DAY 4: I set out walking alone before breakfast, for back therapy. Yarrow and pearly everlasting flowers line the road, which has recently been resurfaced in places with granite gravel in 2-4 inch chunks. Yesterday when Scout and Ivy walked back from the lake they stopped their father every few feet to exclaim about a new piece that they had picked up, with unique sparkles or shape.
On return, I fry a pound of bacon, because you always have to do that in the mountains when you’re in a cabin where the bears can’t get at you. Scout and Ivy grab a crispy slice in one hand and a pile of blueberries in the other, and go out on the deck to play, waiting interminably it seems for the adults to do something besides talk – like take them out in the boats.
While the other adults are still making plans I decide to walk again, and take Scout with me. We head down to the lake and on the way he schools me in conifers, showing me red firs and lodgepole pines (aka tamarack, his father tells me), the most numerous tree species in this area.
As we come up through the forest behind the cabin, I check on the puffball I saw last month — remember, it looked like this:
— and it has puffed itself and exploded into a pile of cocoa powder:
When the canoeing group finally embarks paddles in hand, two-year-old Jamie and I remain in the cabin. This is the first time I’ve ever taken care of him alone. We play with dominoes, and read Machines at Work a dozen times while eating nuts that he holds in little bowl on his lap.
Tonight Pippin, understanding how much star-gazing means to me, does most of the work to set up the chaise lounge on the deck. Mice have demolished the pad so she makes a sort of mattress with blankets and Thermarest pads. Soon all the lights in the cabin are extinguished, the family are in their beds, and I stretch out in the dark darkness, flat on my back staring up.
Black tops of the lodgepole pines ring the patch of sky like a wreath. My view of the heavens is not wide, but it is deep. The first thing that happens is that I feel the stars’ presence like angels hovering over me, and I almost begin to weep. I think about what my friend Art said, that the sky is not empty, but full of angels, and try to remember if that was a reason that C.S. Lewis wanted to call his trilogy not The Space Trilogy but Deep Heaven. Space sounds empty, but like all of Creation, it is filled with God’s presence.
The fullness is overwhelming, but soothing. Cool air blows on my face. I drink and am strengthened. After a long time I carry my sleeping bag into the cabin and soon am sailing into dreamland like Wynken, Blynken and Nod.
Next day’s entry is HERE.
Gladsome Lights 
Bacon, babies and the heavens full of stars….sounds pretty good!
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What a soothing post, and when I came to your ending, I was smiling.
Have a lovely week ~ FlowerLady
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Life is truly good! This all sounds so wonderful!
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What do these puff balls and giant toad stools do for the yard? Are they making conversation between the oaks in OK, or do they do something else for the soil? We’ve had a surprising amount of rain this August. So lots of toad stools. Do I remove them or are they making happy rain filled conversation among my trees?
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How exquisite those pearly everlasting flowers are! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this on the island, and since Crete and California share a similar climate and vegetation, I’m surprised I haven’t spotted any. Perhaps I need to look closer!
Your description of the the night sky, inhabited not with mere stars, but angels, sounds so soothing, indeed. I smiled at the thought of the sky being full, instead of empty, just as one chooses to see the glass half full.
Have a lovely week,
Poppy
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Perhaps they don’t grow on Crete because they are found at 7000 ft elevation and higher…
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Actually, the highest mountain on Crete is 8,058 feet, at the peak of Mt. Psiloritis, so I guess I’m going to have to trek it to at least 7000 feet up, to capture this flower’s brilliance, if it grows up there, in the misty clouds.:)
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I read online just now that Pearly Everlasting is just one of many species of the everlasting family and that they are native to Crete, so you probably have some form growing naturally there. Let me know what you find.
As for the altitude, that was a guess on my part, the height below which I haven’t seen the flower, but I should check on that, too.
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Lovely Post Gretchen!
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so wonderful to read this and your day #3 post too. I miss being in nature very much, have not really been in it in years. I am so very glad that you are there though and really appreciate your sharing it with us.
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What a lovely description!! I wish I could lie there with you on a matching lounge chair, and see what you see. Here, the night air is still full of mosquitoes and we are not “out” much unless we are working. Your night with the stars sounds divine.
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I have off for a while so am taking time to read all your recent posts. It sounds like you had a wonderful vacation. (You were leaving in the last one I read) Many of the wildflowers are new to me, but we do have pearly everlasting in the mountains here. I have successfully started it from seed, but can’t remember where I got the seed!
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