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...a glimpse into life on Vancouver Island, needle felting, photography, food, gardening, etcetera...etcetera
"Happiness always looks small when you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and at once you learn how big and precious it is."
Maxim Gorky

Showing posts with label creeks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creeks. Show all posts

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Secret, sacred places...

I've been to this place many times but its been a while since I've visited
so I thought I'd give you a little tour again...
 ...down through the woods to the bend in the creek sits a little raft on a cable...
 ...we call it the pull ferry (its self propelled) and Griffs always up for the ride!
 ...it always feels like I'm passing through into another world...
 ...a secret world of childhood dreams...
The woods on the other side are deep and rich and full of life...
 Skunk cabbage grows big on these rain filled boggy paths...
 ...also called swamp lantern because of its gorgeous, strange, spiky flowers...
 I must cut through the farmers field to get around these spots...there's Annie's house where
I had tea that morning..."Hi Annie!"
In no time these grasses will be shoulder high and like tigers we'll sneak through in the summer heat..
 We went to Annie's this morning to see her pink fawn lilies ( you can read more about that here)
 and lo and behold there was some over here too just finishing up their show...
The false lily of the valley was a thick carpet all along the paths...
 ...just getting ready to show it's tiny white flowers any day now...
 ...meandering...
 ...nests of summers past...
Up onto the suspension bridge...
 Yes, that was where Wordless Wednesday was!
 Down by the swimming hole, the water is still too high on the riverbanks to walk
along the shore, but come July our toes will once again
be tickled by tiny fish in dappled cooling waters...
 For now we wander back through the woods...spotting evidence of the sapsuckers...
 ...witnessing the changing colours of the dying trillium...
 Instead of fading, her colours turn vibrant in one last show
...and if you follow an old road, past the weathered fence posts,
treading carefully across the rotting bridge you'll spot a tree...
...not just any tree...look closely...at the bottom...
 ...a sad tale of the woodcutter who loved his wife and child but lost them tragically and
carved his pain into the wood.
Actually I made that part up...they are my trees of mystery of which I know nothing
but I like to imagine him out here on a summers evening with
his tools and a beer...immortalizing those he lost
Heading back, I glance  once more down the secret creek 
and dream of warmer summer afternoons...
These places have become sacred, secrets to me and the few I choose to share them with.
They're worth the quiet whispers and unwritten maps, the places
where sometimes you just have to hold them close.









Thursday, March 27, 2014

The creek starts to sing...

There's nothing like finding a shady, cool spot by a creek or a river
during the height of a hot summers day.
But going up a creek at the beginning of spring is magical.
The jumble of log jams from rushing winter waters has settled in for the time being.
The bones of bears dinners lay strewn about in the woods above the shore.
Rich salmon feasts, now a thing of the past , lay like 
puzzles waiting to be pieced together again.
The tiny vertebrae so beautiful...inspiration for Antonio Gaudi for sure!
Things; flora and fauna alike, asleep for the winter
are now awakening, feeling the dawn on leaves,
petals, slimy skin and bright green moss.
 ...the delicate trillium one of the brightest faces in the woods...
...little wine cup fungus awaiting a fairies dinner party...
...false lily of the valley, lined up, soldiering along the forest floor
Like a book being opened...a new story begins again.
Last years dipper has decided that this spot under the bridge is 
a good, safe place to nest again.
One small ball of twig and moss, now dwarfed by its latest neighbor.
The tiny winter wren, hungry for love, trills out a song as big as the forest itself.
And the water!
Truly perky, alive, dancing over rocks in sensual glides and dives.
Going where water wants to go.
Flowing with abandonment to places great and small.
Settling into pools for armies of fish fry; a safe harbor to grow.
Sunlight speckles rounded rocks polished by the waters touch.
 Ghosts in the wood, man made and nature made alike...
Someone's lost belongings blending in, reminding us of our transparency here.
A lookout perched above the banks, on call for another summer at the creek side.
So I borrow this lovely space for a short time, drenched in the singing of the creek,
watching the world begin once again...
...things watching me perhaps from the shadows of the woods...
...rock hopping like a child through velvet greens, muted by birdsong.
Who knows what treasures and surprises I'll find this time around?