A relatively wet spring here on the foothills of the Wasatch Range, south end of Utah Valley. That means the wildflowers have been especially abundant.
First the glacier lilies, spring beauties, and Wasatch bluebells.
Then a sequence of yellow composites. The photos aren’t very good, taken with my little phone and without my reading glasses. But they still give a sense for the striking similarities between flowers growing out of distinctly different clusters of leaves.
Arrowleaf balsamroot were the first wave (you can see them loosing their petals already):
Now two other yellow composites are flowering, neither of which I can identify (can anyone help?).
THANKS FOR THE HELP FROM FRIENDS: THESE ARE MULE’S EARS
The first have low, broad, waxy wings the deer nibble on. You can see a couple of leaves here with their tops gone to feed the deer.
And these, with narrower leaves and growing out of bunches:
Native plants growing naturally in their chosen ecosystems. They make their own ways. And they make me happy.
Finally, the black-headed grosbeaks have been singing their melodious heads off, and the black-headed towhees have been sending their morse-signals. And yesterday, for the first time this spring, I saw my favorite bird of all: a lazuli bunting.
About Scott Abbott
I received my Ph.D. in German Literature from Princeton University in 1979. Then I taught at Vanderbilt University, BYU, and Utah Valley State College. At Utah Valley University, I directed the Program in Integrated Studies for its initial 13 years and was also Chair of the Department of Humanities and Philosophy for three years. My publications include a book on Freemasonry and the German Novel, two co-authored books with Zarko Radakovic (REPETITIONS and VAMPIRES & A REASONABLE DICTIONARY, published in Serbo-Croatian in Belgrade and in English with Punctum Books), a book with Sam Rushforth (WILD RIDES AND WILDFLOWERS, Torrey House Press), a "fraternal meditation" called IMMORTAL FOR QUITE SOME TIME (University of Utah Press), and translations of three books by Austrian author Peter Handke, of an exhibition catalogue called "The German Army and Genocide," and, with Dan Fairbanks, of Gregor Mendel's important paper on hybridity in peas. More famously, my children are in the process of creating good lives for themselves: as a model and dance/yoga studio manager, as a teacher of Chinese language, as an ecologist and science writer, as a jazz musician, as a parole officer, as a contractor, as a seasonal worker (Alaska and Park City, Utah), and as parents. I share my life with UVU historian Lyn Bennett, with whom I have written a cultural history of barbed wire -- THE PERFECT FENCE (Texas A&M University Press). Some publications at http://works.bepress.com/scott_abbott/
THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY 