Woody

Nature Walk…

The powerful drumming stopped me in my tracks; I could hear a familiar and distinctive boring sound.  I was hoping that the unique bird-call – the loud kingfisher-like rattle - would guide me to where the Oregon’s Pileated, crested woodpecker was.  This woodpecker is commonly known as the model for the cartoon character “Woody Woodpecker” and is dressed with a large black-and-white feathered chest and a bold red-feathered crest.  These Woodys are highly anti-social.  Their long sticky tongues, which are coated with bristles, extract insects deep within their bored hole and as they vertically walk up the tree trunk with their strong claws and feet; their stiffened tail helps support their hold.

Our “Woody” had already finished boring a hundred plus holes in the tree along side the Labyrinth; and was now boring into a new tree on the east end of the property where he was aggressively feeding on a insect diet of beetles, ants, termites, spiders and caterpillars. 

There was no sign of Woody as we approached the 70 foot-tall lifeless fir tree but the newly bored holes were evident that there had just been a “big feed”.

The evening ended with three young bucks feeding 50 feet from the Book Nook. So Beautiful - a little bit of heaven on earth.

Eden

Bleeding Hearts

Cedar chips carpeted the foot trails through the Alderwoods, the Cedars and the Firs.  With each step we hesitated, we found ourselves studying what lined the outside of the trail.  There were irregular shaped logs caped with deep green moss; ferns were reaching their arms towards heaven and clustering themselves into a community.  It was like a lush green carpet had been spread across the forest floors.
Her small fingers were warming themselves in my hand.

At an offset on the trail there sat a lone concrete pillar bench; seating space only for two. We sat. There was no need for words; silence filled our space.

When we returned to the trail, her little fingers found comfort back in my hand.  As we came upon the meadow, steam was rising up from inside of the earth where volcanic rock had settled in the late 1700s and the sun filtered through the naked spaces between the 100 foot timbers. 

We had finished our nature walk through the Timber Ridge trails.  Eden took her hand from mine. She tilted her head; her eyes were focused on the olive green blanket of moss on the full-size boulders and she whispered.  “Oma I love Bleeding Hearts.”

There was no more conversation.

Quietly I sat window-side after she had gone, my mind curious to what she loved about bleeding hearts.   Does she love them because they bear heart-shaped flowers from which a drop of blood dangles at the bottom? Or does she love to pick them and drape them over her ears as earrings.  Is it her fascination with the Bleeding Heart fairy tale story about the prince and princess - where the princess finally realizes, after it was too late, that she truly did love the prince, and cried and uttered repeatedly, “My heart shall bleed for my prince forever more!” and her heart bleeds to this day.   Or is it that she just loves how these miniature hearts grace the gardens full of elegance and beauty?  Or does she enjoy pressing them between the pages of a heavy book to have paper-thin little hearts.  Or holding the flower upside down and pulling the two halves apart and imagining that she sees a lady in a pink bathtub.

I wonder what pulls at her little heart-strings to love these valentine shaped flowers that are housed in a fernlike bluish-green foliage?

For me, Bleeding Hearts remind me of 'loss love' for those who have gone before me.