Every November I head west to Phoenix for Thanksgiving with
my sister. She’s in assisted living, and
doing pretty well but basically marooned from family. When I realized how the
holidays bothered her I got in the habit more than a decade ago of spending
Thanksgivings with her. I visit her a
couple of other times in the year as well, but Thanksgiving is a given.
Barbara moved to Arizona from Virginia, and while she loves
Arizona I know she also misses the greens of her native state. To that end I
usually go out into the woods the day before I leave and pick her a mess of
running cedar.
Running Cedar is a grows along the ground and is an evergreen
plant. It’s a “ Clubmoss”, which isn’t
really a moss, but more of a fern. It’s very short and has straight stems with tiny flat branches
which spread like fans. Running Cedar
grows mostly in the woods where there are a lot of dead leaves on the ground. It often grows in harmony with Partridge
Berry, and they look lovely together.
A bank of running cedar is beautiful, but it grows so
erratically that it takes an awful lot to make a wreath! It would take more patience than I’ve got to
make one from nothing but running cedar, so I just wrap and wire it around
Barbara’s regular Christmas wreath to add a little natural greenery to her
door. Wish I had some mistletoe, but I’m
not that good a shot!
| If I didn't know better, I'd swear the wood peckers around here must be armed with machine guns! |
| I'll leave you with the winter sunset that we were blessed with tonight. |
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