Hi Sharon,
Big storm, federal offices in the DC area are closed, and I am home without power, but am safe and warm. My laptop and little hot spot still have battery life, and I have spent a very enjoyable morning catching up with DG friends and searching out some of your stories. I re-read your article on graveyard moss which is featured today on DG and your recent blog entries here on ATP. Your stories always make me feel happy. Most of them also evoke some tucked away memory of my own, maybe that is another reason they always make me feel happy. Sometimes all it takes is little nudge to see the wonders that are right in front of us or the memories just waiting to be rediscovered.
Your blog post about "roots" brought to mind a conversation that I had many years ago with my Aunt Mary Lou, sounding very much like what I imagine your ninna sounding like. She had brought a trunk load of pass along plants from her cottage style garden in Pittsburgh. I was enthusiastically taking everything she had that had purple, pink, or white flowers, but was politely suggesting that the bright reds, oranges, and yellows go up the hill to my mother's garden. You see, I just prefer the cooler shade pallet for my woodland garden. She finally told me, "but Terri, God made flowers EVERY color of the rainbow". Such simple wisdom. I think of her every time I see those bright sun shine flowers. She is now 75 years young, and still gardening her backyard riot of color.
And now this blog post. I love the message, but it also evokes the thrill I felt when I first discovered may apple flowers. Back in the late 1980s when I first bought these wooded acres, the banks along the creek were covered with the little umbrella plants. I was new to everything related to the woods and was trying to determine what they were from a little native plant field guide. The description mentioned the flowers, so I went back for a second look, getting down on my hands and knees to find them. Life is filled with little thrills.
