Flowers and Forests

Where flowers meet
The forest floor 
We see God's glory
And so much more

The sun sends its rays
Into the colourful haze
That merges the grasses 
Into the forest maze

A forest of trees 
Of grasses and grains
Come together until
A palette of colour 
Is all that remains

Memories of Fall

Fall, Leaves, Falls,

Fall, Leaves, Fall. by Emily Bronte

Fall, leaves, fall;

die, flowers, away;

lengthen the night and shorten the day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossoms where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

Accidental Gardens

The colours of summer’s end…….

Earth Day in Photos

Another year around the sun.

Oh, to Fly

Oh, to fly.
To fly away,
with the wind 
on a breezy day!

To be set free,
where I can be
like that branch,
high in the tree.

I went for a walk, 
in my forest today. 
My first walk
since things were blown away.

The earth was still. 
The ground was wet.
It was the best walk,
that I've ever had!

The Colour Yellow

Peaches

Originally cultivated in Eastern China, peaches now grow in the gardens of a wonderful and generous friend literally ten minutes from our home.

In many cultures, the peach is a symbol of prosperity and abundance. These trees, planted three years ago, are bearing fruit for the first time. The boughs are so heavy laden with fruit that supports have been put in place to keep the branches from breaking.

Four, four litre baskets of freshly picked peaches and the trees hardly notice.

In the words of the late John Prine.

We blew up or TV
Threw away our paper
Went to the country
Built us a home
Had a lot of children 
Fed 'em all peaches 
They all found Jesus on their own.

My Little Piece of Eden

I began the process of building this garden when my children began leaving home to pursue post secondary education.

Back then, the area was a small forest partly on our lawn but mostly in our field

A large, three trunked, old Manitoba maple tree was its focal point. Under its enormous boughs was the remaining sands of a large sandbox that was slowly being over run by a variety of ground covers and grasses.

An old apple tree, a lilac bush, and a number of oak and maple saplings covered the area. I trimmed and clipped and trimmed some more. I added a bench, a bit of a stone wall, a few hostas, and some English ivy.

A beautiful shade garden emerged. A canopy that provided shelter from the rain for the person resting on the bench.

Then, one day, while I was away, one of the three large trunks of the manitoa maple tree came crashing down, taking with it most of the oak and maple saplings. By the time I returned home, the remaining two trunks, now unsafe, had been taken down. A mass of branches and wood were all that remained.

I cried. I mourned the loss of my beautiful trees and the comfort they had provided me.

Then the sun came out. New opportunities poked out their little heads.

The hostas and the periwinkle began to bloom. The stump ends of the fallen trees , I covered with beautiful pieces of stained glass.