Last summer when she and Mutt had made their annual hike to the Lost Wife Mine to make sure the entrance was still securely blocked against the unwary or the reckless wilderness explorer, she was rewarded with a brilliant splash of red so bright that for just a second she had thought it was a brush fire. The single stem had morphed into a bloom-covered bush that was taller than she was and as wide as her two arms outstretched. On the way home she had cut half a dozen stems and back at the house stuck them in a decorative plastic bucket, over which Johnny pretended to warm his hands every night for a week.

The wildflowers needed no encouragement. The deep purple spire of monkshood, its cluster of closed blooms giving off an air of mystery, appeared and disappeared around every bend of trail. Dainty forget-me-nots clustered half-hidden on the shadowy edges of tree and shrub, tiny pale blue flowers delicate by contrast to almost everything else in the forest. Fireweed revealed itself in unexpected patches of blazing magenta, and western columbine spread across any otherwise unoccupied space to duke it out with chocolate lilies and Sitka roses. Military rows of arctic lupine had shouldered aside every other single living plant in their march to line the trail between road and homestead, and Kate was fighting a delaying action to prevent their conquering the clearing in front of the house.

After an idyllic month of sun leavened by comfortably spaced periods of soft, almost warm rain, the garden burst to overflowing. Rhubarb with leaves the size of elephant ears formed a lush line at the garden‘s edge. Strawberries, tiny scarlet gems nestled in clusters of furry leaves, enjoyed the shade of a strategic grouping of white birch. Raspberry canes leaned heavily against tomato cages co-opted for the purpose beneath the prospect of a bumper crop come August. Blueberry bushes drooped beneath the weight of fruit promising to be the size of Kate‘s thumb in a month‘s time. The potato patch was a riot of leaf, the carrots a sturdy row of feathery tops, the cabbage and cauliflower and broccoli pushing each other for room. The half-dozen rugosa roses her mother had planted the summer following Kate‘s birth were now a waist-high hedge next to the rock seat at the cliff‘s edge and in ebullient and aromatic bloom. The rock was warm from the sun and she wriggled her backside into it with hedonistic pleasure, adjusted the throw pillow between her lower back and the natural shelf formed by the rock, and allowed herself to be seduced by the strong, sweet scent of the roses. A bee nuzzled the front of her Tshirt, a mosquito whined past her ear, and a golden-crowned sparrow trilled nearby. Water tumbled and jostled its way downstream between the narrow, rocky banks below, and she smiled without opening her eyes. If the weather held, the swimming hole would be warm enough for skinnydipping by tomorrow. Maybe even by this afternoon.