Soul-soothing Walk

It's been a crazy week around here. This morning, Ted sensed that I needed a dose of nature and surprised me with a walk on some new-to-us land. As we explored a friend's nature preserve, it didn't take long to have "wow moments".

Tamarack buds are such a beautiful red colour.

One of my favourite June-blooming flowers, the Canada Anemones, were out in full force this morning.

This friend has mowed a bunch of intersecting trails throughout the reserve.

Below is a female red-winged blackbird. Hardly red-winged and hardly black.

Wild phlox is coming to the end of its season.

There were quite a few birds singing for us this morning. In less than 10 minutes, Merlin heard these birds:

European Starling

Grey Catbird

American Crow

American Robin

Northern Cardinal

Swamp Sparrow

American Goldfinch

Virginia Rail

House Wren

Willow Flycatcher

Common Grackle

Red-winged Blackbird

Common Yellowthroat

Not the clearest picture - I had to zoom a long distance - but isn't he/she cute??? "I am so happy! I am just going to sit on my roof and sing!" Maybe we need to do that too sometimes. When the kids were young, I used to help them climb out the bedroom windows on to the roof to watch sunsets. That's the closest we've come to singing on a roof.

Canada Anemones are a fairly simple flower when compared to....

... these Red Osier Dogwood flowers. They change colour after pollination. Red is the sign that the pollen has been released. How cool is that?

According to PlantNet, this is a Goat's-beard.

Near the end of our adventure, there was a narrow path through the tall grasses that led to today's sponsor - an audio sponsor.

Today's sponsor? The sound of carp, frolicking in the shallow waters.

Soul-soothing. All of it.

I think a little Rumi is in order to complete this post.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing

and rightdoing there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about.”

Rumi