TEA TIME AT THE BROOK

Mrs. Trowbridge was a true renaissance shrew. Not only was she a masterful scribe and artist, but she wrote delightful limericks too. It seems that her talent had no end! Melvin and Louise were two small creatures who lived in Huckleberry Hollow. Mrs. T wrote the poem because it was uncommon for creatures of different kinds to become romantic partners. Apparently the love between Melvin and Louise was the stuff that legends are made of, at least rain forest legends. Melvin is a Pacific tree Frog (Hyla regilla), native to the Olympic rain forest. Louise is a Trowbridge Shrew. The flowers are Magenta Paintbrush, an Olympic endemic, found only in the Olympic wilderness, and nowhere else on earth.

SUMMER SONG

We live in condo complexes...ladybugs live in mushroom colonies on nurse logs. This is where the ladybugs in Huckleberry Hollow prefer to live. Mrs. Trowbridge captured them with her skillful brush and scribing pen as they sang a forest chorus in five part harmony.

A SIMPLE COTTAGE

Here's another page from Mrs. Trowbridge's journal. Many of her sketches were small and simple like this one.

THE SIMPLE LIFE

Mrs. Trowbridge devoted many pages of her journal to explaining and sketching everyday life in Huckleberry Hollow. This is one that I selected to show how the creatures in Huckleberry Hollow led such a simple life. Maybe there's a lesson here for the rest of us.

THE ALDER TWIG CHAIR

Mrs. Trowbridge is a hopeless romantic. In this week's page Woodrow has made an alder twig chair just for the two love birds...or love shrews, if you prefer. It makes a wonderful addition to their rain forest flower garden, don't you think?

FYI, she also mentioned on another page that she drew much of the picture on this page and scribed the text at night in her cottage with a flickering lantern for her light source while a wind storm raged outside. To think she created all that detail by lantern light.