This time of year it's real easy to spend your time looking at what's around your feet. The woodland wildflowers have just a couple weeks to soak in the sun and tempt the insects with their beauty and fragrance before the canopy of maples and beeches block out the sky. Spring beauties, dutchman's breeches, trout lilies, trilliums, and marsh marigolds are occupying every inch of forest floor and their colors and shapes are intoxicating for photographers as well as insects.
I walked up the ravine to the hills where the big beeches live just to find a place to sit and enjoy the breeze. I've often found that if I just relax and observe for a few minutes I'll begin to see new things or old things in new ways. I looked up at a nearby beech
tree that had a muscular trunk and then re-focused my eyes on the twigs of sapling beeches that filled space like baby's breath in a bouquet. I've looked at these beeches for years and I'm sure I've seen these leaves emerging before, but today, I really saw them — I took time to enjoy them.I always look forward to the arrival of the wildflowers in the Spring and I'm sure I always will. But now there's something new to look forward to.
