A Magical Mothers Day

I trust all my lady friends and families had a nice Mothers Day. Although for many it can be a poignant day, for those missing a mother or child who has passed on.

Hopefully you will have enough happy memories to have made the day as sweet as possible. I am thinking especially of Kayla's Mom and also of our Friend and his six children who lost their mother a few months ago.

I have seen many an elderly lady or gent moved to tears on mothers day upon hearing the Flower Talk recited by a young boy in Demolay. So it is a special day of remembrance and appreciation.

I had a lovely Mothers Day. Heidi gave me the gift of a tour in the nearby forest in all its spring time glory.

This is Harry Hooge Park, just a two minute walk from the house. It is behind the local Elementary school. It is a fair size park that is a forested ravine with a small fish bearing creek at the bottom.

The creek eventually empties into the south Alouette River. There are occasional black bears that wander up the ravine, causing the schoolchildren to have to stay in at playtime. We have also seen deer and coyotes. But they all stayed out of sight Today. The wildlife only like to show themselves when I don't have a camera handy!

It has some formal type, easy paths that are open and surrounded my lawns and other well kept paths through the trees.

Some trails though are only accessible at this time of year, especially to the less adventurous types, such as myself.

One of my favorite plants in here is the ferns. They grow here by the hundreds and are so big and lush, I almost expect to see fairies sitting upon the fronds! Just a magical place.

Oh! But what do I see here? A wee fairy perched upon the root of a cedar tree!

During the rainy weather, these steep dirt paths are treacherously slippery. In the the height of summer, the undergrowth and brambles become too dense to get through.

Heidi wanted me to see the masses of wild flowers. We saw buttercups, bleeding hearts, Lady's mantle, forget me nots, some gorgeous fungi.

She also showed be the "butterfly" leaves and several nurse trees.

Nurse trees are fallen trees or rotten stumps that support a seedling such as this baby cedar tree.

Thank you Heidi for this wonderful gift. She also made me a fabulous breakfast and gave me a beautiful peice of driftwood >sculpture" for the garden. David called from Powell River to say hello and Andrew dropped in with a coffee and a gift card for Timmies Coffee Shop!

Have a good week everyone.

Morning Mist

This is the sun this morning.

Foggy friends.

Woken up at 0620 by a son whose alarm clock had let him down. Now too late to catch the bus, was begging me for a ride.
With a slight groan I rolled out of bed and drove the little fella off to work.

Thankfully, traffic was light. If I had stayed in bed, I would have missed the beautiful early morning mist. By 0900 it had burned off to a nice sunny morning.

Golden Ears Bridge

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Golden Ears Bridge Opening Ceremonies.

Video at the end of this post of the un"official ribon cutting".







This was a day our family has been waiting for for years.
My Dad, of Outhouse Capital of Canada fame, is a bridge collector. Here he is at the temporary outhouses on the new bridge deck.
He is fascinated by bridges. Wherever he travels in the world, he works bridge sightseeing into his itinerary and he photographs them. (He also collects Total Eclipses of the sun, but thats another post all together!). We have all been on standby to support him on this day.
This silly grin was plastered on his face all day in spite of the crowds and heat. I can guarantee you that he was the happiest man on the bridge that day, which is saying something, as there were an estimated 60,000 people there that day!
There was a fly over. See the planes? It was an incredible experience to walk down the center of a six lane bridge, knowing I will most likely never do so again. We were making history , so I was told!
It is a beautiful work of engineering, and will make a huge difference to commuters and the traffic in our area.

He brought his own ribbon and scissors and had us help him "officially" open the bridge with his own ribbon cutting ceremony before the premier could do it. He actually drew a crowd of onlookers who all had a good chuckle!