Skip navigation

Tag Archives: bitterroot

The Little Things

It seems like just days ago, our hillside was still covered with rotten snow and now it’s covered with tiny growing plants, some already in bloom. The tiny flowers are fleeting so I’m outside searching for them everyday while the Western Meadowlarks and Say’s Phoebes sing from every perch. Northern Flickers call raucously and sometimes I hear the soft call or see the vibrant glimpse of blue from Western Bluebirds who are checking out all our nest boxes. The honeybees are finding pollen to take back to the hives. Spring is wonderful.

Small Views

We live in this house because it has an incredible view from the river valley to the high peaks of the Pasayten Wilderness. Besides that, there is no practical reason to live here.

Additionally, their are pretty good small views – wildflowers and birds too. This year, the flowers are all coming fast and furious – early with bountiful foliage and intense colors. Without some late spring rains, in a month from now we will be facing brown, crinkly hillsides. So we enjoy the colors and scents now.

Western Bluebirds are using this nest box
Every year I need to remember the name of this flower.
Cat’s ear lillies. Funny name for a beautiful flower
Groundsel
Groundsel is about the same color as balsamroot and has replaced it on our hillside, keeping the yellow theme for a little while longer
Larkspur adds a bit of blue
I think this is an Erigeron sp. but I could not tell you which one
Bitterroot. A perennial favorite. Lewisia rediviva
This Phacelia is much reduced compared to last year when it grew vigorously and everywhere.

Small Spring Wonders

We have had some really marvelous warm spring weather in the last week or two. Temperatures into the 70’s and light to steady breezes quickly melted the snow and out of the wet ground sprouted delightful tiny wildflowers. Lots of insects hatched attracting lots of birds and the honey bees have been busy on the willow catkins, gathering pollen for their hives. For nearly a week I’d go outside a couple times a day and search for my former nemesis wildflower – steershead or Dicentra uniflora – and I was delighted to find it. As the snow line descended down into our draw, I found more and more of tiny plants with flowers the size of a dime. How could they have been here all these years and I never saw them til last year. Were they tucked under the bitterbrush that burned in 2014? Or did the fire stimulate seeds that may have laid dormant?

Steershead leaves emerge as soon as the snow melts
Waterleaf leaves
Bright green moss
Larkspur leaves
Bitterroot leaves
The bitterroot leaves were waiting patiently under the snow
Delightful tiny leaves peaking out from under a rock
Lomatium geyerii, our first wildflower to bloom
Busy honeybee taking a break
Inside the house, the clivia is blooming. My aunt gave me this plant many years ago and now it’s been three years since she died. Where does the time go?
The steershead flower bud
A rivulet running down our driveway from the melting snow
Hmmmm, I should know this one.
And then the yellow bells began popping out all over
The bluebells are now blooming too
And the steershead is full formed!
Lupine
A frozen vernal pond
Another Lomatium maybe gormaii or salt and pepper?
And soon there will be balsamroot on our hill!
Lots of steershead!
Prairie stars in Moses Coulee
Buttercups in Northrup Canyon

Yesterday’s Walk

We took the dogs up a steep hill on the game range near Twisp. It was sunny and cold. We could walk mostly on dirt although the dogs enjoyed little snow patches. Luna especially likes them. She does better in cold weather and isn’t looking forward to the end of winter. And she seems to not care to have her photo made. I had hoped to find sagebrush buttercups but it is not the warmest hillside in the valley. We did find other green shoots and soon there will be more. Probably not this week with nightly low temperatures forecast to be in the teens. Brrrrr.

Sawtooth Mountains in the distance
Sky is practicing for her cover girl and calendar photos
Where’s Luna?
Mary Ann tells Sky not to hit her with that stick again!
Quincy helps
Bitterroot leaves looking like sea anemones.
Bitterroot growing right out of a lichen covered rock!
A Red-tailed Hawk watched us and scolded.
This might be the leaves of yellow bells
Quincy and Frida
What do you mean? Why do we have to go back to the car? We’re not done here.

Emerging from the Snow

These are the remains of winter on our hillside.

 

P1050535

 

The anemone-like leaves of the bitterroot. It won’t bloom for months and by then the leaves will have disappeared.

P1050538

 

Lichen on a piece of thin bark

P1050541

 

A tiny buckwheat next to an immense ponderosa pine cone

P1050547

 

More lichen. They are bright and fresh this time of year.

P1050548

 

P1050550

 

P1050551

 

Maybe from a woodpecker

P1050552

 

Lots of little piles of fertilizer

P1050554

 

Does it seem like there was an especially good ponderosa pine cone crop? The White-winged and Red Crossbills have been busy opening them.

P1050555

 

Just one of the deer that didn’t make it through the winter

P1050558

 

Remains of an earlier time

P1050560

 

This was probably from one of last year’s fawns

P1050572

 

P1050573

 

Sprouts!

P1050576

 

More subtle lichens on a rock

P1050580

 

One of last fall’s mushrooms survived the winter.

P1050582

 

These tiny flowers seem to be growing out of moss

P1050589

 

Back at home, the bees were flying again.

P1050597

 

P1050599