Trillium Woods - 1969

Forty-five years ago today, I was waiting for surgery.  I had been scheduled for a cornea transplant due to an eye disease, and I had reached the top of the waiting list.  I was 21, finished 2nd year university, and couldn't get a summer job, because I had to be ready on a few hours notice to be at a hospital in Toronto.  But I was otherwise healthy, so I didn't have to just sit around home waiting!

I spent those days exploring the woods around Woodstock, Ontario, especially the Trillium Woods Nature Reserve, known for it's carpet of trilliums in the spring.  I had several years earlier been part of a successful letter-writing campaign to get the provincial government to protect this woods - my first foray into the political world, at age 14.

These pictures are all scanned from 45 year-old slides, so they're pretty much terrible photos, but they can immediately bring back for me the days I spent in the woods, including the sound track of the spring birds.  I think the sounds in fact are a more visceral memory than the sights.  I clearly remember the day my father came walking through the woods whistling for me, and we were off to Toronto.

This woods was known for its unusual trilliums, with green stripes on the otherwise white sepals, apparently a result of a protein deficiency.  I had a good camera, and a tape recorder, so I spent my time taking pictures and recording the sounds of spring in the woods.

I even got this picture of a young Great Horned Owl - by putting my binoculars in front of my camera to take the picture!!  No wonder it's a little blurry.  I write all this because I'm convinced that my love of the woods in springtime goes back especially to those days in May 1969 when I had the chance to immerse myself in spring in the woods for two solid weeks.  The experience has never left me.

And the transplant was successful; I've been able to see not too badly ever since.

 I've been posting on this blog almost daily now for a year, every since my wife gave me a macro lens for last year's 'big' birthday (I think she was feeling guilty about her new sewing machine, which was worth about 3 macro lenses!).  I'm not going to try and keep this pace up all the time, and I may make a few other changes too, adding some other features once I get my ideas sorted out.  In the meantime, the past year of very regular blogging has brought me enormous pleasure, inspiration, and a network of fellow bloggers who I now consider friends.  Thank you all for the encouragement.