Happy Birthday Beautiful Blooms. The company is officially 19 years of age, (actually older, but today was the day I registered the company and made everything official). Yay! WooHoo. Kind of anticlimactic, just not feeling all that excited about it. No announcements, no giveaways...... I'll chalk it up to 2020. Pandemic aside it's been a challenging year. This year 'they' decided to spray a good many of my seed harvesting spots. I'm probably the only one who knows this, but the ditches 'round here are freaking loaded with amazing plants, Loaded! What they didn't spray, they mowed right down to nothing.

This was full of blueberries, strawberries, geum, wood lilies, paint brush, meadowsweet, anticlea, and so much more. All of it mowed to nothing, all the saplings, all of it. On the other side were the raspberries and gentians. It's so curious how growth differs on either side. The raspberry side was sprayed. Yes, I understand the 'logic' behind it. No, I don't understand the 'logic' behind it. Is there not a better way? Do we continue to poison our home, does anyone give a rat's ass? 

I thought I had taken pics of the carnage up Shunda View Point road, maybe I couldn't. All the way up to the Park boundary is sprayed. It's blatantly obvious that 'they' sprayed at will. It makes me want to hurl. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of wood lilies in those areas. I'm not exaggerating! Over the years, I have stood in awe of the incredible abundance of wild flowers up at Shunda.  There are pockets of pedicularis that take your breath away when you wander across them in full bloom.  What will next year be like?  The loggers didn't seem to take a break, great they're working but... below is the view from my turn out at Shunda.  

Pretty much the same view, taken Sept. 23, '20.  Doesn't look so bad now.  Mom Nature has a way.

Ya know I get it, the money, the economy, we build shit out of wood, I do get it, but I don't have to like it.  No one has sat down and figured out a better way?  Or maybe they have and been squashed?  Argh!  This has been such a challenging year for so many.  I know I'm not alone in what I've been thinking.  I'm grateful to not have a TV and to not watch news in any way, little blurbs still creep in and I'm shocked & shaken.  Back to the woods.  But my woods have been destroyed this year....  I think the topper was, going to see about beaked hazelnut and I come across a construction crew just before the turnoff.  It's a normally slow day so I ask the flag person what's up?  They're putting in a guard rail!  Hmmm, this brings to mind many questions, the first being WHY?  See just ahead is my hill, the hill that has hundreds of lady slipper orchids and so much more.  I drove through, parked and collected what I could find, yes, I found a decent quantity of beaked hazelnut.  I haven't gone back yet to see what they've done to my hill of orchids.  I feel so defeated this year.  And no, they're not protecting them, they sprayed all the orchids coming up my hill to where I live!

I have people from universities and conservation groups asking where I get my seed from, implying with their words that they are concerned that I'm cleaning out an endangered plant, wreaking havoc on the wild and generally up to no good.  Do you know that when I turn over my seed, each year, last years seed usually goes back to where it was harvested from, or sown in my back 40.  I encouraged the mealy primrose on Hwy 12 for 3-4 years before I felt it was safe to harvest seed from.  This year I had to give the mower a time out signal in order to try and get some seed from that same primrose before they mowed it down!  So WTF!  Ohmmmm 

I've lived here for 5 1/2 years and have wandered a lot.  No matter where I stop and walk, I always find something.  Clearwater County is abundantly rich in native plants, that they spray, cover, mow down.

I shall keep collecting, sowing, nourishing, loving my little section of the planet.  This is what I do, this is my passion, I believe in what I do.  We have to make the planet greener, stop and smell the roses, walk through a forest, walk barefoot, lean into the wind at Windy Point.  💗

A customer said to me today - "I am excited to see what next year will look like now!"  

That gives me hope.