Monday, July 22, 2024

Snapshots from July (and June)

Time has been rolling past, as it ever does, and somehow I've let six weeks' worth of ride photos build up without blogging any of them! I have no excuse, and will offer none. Let's look at wildflowers instead.

Here is some stately spiderwort, with a cloud of yarrow in the background:


Cheerful daisies growing wild in a field:


Dainty crown vetch:


And regal hoary vetch:


Bright hoary puccoon:


And, just for a change, a beautiful double rainbow that appeared between passing storms:


Back to the flowers. This beauty rejoices in the name of hoary vervain:


(On a side note, why hoary? Why not something more euphonious, like fuzzy or fleecy or woolly?)

Here's a lovely wheatfield that I pass on my way to work:


Starlike St. John's wort:


Glorious orange milkweed:


Snowy viburnum:


Knapweed:


One of the many varieties of wild sunflower:


A gorgeous combination of daylily and hoary vetch:


Wild bergamot (the Phyllis Diller of flowers, I always think):


Common milkweed:


The humble soapwort, or Bouncing Bet:


Fleabane:


And one of my favourites, delicate whorled milkweed:


Life isn't all wildflowers all the time, hence this photo of Amish hay-gathering:


And now, back to our scheduled programming. This is rudbeckia, or black-eyed Susan:


Though we've had some brutally hot and humid weather this month, there have also been refreshing days of halcyon blue-and-white skies. This was one of them:


The next little plant is the charmingly-named heal-all:


A favourite bend in the road:


This tiny flower has a name much bigger than itself - pointed-leaf tick trefoil, or Desmodium glutinosum:


This is a new-to-me wildflower called common kidney vetch:


This might be coreopsis:


And this, of course, is Iris the bike:


Butter-and-eggs, anyone?


Another of my favourite flowers, wild chicory:


My last photo is for the train-lovers among us:


Whew! All caught up now.

How is July treating you?

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Monday, July 8, 2024

Farewell to Colorado (for now)

All good things must come to an end, including vacations and vacation photos. Here are the final pictures from our recent trip to Colorado.

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On Day 4, I took my usual morning walk, and found still more flowers to photograph along the trail.

Wild geranium:

Huge drifts of lovely blue penstemon:


A small mystery plant about to burst into bloom (possibly Western stoneseed):


One last view down this loveliest of trails:


Teasels were growing next to the road on the way back to my nephew's house:


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Later that day, my nephew took us up to some higher elevations. We had hoped for a short hike at 10,000 feet, but the trails were covered with deep lengthwise ridges of hard-packed ice and snow - very awkward to walk on.


So back down the winding roads we drove, then turned to go up a hair-raisingly steep dirt road (no photos, I'm afraid) to meet my niece-in-law for dinner at a restaurant perched on the side of another mountain. The post-dinner drive down the dirt road was even more nerve-wracking than the trip up, but we got home safely in the end, full of good food and conversation.

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On Day 5, I walked to a different nearby trail that runs along a local creek.

Snowmelt was rushing down from the heights to my left, foaming over rocks and past fallen trees:


To the right, the water ran more quietly:


Near the creek grew a new-to-me wildflower that I haven't yet been able to identify:


Then it was time to hike back up the road to my nephew's house, and head down into Boulder for brunch.

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The next morning we said farewell to our kind hosts, and set off for home.


It's always hard to leave Colorado; to see the snowy Rockies dwindle in the mirror, and finally drop below the horizon, as we think of loved ones left behind. But I'm grateful for the chance to visit, and hope to return sooner rather than later.

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Thanks to the following websites for help in identifying many of the flowers I saw in Colorado:

https://www.swcoloradowildflowers.com/

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