We're sorry to report that the flower never opened anymore than what you see in the pictures. I got up at 12:45am and it looked the same, in the morning the stem was straighter down but the flower didn't appear to have changed... It's disappointing, but we'll hope for another chance!

I wanted to post a memory to get us started: Do you remember the knoll? that 'huge hill' in front of the house with the dead cedar tree marking the opening and the path up to the top? The cedar is still there: hidden by upstart beech trees now and the knoll virtually hidden by brush and growth. Bob has cleared the underbrush so you can see the shape of the 'hill' from the front door. We'd like permission to cut down the 2 (maybe one or two inch in diameter) trees that hide the cedar. That dead tree 'used' to be a sentinel close (but not on) the edge of the yard. Now you'd never know it was there.

Do you remember making fairy houses and playing house up there when you were little? I remember pretending that the crevasses in the rocks up there and the holes in the tree trunks were fairy houses. We'd make mud cakes and twig forks and leaf plates and have tea parties. Sometimes in the fall we'd rake and rake and make floor plans for houses up there (and in the rest of the yard). We'd have to use the 'doorways' and yell at each other if one of us forgot. "You just walked through my wall! go back through the door!" or "This is MY bedroom, the bed is here, the closet here..." then we'd get called to come inside and swish our feet through the walls, laughing 'all the way' down to the brightly lit house. It always seemed so high and far away!

--Betsy