Beatrix and Bouquet

I have been photographing Beatrix with bouquets since she was too tiny to even raise her head.  True to her namesake, Beatrix Potter, Bea loves exploring the world--collecting rolie polies, cradling worms, constructing habitats for snails.  She lines up stones and pine cones and specimens and invites everyone to her museum, where she plays both curator and docent, showing me each rock, making sure I trace the contours with my finger.

But my favorite Bea-thing is her uncanny skill for seeing and collecting flowers.  She cheered the advent of spring and I stopped buying flowers at the market.  

Most days, Bea ducks into the garden and returns with a fist full of flowers.  These are not your behead-a-blossom, leave-the-stems affairs that most children offer to their parents; she picks a cunning variety of blooms and foliage and arranges them carefully with grasses or twigs I would have never even noticed had I been picking a bouquet.  I've enjoyed a plethora this spring.

Rosemary, wild strawberry, sweet peas, Beatrix (most of those I just made up because I still don't know my northwest flowers!)

For earlier Beatrix and Bouquet entries, visit this place, where wazoo was born and zinnias bloomed in profusion.