blueberry pie was their favorite.  That night, we made one.  The next morning, there were little footprints through the flour that was still on the counter.  This totally solidified her belief.

The girls were getting quite animated about leprechauns at this point.  I asked them if they thought we had leprechauns in our yard.  Both launched into their rationale that there were, indeed, leprechauns living in our yard.  They believe they live in the huge lavender bush in the front yard.  DJ, our scientist and detective, began discussing the evidence she had discovered in the front yard.  Also discussed was the habitat she believed would sustain the leprechauns.  I think I’m going to have to start planting things out there for the girls to find.

Portland has a leprechaun park called Mill Ends Park.   This park was created on St Patrick’s Day 1948 by Dick Fagan, a columnist for the local paper.  This park is 2 feet in diameter and is in the median of a road.  Mr Fagan declared it Mill End Park after he saw a leprechaun digging in the dirt in that location.  He ran over and caught the leprechaun who was obliged to grant him one wish.  Mr Fagan wished for a park named after him.  The leprechaun gave him his hole and said it was his park.  Mr Fagan had failed to describe the size of park he wanted which is important when negotiating with a leprechaun.  It was renamed Mill Ends Park.

What really happened was the city had dug holes for lamp posts, but failed to ever install a lamp post in that hole. Mr Fagan’s office overlooked the hole which became filled with weeds and looked horrible, so he went out and planted it with flowers.  He named it Mill Ends after his column.  And for 20 years, Mr Fagan featured the park and its head leprechaun in his St Patrick’s day column.  After he died in 1969, the city made it into an official park.

I’m sure we will have to pay homage to the park.  But, before then, we will likely be creating our own small leprechaun reserve in our front yard.  I wonder if the girls have thought about how to keep our cat from trying to catch them.  This could turn into a fun little project for them over the summer.  Hmm…