Last Year's Flowers, This Years Seeds

Sunlit dead flowers have caught my eye lately.


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A Very Dewy Morning

A dewy winged Grape Leaf Folder Moth


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Dewy Thistle Gone To Seed


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Photos taken at Pawnee Lake SRA

Sunday Paper

On the sidebar of one of the sections of the paper today there was an article entitled "Lady Bird's Wildflower Legacy In Nebraska". The article doesn't seem to be in the online version of the paper.

According to the article, Nebraska "started planting native grasses in the mid-1960's and wildflowers in 1971". They are planted on new projects or whenever a highway is widened. The species being planted can be found here.

The article cites the following roadways as the best for viewing wildflowers:

Nebraska 2 from Grand Island to Alliance

US 20 from Valentine to Chadron

US 83 from McCook to Valentine

US 6 from Imperial to McCook

Nebraska 8 from Falls City to Fairbury

Nebraska 11 from Scotia through Burwell to Butte in Boyd County

Nebraska 61 from Ogallala to Merriman

Nebraska 71 from Gering to Crawford

Nebraska 12 from Ponca to Valentine

Marmots, Flowers, and Dragonflies

Friday I was feeling kind of crummy, but I headed out to Branched Oak Lake. I sat for awhile in an area where I have seen Lark Sparrows. Really would like to get a photo of one. I saw them, but they were always out of range of the camera. Finally decided to move on. Had not gone far when I spotted a brown furry lump in the tall grass. So I stopped and watched for awhile to see if I could figure out what it was. The brown furry lump was foraging and moving slowly. Finally the little guy put his head up and it was a marmot.


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Moved on to a field of wildflowers. Got this really neat picture of a Black-eyed Susan.


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And then this picture of a dragonfly. I have just about given up on dragonfly and damselfly identification. I have three insect id books that all have very small sections on dragonflys and damselflys. I can't find any books dedicated to them only. Anyhoo, here's the unidentified dragonfly.


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Update (June 17, 7:30pm CDT) A commenter has suggested my brown furry critter is a woodchuck. When I saw this critter, I was unsure what it was. I have two books with critter pictures. The pictures in one book made me think it was a marmot, the other book made me think it was a woodchuck. So I wandered around the internets looking for pictures. I still wasn't sure, so when I uploaded my photos over on the photo site, I entitled it Marmot? Within an hour, I had a commenter that said that id was correct. I've had no other commenters on that site, and I haven't yet removed the question mark from the title. If my commenter wants to articulate the difference, (or anyone else reading this site) I would be delighted. I really would like to know for sure what what this brown furry critter is.

Lady Bird Johnson

I love wildflowers. I love the challenge of photographing them. I love to see them swaying in the breeze. Wildflowers sparked my interest in the greater outdoors and how they fit into our universe in general.

Lady Bird Johnson passed away earlier today.

The next time you pay a visit to Washington, D.C. and the tulips and daffodils are blooming, remember to say thank you to Lady Bird.

The next time you drive down a scenic highway and there are no billboards, remember to say thank you to Lady Bird. Lady Bird wanted the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 passed, and Lyndon Johnson made sure it got passed for his wife's sake.

If you visit the Hill Country of Texas in the spring and experience the beauty of the wildflowers, you can thank the influence of Lady Bird for that also.

There are so many more things that I should give her credit for, but those are the ones that come to mind. I'm sure others will do so far more eloquently than I.


LBJ Library Photo by Frank Wolfe

Thank you Lady Bird for a race well run.

Wildflowers

If I hadn't gotten a call on my cell phone, I would have never gotten this wildflower picture. I do not like to talk on the phone and drive so I try to find a safe spot to pull over. In this case, I was on a gravel road and there was no one around, so I just pulled over. While I was sitting there chatting, I noticed this wildflower. Once off the phone I hopped out of the car with my trusty camera. It's a Chicory. I suppose I have seen it before, but I don't have any pictures of it.


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My favorite wildflower identification site has this to say about it:

This native of the Mediterranean region is considered a weed.

Chicory has been used for salad greens and the root as a coffee substitute.

The flowers are usually blue, but can occasionally be white.

The flower heads open in the early morning and close around noon on bright days.

Native Americans boiled the roots to make a wash for fever sores and steeped the roots to create a nerve tonic.

Chicory has a deep taproot.

Will give a bitter taste to milk when consumed by dairy cattle.

I find the factoid of it opening early in the morning and closing around noon to be very interesting!

Wildflower Identification

Before I left for the Sandhills last week I decided one of my projects when I returned home was reorganizing the "office". When I moved back in this house 7+ years ago, I intended to fix it up (it had been a rental for 6 years), and after I had lived here long enough to not give it to the government in the form of capital gains taxes, I would move into a house I liked better. As a result, in this room, I kind of just threw stuff in here, and in the intervening years I have just built on that poor beginning. I had cords and wires going every which way, and it was impossible to vacuum around the perimeter of the room, which has created a mess of its own.

Well, this reorganization has turned into a major project. The worst part is because of other commitments, I haven't been able to devote more than a couple of hours a day to the project, so it's turning into a weeklong job. I'm nearly done, and I'm really pleased that with the way I now have things set up, there is only one cord that will go more than a few feet, and there won't be layers and layers of them snaking all over the room.

During one of my breaks today I started trying to id some of the wildflowers that I had photographed last week. This is a Rocky Mountain Bee Plant. Isn't it beautiful?


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One of my favorite wildflower identification sites had this to say about it:

Rocky Mountain bee plant was an important food source for Native Americans in the Southwest. The leaves were boiled and used for greens (like spinach) and cooked in meat stews with wild onions and celery. The seeds were cooked, dried and used in mush and were also used to make bread.

Native Americans also used the plant medicinally. They would take a tea made from the plant for fevers and stomach disorders and use a poultice of crushed leaves soaked in water to treat sore eyes. They also steeped the leaves and used the liquid as a body and shoe deodorant.

A black paint made from the plant was used to decorate pottery.

I have often wondered how the Native Americans discovered the best usage for plants.

I only saw this wildflower at Ft. Niobrara NWR.