By Kendra Reinshagen.
Published in Thorn Creek News Spring 2020.

I fell in love with them before I ever knew their name. 

When I was in elementary school we moved to a wooded hillside on a small country road in Pennsylvania. My major interaction with those woods was running uphill with my brother to a tree with a large “monkey vine”, grabbing on and swinging out over the hill as the ground dropped away underneath us. It was great fun! 

My mom was a big nature fan. As we took weekend walks in the nearby Laurel Highlands she would point out flowers along the trails and share their names with us. My dad, on the other hand, referred to any and all flowers as Bachelor’s Buttons. These were a garden flower that did not grow in the woods but, since he liked hiking the trails with us, we forgave him and turned his nomenclature deficit into a running family joke. As we walked through the woods, my mom continued to point out ghostly Indian Pipes, delicate Trout Lilies, white Trillium and . . . Thorn Creek News Spring 2020