NEW TREND: TATTOOS ON BUTTERFLY WINGS!

This page from Mrs. Trowbridge's journal takes me back to those summer days in the high meadows of the Olympic Mountains, where Mrs. Trowbridge once lived. It brings back memories of a summer skinny-dip swim in Sundown Lake with our son, Brad. Or strolling through the high meadows among the lupine flowers swaying in the summer breeze, while rare endemic butterflies fluttered around us. This page makes me long for summer. It doesn't come to the high meadows until mid or late summer.

You may recall from a previous episode that Madam Lucy opened a tattoo parlor so that ladybugs could get their shells tattooed. Now she's tattooing butterfly wings...

MRS. FERNWOOD'S GARDEN

Mrs. Fernwood lives just down the lane from Mrs. Trowbridge. She grows wildflowers and herbs in her garden, then sells them to the market in Huckleberry Hollow. On her way into the village she often stops by Mrs. T's cottage to give her a bag of Cat's Claw, which helps ease grandma's arthritis. 

The flowers growing in Mrs. Fernwood's garden include Douglas spirea, Foxglove, and Olympic Rockmat. The Rockmat are the little white flowers growing in the window box to the right of the door. The Olympic Rockmat are endemic to the Olympic Mountains, found nowhere else on earth. I saw my first Rockmat clinging to life on the summit of Mount Townsend. 

I decided to include a detail (above) from Mrs. T's painting to show you her delicate and subtle brushwork. 

All of the flowers that you see in Mrs. Fernwood's garden can be found in the Olympic Rain Forest, except for many of the herbs that she grew, some of which were native to other areas. I found the Olympic Rockmat that you see below in full bloom on Lillian Ridge, near Obstruction Point.

Check out the Little Beasties at my other blog, Bron Smith's Flights of Fantasy.