Hipstamatic wildflowers

Got sucked in and bought the hipstamatic camera app for my phone. It does add a little vintage to the daily wildflower roster. First off, a prickly pear flower



Sensitive plant

Honeysuckle

More prickly pear

Wildflowers winding down at Turkey Creek

Spiderwort and bluebonnets going to seed

Ridiculously pink geranium

Sometimes I'm just drawn to the weird or exotic versions of plants, and then I get them home and wonder if they were such great ideas. This geranium looks like something created in Barbie's lab, but it seems to be thriving (more so than the traditional versions I have), isn't bothered by the summer heat that returned this past week, and there is something cool about it.

Today's wild things

Keep finding newly blooming things at Walnut Creek: Views of thistle


Prickly pear blooms

Bull nettle (also called stinging nettle) flowers look so innocent

Before these puffballs "bloom", I always think they're going to be woodland violets, with their delicate dark green foliage

A pipevine swallowtail caterpillar swiftly crossing the trail

Shallots

I planted shallots (passalong from my great uncle's garden) a year and a half ago, and since no one I asked seemed to know much about them, I never really got around to harvesting them...till today. The greens (about a foot and a half tall) were starting to die back, and I figured it was time. Well, they're like an enormous green onion, no bulb. I put them in a shady/airy place to cure, but maybe I should just chop one up and throw it into a stir fry. Hmm.

More flora and fauna at Walnut Creek

Still plenty of wildflowers on the morning hikes; but now the bluebonnets are going to seed, and yellow is the predominant color.








From the top: firewheels (also called indian blanket), butterflies doing their thing, thistle, white prickly poppy, yarrow, mustang grapes, random blooming shrub, and Lloyd charging out of the cold creek

A lovely day

So, the afternoons lately have been hot (86 degrees right now) but dry, so windows open throughout the house. Wish it could be like this all summer. Butterflies are everywhere these days, and I saw some fireflies out last night. I think this guy below is a checkered white, which I snapped at Shoal Creek this morning.