International Women Day

You say – what? no seascape!? Well, not this morning. It is March 8th and International Women’s Day today. This is a photograph of my mother I took a couple of years ago. She is on holidays and we are having a picnic after going on a garden tour with “just the girls” which included her sister, my sister and my sister’s daughter. I love this photograph of my mother because it shows her natural beautiful self. She is about to shake her finger at me and say “don’t you dare!” But I was faster. Being a farmer in rural British Columbia Canada my mother has worked hard and lived close to the land not far from where she grew up. She reads with exuberance checking out armloads of books each week from the public library. She knows most of the Latin names for her plants and studied genetics to be able to improve her breeding stock of Hereford cattle. Her daily walks take her past bears, moose, elk, deer, geese, swans, grouse and the fox sleeps on her doorstep. Her cinnamon buns are still the best in the world and I love her. Her quiet and sometimes not so quiet belief in me is part of why I am who I am today.