A beautiful walk and picnic today at Many Springs with my dear friends and family. Throughout the hike, I was thinking about our sister-friend, Wendy, who died this past year. I also thought deeply about my brother, John. His son was able to join us on this Father’s Day and I felt such heart ache for him. I didn’t talk about anything that was going through my head though, and instead, made a real effort to frame my thoughts around internal monologues such as,
Wendy would say…
“This day is incredible.”
She would say…
“This picnic is fabulous.”
My brother would say…
“Thank you, Sis.”
I held a lot in today, but that’s alright.
In past years, whenever one of us would pop our heads out of the shade of some bush, asking, “What is this one?”, Wendy would come back quickly with the name of the flower, or would look it up in her reference information.” We are always going to miss this and so much more.
I’m grateful for the rituals that we share and for the many memories we have collected, as friends and family. While I didn’t allow the emotions to surface, I felt them all and that too, is very special.
Some of the brilliance of this day is captured in these photographs, but not all. We all missed our friend, Darlene, today. She was also in our hearts.
In 2013, the great flood occurred and my mother died after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. I went home in June in order to stay with my father through the following months. I watched the news of the flood from Belleville, Ontario.
I didn’t take a photograph of the Sweetvetch (Hedysarum (sweetvetch) is a genus of the botanical family Fabaceae, consisting of about 200 species of annual or perennial herbs in Asia, Europe, North Africa, and North America.) that was dominating the walk today, but just now read that its roots are a very common and well-loved source of food for Grizzlies.
We didn’t spot any Western Wood Lilies today or Bracted Bog Orchids.
Yellow Lady’s Slippers
Blue Columbine
Aromatic Juniper
Wild Violets
Dodecatheon pulchellum, commonly known as pretty shooting star, few-flowered shooting star, dark throat shooting star and prairie shooting star, is a species of flowering plant in the primula family Primulaceae.
Paintbrush
Western Anemone
There have been summer thunder storms each evening for three nights and besides setting my pooch to shivering, they created quite a drama about things. I’ve finally finished with my intense clean-up in my six-by-six foot storage space that floated in an inch of water…and for who knows how long? It was a bit of a bee in my bonnet as I wanted to be doing other things to get ready for family visits and summer vacation. I’ve now resigned myself to ease off on the pressure.