Nature's cathedral

We had such a wonderful outing today thanks to an enthusiastic friend and guide. Our fabulous five hiked through an old growth hemlock forest, along the edge of a ravine through which ran a tea coloured stream. There were violets, there were lady slippers, there were waterfalls and moss covered rocks. Along the way we heard the silence punctuated by trickling of water or the song of warblers and vireos and often our exclamations of discovery- "Oh look!" There were sugar maples and red maples, red spruce and white spruce, pine and tamarack but the most impressive were the hemlocks, some of them old enough to have lived in my great great great grandfather's day, some of them downed nursery trees. We finished our walk at a heart shaped pond where the water mirrored the surrounding million shades of green, the surface occasionally shattered by white ripples when the breeze teased it . We sat devouring with appetite our packed lunch, our eyes drinking in the scene, satisfying both physical hunger and our cravings for beauty.