“Over here!” Charles Peterson called to his friend Sammy. “I need your help with this one.” He grabbed one end of a huge dead branch—more like a tree, practically!—and tugged as hard as he could. It didn’t move.

Sammy trotted over. “That’s a big one,” he said, looking down at the branch. “Let’s drag it over to the fire pit. It’ll make awesome firewood for the party later on.”

It was a chilly day in May. A few patches of blue polka-dotted the mostly gray sky. Charles and Sammy, and the rest of their Cub Scout pack, were busy helping clean up Loon Lake Park for the summer season. When they were done, their families would meet them there and they would celebrate with the first cookout of the year.

Charles and Sammy were on the “pick-up” team. Their job was to pick up any branches or twigs that had fallen over the winter. Other teams were gathering trash, raking, and hauling the raked leaves to a big pile.

Charles didn’t mind the work. It was fun to be at the park before the official opening day. In a few weeks, there would be kids racing around the playground, noisy volleyball games, and swimmers and kayakers splashing in the water. Now, everything was quiet and peaceful. The grass was just starting to turn green, the leaves on the trees were tender and new, and the colorful canoes and kayaks were still piled on shore, waiting for their first voyages across the lake.

Springtime at Loon Lake Park was special, but Charles also liked being there in the middle of winter, when his family had a tradition of having a picnic each year. It was even quieter then, when snow covered the grassy areas and thick ice trapped the sparkling waters of the lake.

Charles would never forget the winter day when his family had seen a puppy fall through the ice. That had been so scary, but with the help of a special cold-water rescue team they had saved the curly-haired pup. Noodle had become one of the Petersons’ favorite foster puppies as they tried to find out where he belonged. Lizzie, Charles’s older sister, had become especially attached to Noodle and had a hard time saying good-bye to him when the time came. But that was what fostering was all about: The Petersons only kept each puppy long enough to find him or her the perfect forever home. Even the Bean, Charles’s younger brother, understood that.

“Remember Noodle?” Charles asked Sammy now, as they dragged the big branch toward the ring of stones near the sandy beach. It was slow going, but with both of them pulling hard they could keep moving.

“Of course,” said Sammy. “I remember every single one of your foster puppies.”