Until we meet again....

The Pig

Josy Jo
RIP sweet gurl.

Lost Souls

Summer in the mountains, it's been lovely so far.
Some pictures of recent rides.

Everything is so lush due to the recent monsoons.

Quick break at the hut before heading up and then down. The skies would open up soon.

Another day, more sun less clouds. Riding high, doing some exploring.

Finding some forgotten paths through the woods.

In search of the great white unicorn. So elusive.

All who wander...are not lost souls.
To be continued.

A Garden

My Mother was a gardener. She enjoyed nothing more than to spend her free time outside in her flower beds. Whether it was weeding, planting, putting in a new flower bed, she loved it and loved getting her hands dirty. My mom was more of a flower gardener, annuals and perennials were her thing. We never had a big vegetable garden but then again we didn't have a big yard, so I think Mom wanted flowers and as many as she could fit in her small space. In the summer she would get up long before my sister and I and get out into her garden before it got too hot or she would run over to a local nursery for some more plants. It was a great pleasure for her and she passed that on to my sister and I. Her thought was that a garden or even a simple pot of flowers on a stoop made a space welcoming and beautiful.

My back deck with its flowers, veggies and herbs.

As a kid I would reluctantly go out and help my Mom with her various projects but as time went on I began to find my own pleasure in the process of planting and nurturing a garden. The deep gratification when in the full of summer the garden was lush and colorful providing a refuge for the eye as well as the soul. It is something simple one can do to make our lives more lovely.

I honor my Mother's memory with my own love of gardening. I imagine how much she would like to sit with me out among my petunias and catmint and strange art pieces stuck here and there. She would love the birds nesting every where and the zippy little hummingbirds, though I'm sure she would think I might have a few too many weeds mixed in with my flowers. I always did hate weeding.
My garden has developed according to my pleasures, my eye and my region and climate. Growing flowers and veggies in the Colorado mountains is a little different than in humid and wet Virginia. A few years ago I planted a lovely little bush in honor of my Mom, it produces these tiny pink blossoms that the butterflies love each summer, the bush has grown and thrived and that makes my heart very glad. To have a garden is to have faith and trust that things will grow with time, effort and care, that the seasons will come and go and the sun will shine down on all of us.