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!
I started this week with the blessed Entrance into Jerusalem, the waving of palms, and exhortations from our priests to the flock not to think we have arrived, not to relax and try to coast to Pascha. We ought rather to have the spirit of St. Paul when he said he was pressing on. We have a lot to enter into in this last intense week of Christ’s passion.
nother kind of blessing this week, a visit from Pippin and family. It has been really good to spend time with little Ivy in particular, 18-months-old right now. And the group of us had a lovely outing to the redwoods and the beach.
Gladsome Lights 