Columbine

Photographed this pretty Columbine more than two years ago! It was growing in a flowerbed at the Mountainview Sports and Handicapped Centre, where we stopped and had our lunch on a day of botanizing.

In case anyone doesn't know, the name Columbine comes from the Latin for "dove". Looking down on a Columbine flower, it looks like a ring of Doves with their wings spread a little. Numerous Columbine cultivars and hybrids have been developed.

Can you believe it? I overslept this morning and consequently missed a mushroom hike with a few friends!!! I was SO upset, as I so rarely get a chance to go looking for fungi somewhere where I won't go on my own. I have been so stressed out over trying to sell my brother's house over in England and I knew that it was going to be auctioned on Thursday. I didn't hear anything, but did find the auction results online. The list said that the house was "Sold Prior", though I have heard nothing about a buyer. I'm trying not to get my hopes up. especially after the original buyer backed out, even after the Sold sign had been up in the front garden. Anyway, all this stress obviously caught up with me last night and made me sleep longer than I should have! Rather than stay at home and feel even more depressed, I reckoned it was better to go over to Brown-Lowery Provincial Park and see if I could find at least something! I think there were actually a few more fungi than there have been recently, though most were not in the slightest bit photogenic. Did manage to find a few little "treasures", though. Nothing new, but I'm always happy with something beautiful, new or not : )))

4:30 p.m. WOW - thunder, lightning, torrential rain! And hail ... and now the sunshine : )