Skip navigation

Tag Archives: wildflowers

Another Day, Another Mountain

This is not one of my favorite hikes and I seldom do it anymore but it does offer great views of the valley and of the mountains to the west. It’s not a long hike but it’s steep and the trail has a lot of loose rock. It turns out, those were the least of my worries. As I was getting close to the top, a couple coming down warned me about a mountain goat at the top. Mountain goats are potentially quite dangerous. They have killed hikers in the Olympic National Park and last year, our friends’ dog, on a leash, was gored by one on a popular hiking trail near here. So I don’t like to see them when I am out hiking with my dogs.

As I approached the top, I leashed Willow, the youngster, and kept Sky by my side. Soon I saw the goat walking down the trail towards us. I leashed Sky and we got off the trail to let him pass. But no, he was curious about us and peered over the edge where we were trying to be out of his way. I yelled and pretended to throw something and he backed off and then popped up in another place. Finally, he moved on and we went back to the trail. Of course, I didn’t see where he went. It was soon obvious; he was next to the lookout and stamping his foot and huffing at us. At that point, I figured we were not going to the top so we moved over to a rock outcropping and had a break, ate our snacks and drank some water. The dogs did not get off the leash. They were very aware of the goat and he continued to watch us, stamping and huffing but he did not move away from the mountain top. After our short break, we hurried down and away from him. The close ups of the goat were made with a 600 mm lens. We were not as close as it appears.

The flowers were beautiful. I especially liked the western clematis and the buckwheat. I don’t know the species (there are lots), maybe it’s thyme-leaf.

Spring Camping

The girls and I and our friends, Beth and Fern, went to our favorite camping place in the Okanogan Highlands last week and had a fun time despite lots of rain. One day, it rained for five straight hours, not just a light rain, but hard rain where you don’t even want to consider going outside. The trailer stayed dry inside, well, maybe it was damp from wet dogs and people and condensation but we were more or less dry. All that rain is good for wildflowers and green growing things. We did manage to do quite a bit of walking and birding and botanizing. And we read books. One day, we sat under a tree with a big canopy and stayed dry while it rained and hailed and then the birds came to us.

Yellow, As Far As You Can See

This has been the spring of the balsamroot super bloom in our valley! Most years there is a nice display of the arrowleaf balsamroot but it sure seems like this year is over the top! It is starting to fade on the lower hills and with the upcoming hot weather, the flowers will be gone in just a few days. In addition to the balsamroot, there are two or more kinds of lupine, several varieties of lomatium and larkspur too. It all made a good backdrop to photograph the girls. Willow has not yet learned how to pose for the camera and Sky seems a bit tired of it but I keep trying. There was a prescribed burn up by Mazama and its smoke lingered in the air.

Plants in the Granite

Being a desert area with little rain, what grows there? Turns out, lots of stuff. We were not there at the peak of the flower bloom (we missed the cactus flowers for sure) but we still saw lots of color. The reds really stand out. Red paintbrush and a red milkvetch. Most of the other plants were new to me. The purple and white low growing flowers sometimes carpeted an area of granite gravel. It was a harsh place for pretty things. We didn’t see a lot of pollinator type insects. Most of the bugs we saw were tiny no-see-ums that came out in clouds around dusk and were quite annoying.

Signs of Spring

Here at home, the snow is receding although it’s not all gone yet. Where it has gone, things are growing. And the honeybees are out searching for their own signs of spring. The first wildflowers are steershead and yellow bells. In the garden, chives, daffodils and parsley are all up and growing.