This time of the year, the sun shines on my shady garden for almost an hour in the morning, glancing briefly at my bedroom window at 7:30, then slipping between the maple and the wall to highlight first a potted hellebore, the table holding a tuberous begonia, then the wall beyond with the snail trails in green algae. It moves quickly on; to the garden proper, warming each plant in turn, waking the bees that feed on the tiny maple flowers, making the bleeding hearts glow like stained glass, highlighting a rhododendron or two. The lawn is next, the evergreens beyond, and then the light moves up and over the treetops, leaving us again in the dark.
I went out this morning to watch the show.
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| Light, shadows, algae and snail trails on old wall. The green and red smokestack is all that remains of a boat that sunk in the Fraser, years ago. |
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| The snail trails, with flash to erase the shadows. |
On the rim of the birdbath, a caterpillar was hurrying along. Round and round and round and round he went. Occasionally he'd look to the right, come to the edge of the water, look left, over that long drop, then return to his bright road. Round and round again.
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| The low light gives him a wide, hairy shadow. |
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| I love how the sun highlights his spiky hairs, |
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| ... and intensifies the colours. |
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| Light catching a new fern, missing the pot beneath. |
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| Satiny rhododendron bud. |
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| Lilies of the valley. |
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| When the sun moves away, reflected light softens the whites, which shows up their shapes. This tuberous begonia has a hint of pink. |
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| I don't know what these are; the name tags went missing. In the background, red rhodos in the shade, and the sunlight moving up the cedars. |
Once the last light left the tips of the trees, I turned back to the birdbath. The caterpillar was still there, still following the paved road to nowhere. I flicked him off, into a bowl of moss. The last I saw him, he was exploring the container, no longer in a straight line.
