happy trails

 On one of our short walks along our road last Autumn,
Piper and I noticed a patch of Epigaea repens: trailing arbutus, or mayflower.
This is what a section of it looked like on 16 September 2019:

(You can left-click to embiggen all these images.)

This patch of arbutus does not have an easy life.

In early April, the plants looked like this:

I didn't know how early it might bloom
so we've walked that way often to check on it.

We had a fairly heavy snowstorm
shortly before these three pictures were taken,
on the 19th of April.
 The first shows the entire patch of arbutus,
on the slope in the right side of the photograph:

Something caught my eye.
Can you see it?

I put the camera on the ground for a closer view.

These delicate buds had been buried in snow one day earlier.

And six days later, yesterday:

This last picture is my favorite:

The little flowers peeping out from beneath tough, tattered leaves,

amongst a criss-cross tangle of pine needles and twigs,

finding a small beam of sunlight.

I hope you are also finding all the sunlight you need.

~~~~~