This Is Not My Story

When you raise your kids out in nature, life is full of stories. Remember when we saw? Remember the time we went? Remember the last time we found?

And then there comes a day when those kids start charting their own paths, and making their own discoveries, and navigating their own adventures. And then they bring their stories home to share - and your stories grow bigger together!

One such sunny day arrived this past weekend, when my two boys planned a trek up to the Great Heath1, a highland peat bog in the middle of the wild blueberry barrens a short drive from our house. These are not my stories, and these are not my photos. They are all my sons’, and now I’m sharing them with you!

The Great Heath is really a striking landscape, forests parting into margins as hills rise to offer open summits to the wide blue sky.

A river runs through it, and sparkling streamlets divert into every terrestrial wrinkle, creating a lacework strung with gemstone ponds, full of life tumbling upon life.

And there along the sundrenched shores, the carnivores are blooming.

Pitcher plants lure insects into a leafy vase nestled in the ground, filled with a tempting pool of crystal clear liquid. Once a bug has succumbed to temptation and climbed in for a drink, downward-facing hairs prevent escape while the digestive juices convert it directly into nutrients. Deadly. Efficient.

But right at the moment, they’re also launching these stunning, statuesque blooms! Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.

Sundews are irresistibly spectacular, deliciously sparkly. And any insect who gets too close is inescapably stuck, doomed to a horror-show-slow-motion leaf curl wrapping them inevitably into a tidy snack while they obliviously sip on sweet, sweet nectar.

It’s fine. Wrap me up. I’ll sacrifice myself to become the energy source for this incredible beauty! 😂

The weathered skeletal remains of a moose were scattered across the landscape, bleak and wonderful at once. To imagine these gentle giants traversing this magical scene…and then to imagine a feast of weeks gathered around a fallen titan. Asher found a jawbone, and popped an enormous molar right out, and right back in again, like nature’s original Legos.

Spencer drew closer, and closer, and closer still to an Ebony Jewelwing. We don’t see these particular dragonflies down in our shady forest nook. They make their home up here among the sunlit fairy pools.

I’m not always that impressed with the common names assigned to our wild flora and fauna. Sometimes I wonder if the namers are entirely qualified. The Blue-eyed Grass which is neither blue-eyed nor a grass. The Yellow-rumped Warbler who deserves recognition of so much more than his hind-end. But whoever named the Ebony Jewelwing…

…got it just right.

The boys arrived at our lunch meet-up, energized and overflowing with the excitement of their morning on the Heath. They shared photos and videos from their phones as they narrated all of the fun and the wonder and the discovery. Their stories became part of my story, like my stories become part of yours!

Each of us can only gather so many stories of our own - but thank goodness, we can also all share our stories with each other! And the richest tapestries are woven of many, many strands 🌿

Buy me a coffee

Visit our Shop

Nature Moments, where I share photography + stories about moments of connection in nature, does not have a set publishing schedule right now. I write when I can :) In the meantime, please enjoy the archives, and also keep an eye out for shorter musings on Substack Notes 🌿