Thing of Purpose

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Sunset on the second day of Easter and a local garden on the third day of Easter.   --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

Yesterday, I made a mental note to try and find more wildflowers—this was growing in the shade of a pecan grove. I photographed these eight tulips ten days ago [ inset ] before they bloomed. I am not sure my photograph does justice to this exquisite rose. These yellow blooms are all over the neighborhood and are one of my favorites. Again, perhaps my snapshots are inadequate and these blooms deserve expert attention with extra gear and techniques. Obviously I was out of order when I described the flowers in the center of this Zen garden as weeds. Next, what you have all been waiting for: cattle! Unusual to see in our neighborhood they were very inquisitive & frisky.   --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

There is an empty building plot on one of our regular neighborhood walking routes. Suddenly it is the host to a carpet of what I was told was Indian Paintbrush, which would put them in the genus  Castilleja . At that point the botanists start to argue of family names and classifications. There are 200 species of this genus and none of the illustrations look like these cup-like orange-red flowers, so I am a little uncertain just what they actually are for a positive identification. Cultivated or wild, the flowers are a delight on our walks. datura I thought of the wild white Datura, but those petals are thrown back with an abandon uncharacteristic of a vespertine. The new growth on the evergreens has been exceptional this year.   --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

The sign on the fence at the opening to the driveway said ' private property / keep out / no trespassing ' or words to that effect, " But on the other side it didn't say nothing, / That side was made for you and me " as the Woody Guthrie song proclaims. However—nudge, nudge, wink, wink—I did not take the necessary three steps forward to take this picture, even although, as my former mentor in the construction industry would have said, 'We can do owt if we divn't get catched'. That would have been a bad thing to do—as the Wizard of Oz might say, ' Cui Malo? ' in a link that is definitely not a transgressing citation, which you will understand if you click the link—so I used the zoom lens [grin] according to the official report. Has anybody here seen enough flowers to last them for the duration? Anybody specifically tired of seeing yellow flowers? We try to please: here is white… …vanilla and orange sorbet, and lastly… …vanilla, raspb...

The neighborhood irrigation has been running in the last few days. This is the result. I am always bemused by this flooding of the fields, which I associate with rice cultivation in paddy fields in the Far East, but not grazing meadows for cows in the Far West. The water authorities make public service announcements about saving water, exhorting consumers not to water during the heat of the day, and advising how overwatering can damage lawn grass. None of this seems to apply to agricultural users who pour water into standing mini-lakes and allow the excess to run to waste through the highway surface water drains. It really does make everything that green: in fact the contrast and saturation in the picture have been turned down a few notches just to make it believable. Down at the wash, where the surplus surface water ends up, some plants benefit. This is probably a plant that favors shade, but here it is basking in the evening sunshine as the low angle of the sun briefly illuminates...