It's all in how you look at things.

Today was trash collection day in my town. When I was bringing the trashcan out to the curb this morning, I passed by a patch of ferns by the side of the house. I had actually planted pachysandra there many years ago, which did well there and looked nice.

Then one year, while my husband and I were camping up in the Pocono Mountains, we found ourselves at this spot in the forest which I remember to be just magical. The forest floor was covered with this particular type of fern (don't know the name). There we were, standing in the stillness of the forest, looking out at the field of these ferns, some in cool shadow, some in the warm sunlight, well, it was too much for this artist to take. Although I knew I probably shouldn't, I leaned down and pulled a few ferns out the ground and took them home.


The bare spot in the pachysandra looked like a good spot to plant them, so I did. The first year, was fine. As a matter of fact, they barely survived. But in subsequent years, those ferns took hold more and more. Now, every year, I spend some back-breaking time bent over, pulling those suckers out, so that they don't kill the pachysandra! Actually I'd really like to keep both plants; they just can't both live in the same spot at the same time! So when they get out of hand, I pull and pull, to save the pachysandra.



For the past four or five days now we have had cool, rainy weather (kind of feels like it should be Oregon!) and I guess those ferns just took off! So as I dragged the trashcan past it this morning, my first thought was about how I need to pull those weeds again. . . . But then, I took another look. Some of that recent rain was still sitting on those ferns and the water droplets glowed like jewels. The light caught them in such a way that the artist's eye took over and I went and got my camera and took some pix. Pretty cool, huh?