A SPECIAL FRIEND, and a SPECIAL TREE

Yesterday I took BFF Sydney to the Windsor airport for the first leg of her flight back to Calgary. It was wonderful to have her here, we’ve known each other for the better part of thirty years, so there’s always a lot to cover, old and new. We did all the girl-type stuff—we talked about everything (and everybody) and shopped ’til we dropped. We sampled wine from the local winery, ate a little too well (!) slept in, birdwatched and beached-combed at Point Pelee. Yesterday she got the early connection in Toronto, and was back home in good season. Thanks, Sydney, for a great visit—and FYI, the first few fishflies arrived this morning, so your timing was impeccable!! And thanks for all my blog friends for the kind well wishes while I was away from the computer, I'll be making my rounds again today!

One place Sydney and I went to is a favorite shop in an old house near the heart of the town that carries interesting interior decorating items. Out in their large back yard they have the outdoor selection, with water gardens, big tanks of plants and fish, and lots of beautiful musical water fountains. It was just magical on a mild summer sun-dappled morning. I was admiring one of the fountains, trying to figure out what flowering plants were floating among the greenery, when the owner began telling us about the very tall tree growing beside the pond, that had dropped some of it's blossoms into the water. It’s what’s called a Tuliptree (Liriodendron tuplifera, or “tulip-bearing lily-tree”) and it's a rare resident in the Pelee area (which is a remnant of the once-vast eastern Carolinian forest). The storeowner said he knew of only three trees in Leamington. I’m not sure if he’s including the young immature (non-flowering) tree at my friends’ house. He also said the trees usually only bloom at the very top, but his is a beautiful exception, in that it was blooming all the way down to the lowest branches (still way above my head). I tried to get some shots of the lovely lime-and-orange-sherbet-colored flowers, that reveal the lotus-like lily part of the trees heritage, but was not very successful. Those of you who live further south in the east will likely be very familiar with this lovely tall tree; it’s the state tree of Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana.