something so grand

My grandmother lived in the shadow of a mountain.
Of course when you get close to something so grand, you can't see it towering beyond your vision. You are aware only of the smaller, darkly treed hills that block the horizon.
Thick and lush is the vegetation surrounding Blue River.
My grandmother selected wild plants, native plants, and landscaped her yard with their beauty; a clump of creamy birch trees, lacy mountain ash, tiger lily, and pine.
Her log home would have pleased the sensibilities of Frank Lloyd Wright, for it was one with its surroundings; an extension of the rustic view.
A burnished, golden house with corners like clasped fingers, it stood as a sentinel, the dark forested hills beyond.
Those wooded slopes were wild places, filled with chipmunk and skunk, moose and bear.
My grandmother began her life as a homesteader, a pioneer, on the softly rolling prairie of southern Alberta.
but when I think of her, it is against the backdrop of pine and cedar.
It is in her sweetly smelling kitchen surrounded by golden log walls and burl bowls that I see her, in the shadow of a mountain.