Sometimes in life you plan for one thing and get extraordinarily lucky with something else.

Spring for me is a time of flowers. I’m fortunate to live in an area with orchards, and every May is blossom time. This year, though, after a long cold winter, the blossoms are late, so I’ll post a special blossom from a past adventure.

We visited Peru in its spring season – specifically November, which is orchid season in the Andean cloud forest. We stayed at a wonderful ecohotel in Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu, and were able to do a guided walk to explore the 300-odd varieties of orchids that grow wild around the grounds of the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel. The orchids were amazing, but as we explored them our naturalist also pointed out a whitish flower that was on the verge of blooming. He told us that it was an iris that only blooms for one day a year, and that if we were lucky we might see it.

The next day I was up early for a bird walk, and checked eagerly around the grounds for signs of blooms. Finally, about mid-morning, the magic happened! The beautiful Neomarica northiana, known as the Walking Iris for the rhizomes it sends out to propagate, had graced us with her brief but spectacular debut. No one else was with me, so I savoured it quietly alone. Taking a photo of the iris was challenging, as it appears to like the shade/low lighting, and a light breeze kept moving it around so much that the camera had a hard time focusing on the delicate petals. I managed to get a couple of decent shots as a record of this small miracle that Mother Nature gifted me with, and which I was duly grateful for.

Many things in life are ephemeral; it’s up to us to make the most of their fleeting gifts.