Forget-me-nots are on their way out in the Valley of Hearts Delight but in full bloom up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. As I navigated the twists and turns of Summit Road, past an endless parade of classic cars on their Easter Weekend joy ride through the redwoods, I kept running into blue swaths of them.

Forget-me-nots are not native to California but are at least only minimally invasive. Not like the Scotch broom which is spreading like a blazing yellow wildfire – it does little to prevent erosion (with it’s puny tap root), it’s toxic to deer and interferes with forest regeneration. These non-natives were battling it out with the native miner’s lettuce, stinging nettles, poison oak, blackberry brambles, ferns and Paleozoic Horsetail at the feet of the Jurassic redwoods giants.

The majesty of the redwoods above, the verdant battle underfoot and the sentimentality of the foget-me-nots imbues everything with a certain poignancy – maybe this helps to explain the following photographs from the remnants of someone’s trash to the little chick that didn’t make it despite being nursed through the night. The forest seems timeless and we are but small moments.