Puccoon

               (Lithospernum incisum) The Lady Bird Johnson center. 

     Interestingly, the puccoon waits until late in its season to produce seed from a second flower, this one tiny and not easily seen. I learned this bit of information from Anne, with whom I gave a lecture at garden club about wildflowers. Intrigued, and seizing upon any reason to view flowers, I traipsed back to the countryside in search of the puccoon. I returned with the images below.

Puccoon growing in cactus.

Puccoons growing around rocks with lichen. 

       Puccoons grow in sunlight, very little water, and in sandy or clay soils. The image below shows the environment where the puccoons thrive at this time, March, while other plants remain dormant.

Daisies Out and About

      I haven't wasted too much time traipsing to the countryside in search of flowers. In early spring, it helps to hop out of the car and wander away a bit from the road. Tiny flowers emerge unseen, otherwise. The flowers I found this morning do not grow more than an inch, and some barely a half-inch across.

Above, the Blackfoot and Huisache daisies. Cattle and deer like the taste of them. 

Stork's-bill.

A horse named Festus (I think) munching on native grasses (and daisies, if any, yum). 

In the background, the mesquite has not yet awakened from its winter slumber. 

Cowboy Jordan

        Jordan's skill at lassoing cattle appears flawless. 

      This last image, particularly, shows the finesse Jordan needs to lasso a calf. He waits for the un-suspecting calf to step with its back hoof inside the loop Jordan has placed on the ground. All the while, his horse collaborates, a partner just as skilled in cattle-catching.

Coneflower

     "It's a purple coneflower," said Charles as I walked in the door. He showed me his textbook in which he had found the name of the flower that baffled us until he looked inside this book in particular. The flower can have purple or white petals, his Hortus Third explained, and lives in Texas.

     And here is a picture by Yertle8 on Amazon of Charles' authorative texbook, a five-inch thick book, highly recommended for those of us interested in plants.

Cow Poke Cow Catcher Club

       I grew up hunting for food at the market and reading stories set in the old cowboy days of the southwest. Today, when I watch cowboys branding cattle, I am awakened by the significance of their work. The beef at the market? They raised it. The stories about the old southwest? They still live the lifestyle. Cowboys, known as "vaqueros" in Mexico, worked long before Texas became a state.
       My observations are that most cowboys are stoic and gentlemanly; they are humorous and playful; they are great story-tellers, too. And they are sensitive, though they wouldn't show it.
       Clay tells me they love to have their pictures taken, though they wouldn't show that, either.
       "Don't cowboys smile?" asked MyFriendFrances, attempting to coax a smile out of them as they posed for a group photo after their morning's work. A slight lift of one side of their lips and there they had them, the smiles.

MyFriendFrances brought out her flash unit to bring light under the hats of Clay and the other cowboys.

First, they have to catch a calf. Sean prepares to lasso one of them. 

Cowboys hold the calf while Clay medicates and Stephen brands.

Sometimes, a calf gets away.

Sometimes, too, they have a moment to play.

After medicating and branding, cowboys release the cattle into the pasture.

Stephen and his fine horse at the end of the day's work.

This is the photo MyFriendFrances set up with her flash unit, making the colors look rich.

And this photo I took under natural light, then brought up their faces with the dodge tool in PhotoShop.

Power Lines and Power Plant

      Near Vernon, Texas, sits a power plant. Over the years, power lines around it have increased in number . . . and size.

BirdBathCam

      Placing a camera on the bird bath yielded satisfying results, including the discovery of another species in my garden, namely, a White-throated sparrow. Here are the highlights of the images:

      In the files I looked at this morning, I saw the following species come for a sip of water:

Blue Jay

American Robin

Goldfinches

White-throated Sparrow

Housefinches

Cedar Waxwing

Grackle

House Sparrow, male

White-winged Doves

Starlings

Red-winged Blackbirds

Cardinal, male

Cardinal, female

Juncoes, Oregon, Pink-sided

Pine Siskin

      The images show honey bees and squirrels, too, my dogs, MyMrMallory, and Nati as they walk by.

One Tenth by One Tenth

    Every couple of weeks or so, North Texas received, so far, rain. Not enough to ameliorate the drought, though enough to raise the wheat a bit and water the impending wild flowers.
    A dove sits on the back of a chair during the rain.

Mount Dickason

What a view from the summit of Mount Dickason in Alaska. The mountain stands 4,393 feet above the Hayes and Trimble Rivers, and near the town of Skwentna, population thirty-seven.

Verga falls from the distant clouds.

Mount Denali.

Here I am composing a shot. The Jentna River is below, and in the distance the peak of Mount Denali.

Photo by Phil Toft.

Paths to the summit in the snow.

The grassy peak in the foreground? The summit of Mount Dickason. 

In the background stand the Tordrillo Mountain Range.

A well springs up at four thousand feet. 

Myriad flowers on the mountain. 

A female Ptarmigan. 

Signs of Spring

      The signs of spring, not only by the Cooper's hawk that stood on a dray, claws deep in leaves and twigs, watching the squirrel run away down the tree; not only by the vultures, American and Black, that kettle overhead; and not only by the Great-horned owl that alights in the oak above our bedroom and hoots; or the squirrels stoically carrying clumps of dried leaves up to the fifty or sixty-foot canopies; or the presence of nuthatches and chickadees after a long winter; or the starlings arriving at their old nest: Ay, it is the sound of a White-winged dove quietly, sweetly, warming his voice, slowly at first, and then, with practice, he sings a bit longer, delays his crescendoes, and with confidence, raises the level of sound to reach the ears of his mate.