Magic Exists Among Wildflowers

"If all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her beauty

and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflowers."

- Therese of Lisieux (Society of the Little Flower - a Saint of Missions)

It's been a hot, dry summer. Crops have struggled. Depleted pasture grasses have led to early trips to cattle sales, all throughout the Plains, including with our own herd. But, miraculously, the wildflowers still bloom.

On a cool day after our machinery sale, Randy took me on an excursion to the Big Pasture. We used the new-to-us Gator for the trip, giving us a way to traverse some of the rougher terrain of the pasture. 

Even as grasses crunched underfoot, there were wildflowers in bloom.

 

Magic exists. 

Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers,

 the music of the wind and the silence of the stars?

- Author Nora Roberts

 

As a loyal K-State fan - and lover of all things purple - one of my favorites was the wooly verbena in bloom.

Some were the more familiar purple-crowned green stalks. But other plants seem to have congregated together, creating more like a purple-topped bush.
 

 

If you examine the individual blooms, the blossoms are tiny and intricate.

There was also an abundance of Snow on the Mountain.

The variegated leaves are almost as pretty as the blooms themselves. 

 

"Wildflowers are the loveliest of all 

because they grow in uncultivated soil, 

in those hard, rugged places 

where no one expects them to flourish."

-Micheline Ryckman

 

I'm not sure what these little pinkish-white wildflowers are.

 

I found them in the shadow of a bridge. (If you know, please let me know. I tried to find them on Kansas Wildflowers and wasn't sure.)

Are these yellow blooms Thread-leaf Sundrops (aka narrow-leaved evening primrose)? Again, I'm not sure.

Mr. Turtle in the creek didn't know either. Or, at least, he wasn't talking.

I don't need any help identifying our Kansas state flower - the sunflower. Even before we entered the pasture, the Kansas sunflowers waved a greeting as we motored past. Roads that get a minimum of maintenance often have a corridor of yellow lining the dirt path. The road to the pasture was no exception.

 

Iowans call our beautiful state flower a noxious weed. Well, to each his own, I guess.

 

 

 "One person's weed is another person's wildflower."

- Susan Wittig Albert

 

To be thrilled by the stars at night;

to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower 

 — these are some of the rewards of the simple life."

-John Burroughs

On a trip to the pasture 10 days later or so, the Rocky Mountain beeplant, or peritoma serrulata, was blooming.

So was the annual eriogonum, the little "baby's breath" looking white blooms.

The tiny yellow camphor weed was abundant along the ditches. 

They formed a "carpet" of yellow along the roadways. It was pretty ... but also somewhat smelly.

I think I like wildflowers best. 

They just grow wherever they want. 

 No one has to plant them. 

And then their seeds blow in the wind 

and they find a new place to grow.

-Rebecca Donovan