Where is this fantastical place, you ask? The Irish hills? The Black Forest in Bavaria? Nottingham? Egypt?
Nope. Not even on the same continent. On the outskirts of a tiny town in the sparsely populated province of New Brunswick, there is a farm with hundreds of acres of inspiration. It's where I played when I was younger, where I read and explored and learned. It's where I walked and dreamed. There are acres and acres of forest trails and fields and tall trees.
Places like this...
...that are leaf strewn and old and smell of dark, rotting things.
And like this...
...where water magically bubbles out of the ground in a deep, clear pool, and then trickles away past moss-covered rocks and ferns. There are old and mysterious places that some ancient farmer touched and then were forgotten...
Where ghosts and hobgoblins lurk and await some unprotected soul...
And where faeries dance in the moonlit night.
The pictures can't portray the smells of wintergreen and growing things or the hushed sounds as you walk on the trails. Or the size of the ancient maples, the smell of a forgotten apple tree or the taste of just-picked wild blueberries and partridge berries and clear spring water.
I came home from our vacation with a thousand stories brimming in my head. From the crashing Atlantic ocean in PEI, to the quiet forest trails of my old back yard, inspiration was all around me. Can you see shadows in the photos? Can you imagine the characters and creatures that would walk the paths in these woods?
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Brenda
