wildflower walk

This morning the kids flew through their schoolwork, amazing since it took Will until 1:30pm to finish yesterday. So, while they were finishing up their math, I made up a picnic lunch and put everyone's shoes on. We flew out the door and had a wonderful trip to the Botanical Gardens for about 2 hours. We toured the more formal gardens first and then headed across the road to the nature trails where I often run in the afternoons. The spring flowers were out in force, from the delicate Anemones to the sturdy Mayapples. Often I called the kids back from wherever they had run off to, "Come see this rare Trillium! Oh, look, the wild ginger is blooming!"

I never knew when I was 16 how much one class project would influence me, but a huge part of our grade in AP Biology was from our wildflower collections we worked on during the 2nd semester. I decided, along with one other student, to not take a partner and do the entire project by myself. I have wonderful memories of Mother and I going to various parks and gardens, pulling over on the side of the highway, "STOP! I see a flower I don't have yet!" In those days before digital photography and good automatic cameras, I snapped pictures and dried flat over 400 different flowers. All these years later I can still remember names of many of these fragile and beautiful flowers.

The kids ran and played in the stream, ran and climbed on dead trees, ran and ran and ran. By the time we ate lunch and headed home all of them were wiped out. Timmy went right to bed and slept for almost 2 hours. I hope to repeat many more trips like today so the children can not only reel off the names of flowers but have their own precious memories of woodland walks.