When our three children were in their pre-teens on into their teen-age years we would yearly take them on weeklong climbing expeditions to the New Hampshire White Mountain Range, the national forest area that is packed with lakes, mountains, forests and mountain streams and waterfalls, with magnificent views both at ground level and from the summits of mountains where the full expanse of the mountain range could be viewed and marvelled at.

We began with complete ignorance, but a shared fascination with the natural world. The mountains captivated us as it does so many others and impelled us to begin taking trails that were on occasion more ambitious than our experience to that point warranted. But we persevered and we enjoyed ourselves and became more knowledgeable as time proceeded.

Forty years later our children are all busy with their own lives, and we have been living with another type of family as dependents; small dogs whose energy and curiosity matches our own; actually surpassing it now in our elder years while our current little companions are now only approaching their third birthdays. For the past several decades we have returned repeatedly to the hospitality of a couple who own and operate a motel and cottages in the Waterville Valley, a great jumping-off spot an hour's drive from Franconia Notch.

We watched as their own three children grew from childhood to young adults and now they too are empty-nesters, but remain faithful to the vacationing community that chooses to stay over with them while exploring the Waterville Valley. Their cottages are equipped with kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms and living room, with ample space for us and our two little dogs.

And that's the thing that originally drew us to their accommodation, that they accepted the presence of dogs. Needless to say we clean up scrupulously after our two, and it's likely that others staying over with their own dogs do likewise. We had, of course, stayed at other places in the nearby area over the years, sometimes returning but never with the regularity with which we use these facilities gratefully.

We've become friends with the proprietors, a more likeable, helpful and pleasant pair it would be difficult to find. Both Donna and Byron are hard-working and gifted, she sewing up draperies and furniture slipcovers and he mechanically inclined, able to on his own 'fix' and update their premises, by installing new flooring, appliances and bathroom fixtures, to doing roofing and electrical work.

They are so hard-working to make a decent living out of their chosen field they also hold down other, alternate jobs, working at a nearby tourist attraction; he among other duties as chief mechanical factotum, as the chief engineer of their working model railroad, and she during the skiing season when they shutter their own business for several months. Byron is an avid gardener like his father before him, and he and I often talk gardening.

Earlier this month when they were busy preparing the pool for use, I spotted a weed about to flower that I wasn't able to identify and nor was he able to. I was drawn to it because of its incipient bloom where the petals, tightly drawn together, pre-opening, exhibited a bright red hue. A day later, outside our cottage, in a vase, sitting on a small outdoor table, there was a handful of the now-flowering weeds which I instantly recognized as Hawkweed.

A gesture so typical of Byron.