In an area of the country where there are literally thousands of miles of hiking trails -- many of which I know step by step -- there is a quiet, wooded path only 10 minutes from my house that I only recently discovered. This week my smiling, always ready-to-go friend Minnie and I went to check it out.
On my knees: That’s how I wound up spending most of my day. The weather was showery and damp and the woods where Minnie and I walked were carpeted with a riot of wildflowers. I’d walk for a while, then tell Minnie to hold on...I needed to take a picture of this flower, then that. We’d walk a bit longer until another patch of flowers got me back down to my knees again.
There were bleeding hearts and trillium and mosses and ferns. Minnie, an Australian Shepherd and a herding dog whose instincts are all about moving sheep, gets antsy when her "flock" dawdles. When I stopped to photograph the bleeding heart on the rain-soaked fern you see below, Minnie came over and brushed past the plants, spilling the moisture to the ground, ending the picture opportunity.
I took the hint. I got back to my feet and resumed walking. Minnie resumed smiling.
