Category Archives: wildflowers

My Colorado explorations.

June 4, 2021family, wildflowersArkansas River, Beardtongue Penstemon, cholla, Colorado, Desert Madwort, grandchildren, mullein, Prickly Pear, Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine, Royal Gorge, Royal Penstemon, Stemless Point-Vetch, White Willow, wolf spiderGretchenJoanna

I’m the opposite of bored here in Colorado with my son’s family, but I have had a terrible yawning problem since I arrived ten days ago. It must be the altitude (7300′), which I will blame for the sleepiness that comes over me at times, too.

Today was the least yawny and sleepy. Soldier drove us south a bit to a lower elevation, where we also enjoyed warmer weather while we played around at the Royal Gorge. Maybe everyone has heard about this canyon above which a suspension bridge was built in 1929, 955 feet above the bottom, where the Arkansas River flows along a single railroad track.

It was another happy chance to identify wildflowers and plants. I’ve been doing that a lot.

This penstemon called Beardtongue is all over around the Gorge.
Also cholla cactus and prickly pear.

There were a lot of fun things to do at the Royal Gorge park. We all rode the gondola across the gorge, and before walking back across the pedestrian bridge the children played on giant slides and tunnels, and rode the carousel. I took pictures of plants — and grandchildren, of course.

All week I’ve just been hanging around with the tribe doing much of what they do, or merely observing the more rambunctious activities of the boys, and listening to little Clara’s feminine conversation.

The cold and rainy weather has passed. The last of it was the evening we sat bundled up with coats and blankets to watch Liam’s Little League game out on the plains. Now the temps are moving into the high 70’s, and I can get sunburned sitting on the deck so close to the sun.

Many of the wildflowers I’ve identified are scrubby looking sorts with the most diminutive flowers. Also the beautiful blue Royal Penstemon at top, which we discovered just down the path from the karate studio while Liam was in class, along with purple Stemless Point-vetch. Magpies, robins, flickers and Mountain Chickadees flit and sing among the pines and firs and spruces that grow thick in the neighborhood.

Just at the edge of the back yard is a giant clump of White Willow trees where the boys play. Laddie told me about the Bible studies he likes to have with their rabbit stuffie in particular, on a rock in the middle, encircled by more than a dozen trunks arching up and away.

Yesterday everyone was digging and planting in hills and boxes, so I gave Brodie one of his birthday presents early: a pair of kids’ work gloves. He wore them all day, long after all the work was done, he loves them so.

A wolf spider with an egg sac was disturbed by the digging and ran away from the squash hills. This evening while I was with Clara under the play structure in the back yard, I saw a Cutworm Wasp digging a hole in the sand that had escaped the sandbox. I decided not to show you the wasp’s unremarkable photo, but will close with the spider, because that sleepiness is coming over me again, and tomorrow is another big day. Happy June!

We meet Mary and other May flowers.

May 29, 2021family, wildflowersbluebells, collinsia, Colorado, grandchildren, grasshopper, Monument Rock, phlox, spring beauties, star lilyGretchenJoanna

Here I am in Colorado, with my son “Soldier’s” family. It’s quite different from my last visit to the state, which was in the fall of 2018 when Clara was a newborn. The sky is blue and the grass green, the trees that were bare and brown back then are leafing out and the conifers have tender needle tips.

One day while Soldier was at work the rest of us walked at Monument Rock, through forests of gambel oaks to a monolith of sandstone. Other people on the path smiled to see all the children bending over one wildflower after another as we tried to find their names in my Seek app. “Which ones have you seen?” they asked. “The bluebells? And the Spring Beauties?”

Yes, we had. And many others: Crossflower, Nuttal’s Larkspur, Fringed Sagebrush, Tall Western Groundsel, Leafy Spurge, and Field Pennycress.

We were charmed to make the acquaintance of a tiny flower that Laddie was first to notice, a soft blue blur low to the ground at the side of the trail. We identified it as Small-flowered Blue-eyed Mary (collinsia). “Pleased to meet you, Mary!” the boys said, and carefully shook delicate stems.

Along the trail we also stopped to peer at small fish in a pond, and I collected sand for my collection at the base of Monument Rock. The sun gets hot here, at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, and it felt good to me to be in that dry, slow oven. Seeing Joy and Clara on the sandstone path made me think of that book I love, Along Sandy Trails. One of the boys reminded me that the girl in that book did not wear pigtails.

At home later, we zoomed in on the picture of the Mary flowers to admire their fine lines and clear colors. And we walked around the house to compare the Bittercress there with the Field Pennycress we’d seen on our outing. May appears to be the perfect time for a wildflower lover like me to visit Colorado and join with my grandboys to make new flower friends. And we met a grasshopper, too!

A story of creamcups and scouring pads.

May 8, 2021nature, ocean, wildflowersanemones, beach, California Goldfields, California Mussels, creamcups, dunes, Feather Boa Kelp, foxgloves, Gooseneck Barnacles, grandchildren, North Coast, Scouring Pad Alga, sea stars, tidepools, Turkish Washcloth, wormwood, Yellow Sand VerbenaGretchenJoanna

The washcloth and the scouring pad were right there, and plenty of (salt) water, for cleaning up, but my grandson Scout and I didn’t need them for that, as our recent snacks had been eaten out of hand. We were at the third beach of that morning, earlier this week when he was down here by himself visiting all his grandparents.

On the way we had traveled over “Wildflower Hill,” as I’d named it two weeks ago. Most of the April flowers had faded, but foxgloves were in bloom!

Our first stop at the coast was at my most frequently walked beach, where we spent the most time and effort around the adjoining lagoon, and climbing up and down the dunes.

Our family and other homeschoolers used to play here 20 and 30 years ago. I found a few pictures showing us back then, when Kate was an infant:

Scout wanted to see the beaches that he’d gotten to know last summer, so next we went to one of those, where we noted the layers of different colors of sand, and the color of the ocean.

It was chilly and breezy, so we were glad to have our windbreakers. He was swimming in his borrowed jacket (but not in the ocean!), and I was squeezed into mine that I’ve outgrown, but they worked fine.

At the last beach, after our snack, Scout wanted to explore “on the other side of those rocks,” and he soon came back to tell me it was urgent that I come, too, and see the tidepools.

I was so surprised. All the times I’ve been on that beach, and I never knew… It was the most interesting collection of creatures I’d ever seen in tidepools. And all around, new plants as well. Thousands of mussels grew crammed together on the rocks.

Lots of Feather Boa Kelp still rooted to its rocks.

Besides the plants and animals whose names I’ve mentioned in captions here, we also saw Black Oystercatchers, Bee Plant, Dogwinkles, Sea Thrift and Silverweed. These many evocative names began to swim in my brain and tried to form themselves into a fantastical story… but in the end all I could extract was the vision of me at the sink with those seaweed dishwashing tools, the Turkish Washcloth and the Scouring Pad Alga. We picked off the real live leaves of various kelps to bring home; I’ve yet to make soup out of it.

It was quite a stimulating day. Scout and I shared the feeling that our minds were buzzing, our hearts full with the excitement of such life and beauty lying quietly under a few inches of water or briefly exposed, shining with the glory of God. He’s already planning his next visit to this spot, and how his mother must join us to share the joy. Sounds good to me!

More wildflowers than beach.

April 21, 2021nature, wildflowersbeach, lupine, manroot, Orange Bush Monkeyflower, purslane, Sea Rocket, Shepherd's-needle, sword fern, trifolium dubium, wild irisGretchenJoanna

When I drove up the last hill on my way to the coast this week, I found that in the last week thousands of wildflowers had bloomed along the roadsides.

As there is little traffic on that particular road, I took my time and drove slowly, looking not only for the spots of color but also for wide spots where I could pull over. Several times I had to hike back a ways to where I’d caught the glimpse. This went on for about an hour, after which I ran out of hill, and made my way down the last slope to the beach, where I saw still more new flowers since my last visit.

There was lots of cow parsnip with manroot crawling all over it, and swaths of yellow capeweed. I saw potentilla, Mules-ears and buttercups. This trifolium dubium below is called Suckling Clover and other common names I’ve never heard of. The flowers are darling, and barely a centimeter across. It’s said to be the traditional Irish shamrock. Unfortunately I didn’t read that until just now, and I didn’t get a good picture of its leaves.

Another wildflower I identified for the first time was the Shepherd’s-needle:

When I pulled into the lot where I most often park, it was empty. Maybe because schools in our area are back in-person, and parents are no longer free to bring the kids to the beach on weekdays. (That’s my car.)

Or maybe because people knew enough to stay away — the wind was up! It was so brisk and blowy, I didn’t walk in the waves but on the dry part of the beach, and found myself headed behind the dunes where I could get them between me and the worst wind.

I sat with my back against the dune and my feet in the hot sand. This was my view of the lagoon:

It was a perfect reading spot, until the wind shifted and started blowing from my side! That signaled the end of my beach stay, but I sat longer in my car on the bluffs above, to get some more reading time in before my mini-retreat would be over. It had been an unusually dry outing, but oh so satisfyingly full of flowers!