Stalking the Wild Orchids

When moving quietly and slowly through the forest it feels like stalking (remember the hunting scene in Downton Abbey??) In order to see the fragile and delicate blooms of the wild orchids, one must move carefully and LOOK. 
Last week I was on a mini vaca in Oregon. I was a bit worried about missing so many days in the studio with a pending show in June and my artwork only partly assembled. As I was up in the wilds of willamette Park I began to have a feeling that it housed the wonderful orchids that I was sculpting back home! 
All my research had said June as the month of the blooming fairy, coralroot and mountain slipper. As such, I had thought I was out of luck when it came to actually seeing these wonders before finishing the native sculptures. I had been visualizing them repeatedly in my frontal lobe, which is not unusual when I become obsessed with an art subject. However, I wanted to experience the plants as a part of finalizing the scents I had designed to go with them.
But as I drove thru the forest I began to have a feeling I should stop and hunt for them. Just in case..... I pulled over a couple of times but my knowingness said no....then I came upon a hidden trail. In five minutes I was deep in a old growth forest stalking the orchids.
Stooping to see an unusual mushroom I stood up and my eye went straight to a tiny wee patch of fairies!!!! Their brilliant pink purple was like a signal (I don't think the bees that pollinate them see the color that way) I carefully approached their magnificence, and lay in the moss to observe, sniff and finger their loveliness. I was in total bliss. I was also hoping no one came along to wonder why I was prone in the moss.
I discovered the fairies had more of a rugosa rose scent than the vanilla sweetness I had read about. Once I had spent every moment I felt I could spare, I got up and headed out to the car. On the way I was stunned to see in another light filled niche of the forest.... a coralroot! I actually screamed with joy!

Then when arriving home that day I was walking on my road and saw these coralroots!!! (above) I was amazed. I had walked near this tree for 12 years and never seen them bloom here.