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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013 heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013 Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013 rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013 choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013 |
desert wildflowers
In order to be consistent from year to year, and route to route, BBS routes need to be run quickly. Exactly three minutes per stop, and a minimum of time wasted between stops. Instructions call for the 24.5 mile route to be completed within 4-5 hours.
But after the route is done, well, you find yourself almost 75 miles from home, with miles and miles of dirt road whichever way you may choose to go.
And in absolutely no hurry to be anywhere.
I was afraid the blooming of the desert would be mostly over. The phloxes are all done, and the woolypod locoweeds have already gone to seed.
But I stopped along a creek and, fighting the biting deer flies, found penstemons
and scarlet gilia.
Including an unusual six-point blossom.
(Sis, according to one of our aunts, Dee or Belle, the color of Gilia varies with what is doing the pollinating. According to her, in areas where hummingbirds drink the nectar and pollinate the flowers, the blossoms are red. Where hummingbird moths do the pollinating, the flowers are a paler pink to white. Don't know if it's true...)
Back into the desert, even the Stipa looked lush and pretty.
This grass officially known as needle-and-thread, we grew up calling "spear grass".
Because that's exactly what the long seed pods are good for.
And in those fields of Stipa, I found evening-primroses
and stands of larkspur.
It was wandering through these that I found the most pleasant surprise of the day.
A horny toad.
Not a large little fellow, but still... a horny toad!
Back into the sagebrush hills I noticed the paintbrush were doing well
and that the sedum were blooming everywhere.
Now, for those of you living in moister climes, or urban areas with tended gardens, that may not seem like much color. But for this dry country, well, those hills are awash with color.
But that was about it. The shrike was still perched on the tall sage at stop 18
and the new pronghorn fawns are up and about,
but I had pretty much reconciled myself to having nothing else pretty to look at until I reached the Prince's plume down in the saltbush basin.
Until I happened to notice a paintbrush clump alongside the road that looked particularly red.
So I stopped.
And stepping off the road, I suddenly found myself surrounded by
Bitterroot.
Yes, there were other colors in there. The golden yellows of sedum
and the whites of sandworts,
but what stood out was the delicate violet-pink of the bitterroots. Those unusual plants that send stems up out of seemingly bare dirt
to throw out bursts of color in a landscape of bland sages and tans.
I took 56 photos of bitterroots. I know, I counted.
I should have taken a lot more...
