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Trinity’s front lawn looks a little… different this summer. Maybe not what you would expect?

With the cold spring, late snows, and the sudden hot & dry May, (and my busy schedule around my kids), the lawn was not tackled until June, much later than I had originally planned. 

So what’s going on out there anyway? 

Mainly, I’m trying to find ways to allow the grass to stay longer, aiming for a ‘tidy meadow’ rather than a traditional lawn. Can you find the 3 heart shapes I’ve made?

Around the stump I kept a small ‘oval’ of meadow, hoping the longer grass and flowers will support more life, shade the soil, and help collect dew overnight. Our historic stump is the feature of this small ‘meadow garden’. 

In the main area out front I have mowed the shape of the fish, specifically a jumping salmon (closely copying the picture). Above the fish’s head is a ‘heart shaped bubble’. The fish represents many things:

•    The ‘fish’ is an early symbol of Christianity, represented by the oval in the United Church crest. In Hebrew, the name Salmon means ‘Peace’.

•    It’s also a sign for Coquitlam, or kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), the word literally meaning “red fish up the river’ that refers to how our rivers once supported huge runs of sockeye salmon, and still support salmon today. 

•    The salmon also represents the need for water in this coastal temperate rainforest in which we live and play. This distinct rainforest would not exist without the nutrients of the salmon, carried out of our waters by bears and other forest animals and birds. The stinky smell we know when walking the river trails in the autumn has been labeled the ‘Smell Of Success’, letting us know the salmon have returned home to spawn.

•    There are so many more positive messages in the symbol of the salmon I was inspired to try it out… it is a work in progress..

What do you think? Can you see it? 

 

With hope and faith,  
Sherie Bohorquez