Have you ever had one of those birthday weekends where just about everything went right? Well, I just had one of those.
On Sunday, scents of sausage and eggs beckoned me from the kitchen as my eyes slowly opened. Stretching to welcome the beginning of the next trip around the sun, I was greeted by an excited granddaughter as I made my way to the kitchen. Billy, my son-in-law, was in the middle of creating a wonderful “healthy like you like it” birthday breakfast that included eggs in the hole, using seed bread, and sauteed garlic and spinach, and finished off with sausage and mixed fruit.
As I sat down at the table, Tilly, my excited granddaughter, gave me a beautiful bouquet of pink roses and a handmade birthday card. I was told she looked through every bouquet of flowers at the store and picked this one special just for me.
After breakfast, we piled into the car, grabbing sun screen, mosquito repellent patches and water, and headed to the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden. A concrete block path paved the way through the center of the garden as the sun, clouds and breeze collaborated to create a perfect balance of warmth. Venus fly traps and a variety of pitcher plants lined both sides of the trail.
What I find interesting is, while they have been planted and live in other areas, Venus fly traps only grow naturally in about a 75-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina. One place they grow wild is Carolina Beach State Park. Though they are hard to find at times, I was able to spot a couple of them when I was there a few years ago.
Another interesting tidbit about Venus fly traps: They can even digest a frog!
Pitcher plants are equally interesting, and beautiful spouting various intricate patterns ranging from plain green or yellow, to white with maroon veins.
The rest of the day was filled with lunch at home, a solo walk around the lake at Smith Creek Park, and a birthday dinner out! A great way to spend my birthday!
Yesterday, the cooler weather invited us out for a hike at Brunswick Nature Park, which has trails going in a variety of directions through 911 acres of undeveloped wilderness. While we didn’t cover much of the park, we hiked for a couple of hours through the woods, and along a river where we saw a forest of ghost trees and tiny crabs feasting on microscopic entities.
Ghost trees are dead baldcypress pillars that died when salt water made its way into the waterways. Baldcypress trees thrived in fresh water wetlands all along the Cape Fear River and the tributaries that drain into the river. Salt water has been slowly intruding on the river since the last ice age, but the process has been hastened by the engineered deepening of the Cape Fear River to facilitate shipping.
The day ended with going to a fundraiser for a local shelter to watch Emergency Nothing, the punk rock band in which Billy plays bass.
Being outside nurtures my spirit, feeds my soul. I haven’t spent that much time outside while here, so this was the perfect birthday weekend!
