Yesterday, I walked over 4 hours through Red Deer, with Heather and Anita. The intent of the walk, was practice. I was practicing for walking the Camino de Santiago. And, I forgot two things - my pedometer and my camera. We think we walked 18 kms - but maybe we walked way more - and now we will never know. And I won’t have any good photos - to show what we did - and what we saw. And, today, I walked to the Bank of Montreal. I was about 1.5 hours - and no big deal - I had my pedometer with me today - so I could indeed tell you how far I walked… if only the battery didn’t die. On the bright side, I did have my camera - and this nice bunny let me get close enough to take the pic on the way home!

Yesterday I went up to Olds to raid the family garden. While my garden is okay, the family garden, at Olds College is amazing. We plant it together in the spring - magic fairies Heather and Anita, weed it, and I go and harvest to my hearts content. This is the second harvest - and lots of peas, carrots, beets, onions and potatoes. We only plant crops that everyone likes. Around Canadian Thanksgiving, we will clean up the plot… and in the meantime, will have enjoyed amazingly fresh veggies - with very little effort. One of my favorite things about summer!

When I am out walking in the mountains, taking pictures of flowers, and I am not thinking about “Horton hears a Who”, I am thinking about artists like Cicely Mary Barker who created the “flower fairies” over 70 years ago. I see these amazing flowers in the wild, and I wish I was talented enough to create an image of exactly the little fairy that should inhabit or wear the beautiful dress. I am able to visual the flower fairies - and there it ends for me - without the artist ability to bring them to life past the photo of the flower.

… or hiking in inappropriate footwear. I had the pleasure of hiking up to Healy Pass on the weekend. I took a riduculous number of photos of flowers - can one really have too many pictures of Indian paint brushes? But, these guys - which I think are aneomes - that have gone to seed - and others think are bear brush - remind me - of the plants that you see in Horton hears a who -  wonder if this is where Dr. Suess got the idea? Or - maybe it is just me?

 … or yet another excuse for why I have not been blogging. I can barely blog when I am at home, and recently I got to travel to New Jersey and than to Bermuda - and than I got stuck in Newark and got to stay at a motel that rents rooms by the hour. Now that I am back home - the terror of that night has dissipated a lot - and I am back to thinking about how fabulous my trip - on the company - really was!

Finally back at the blog. I don’t find blogging conducive to travelling -and my excuse for not blogging is that I have been travelling. While that statement is true - the time away is not indicative - of how much travelling I have been doing. As excuses go - I like it though. And, I have another patch of travelling - coming up in September - so in the meantime, I am going to try to get a blog or two completed. Maybe.

I first saw this little dude, this Monday, when Celeste and I got back from our walk, and I wanted to take a picture of him, except that for once in a very long time, I did not have my camera with me. Today, Wednesday, I was so excited he was still there. Makes you wonder what kind of a trip he took, from being the favorite toy of some very spoiled cat, to finding himself all washed up and tired and no longer the favorite. Or perhaps, there is someone somewhere, sniffing in all the corners, looking for their friend. It certainly has a Velveteen Rabbit feel to him….

Right at the back of the house, as you walk from the garage to the back door - on either side of the step are two lovely peony bushes. One has white peonies and the other has pink. And both the peony bushes have ants. Lots of ants. Not sure exactly what I am to do about the ants. They aren’t supposed to be bad in a garden, and I don’t like pesticides - so the peonies are crawling with ants; and this morning, a ladybug. If you look closely at the photo of the ladybug on the peony - you will see at least 3 ants - and if I had my camera more at the ready - you could have seen at least one of the ants crawl on the back of the ladybug - and make the ladybug move.

Even though - I have been on the road for work and pleasure quite a bit, and even though - Ken was just back from almost a month of adventure travel - this weekend, I wanted to get away. And so we did. We headed to Kananaskis, after work, and spent a wonderful almost 24 hours at Mount Engadine Lodge. Since I snowshoed at Engadine Flats, I had made a mental note to stay at the lodge. And when I called, late Friday morning to see if they had any availability, I was thrilled to learn that they did. This weekend was opening weekend, and surprisingly, they had room. The room rate includes all your meals - and that alone was pretty spectacular - tea, supper, breakfast, lunch - and we worked on getting our moneys worth - and in between the odd meal - we lounged in the hot tub - with the most fabulous view of the mountains.

I was out visiting my Mom in Victoria last week. Cordova Bay is the view from her condo, and I took the opportunity while I was visiting, to stroll up and down the beach. I have been collecting beach glass since I was little - on every beach that I ever get a chance to walk - and my perception is that beach glass like shells, are harder to find today. When I was young - blue beach glass was a premium and I have some tiny shards of it - in many of the rock, pebble and glass collections you can still find in my home. I found the piece of green beach glass in the photo - as soon as I hit the beach last week. Now - normally green beach glass - ranks right below blue - and I am shocked to say this glass did not come home with me - all I have is the photo. You see, first, it wasn’t quite ready. And by ready I mean that there was still a rough surface, and based upon old habits, I should have thrown it back out to sea - for the water and the sand to continue its’ work. While I wasn’t prepared to part with it immediately, I did walk and rub the beach glass, until I found the only other piece of beach glass on this walk and then I realized I was not bringing it home, or atleast not in its physical state - it was only coming home with me - as a photo. Now that might be personal growth, or it might be the minimalism I talk alot about showing up, or it is the fact that I know I have a place to show the picture and add the words.