Kansas Native Wildflower Weekend

Hey Friends!!

Hope this writing finds everyone well, and enjoying some delicious weather!!

This past weekend found most of our family enjoying the great outdoors in one fashion or another. .

This girl and I. .

attended a really great event. .

Sponsored by the Kansas Native Plant Society.

Every year, interested persons group together in one part of the state. .

And enjoy the comradery of fellow flower enthusiasts. .

As they listen to expert lectures, go through business meeting essentials. .

And our favorite part. .

Field trips!

This year it was held in Pratt. .

Not too far from us.

And I KNEW. .

that the locations within the scenic Red Hills would be amazing!

We were NOT disappointed!

Cami and I drove up on Friday afternoon for the field trips. .

The first stop included a nature museum in Pratt.

There were lots of stuffed Kansas animal and bird specimens. .

Exhibits displaying live fish, reptiles, and this one showing common bird eggs and nests.

They also have a small native plant garden that this bee hive works to pollinate.

It is a little hard to see, but to Cami's far right, you can see an oak framed tube.
It comes out from the bottom of this bee hive, goes around the wall. .

And the bees go outside through a hole in the wall about the size of a golf ball. .

Very  COOL. .

for little people and big people alike!

While we were inside the museum. .

I heard someone call my name. .

I was fairly certain it was the gardener whom I follow from the blog Gaia Garden.

She recognized Miss Cami!!

We enjoyed catching up and getting to know each other for the rest of the afternoon.

She was a gracious and patient teacher to my little girl. .

And Cami enjoyed every personal minute of her time!!

They were using a stick to lift up a pile of cow poo to see what kind of bugs they could find under it. .

And she taught her some things about taking pictures as well!!

We found this ginormous spider on Friday afternoon. .

and then saw quite a few more like it throughout our weekend. .

Miss Gaia gave it some really long name. .

And I know she will forgive me for forgetting!!

Cami and I ate dinner with 75 other gardeners in Sun City Kansas that night. .

And then headed for our own beds!!

We went a little late on Saturday. .

in hopes of missing part of the stuff that a 6 year old would most definitely NOT enjoy.

But she REALLY enjoyed the nature aspect of the weekend. .

Rocks. .

Sticks. .

Butterflies and bugs. .

What is NOT to love about that!!

One of the things that I was looking forward to most. .

Was meeting up with the Gardener from Sherlock Street.

Cami was our photographer. .no faces here but check the LUSCIOUS Kansas clouds!!

It was SO great to catch up on life with her. .

From "meeting her" online. .

To trying to answer the questions from my teenager about WHY I would invite a stranger to our house a few years ago. .

Through lots of garden related emails over the last several years. .

And multiple mail service plant swaps. .

She has proved to be a GREAT friend. .

And there is always plenty to visit about!

She showed me new ways to use my camera. .

With stunning results. .

The three of us (and one 1/2 pint) wandered around all afternoon. .

observing. .

teaching and learning. .

visiting. .

and laughing!!

It was an incredible weekend!!

We headed home Saturday night, even though the tours extended into Sunday. .

We were provoked to go check out our own little patch of nature. .

Finding plenty of flowers that I had NO idea we had (including snow on the mountain!!)!!

And hubby took us "ditch diving" on the hunt for THIS flower. .

so I could collect some seed and try to get some growing in an area that I hope to plant with native grasses and flowers.

Look how these little guys are growing!! Faster than my kids!!

All in all. .

a FABULOUS weekend. .

Very refreshing for our souls!!

Wishing you all a BLESSED last week of September!!

An Adventure. .

We LOVE adventures at our house. .

After much craziness and sickness Memorial weekend. .

And on a glorious evening with NO wind. .

We decided to do a little "pasture trip."

With our new trusty little golf cart. .

Explained to me as "a HECK of a deal!"

We found that the hillsides of our little grass pasture were more FULL of blooms than they had been a few weeks ago. .

Yellows, oranges, blues, pinks, white, and purples. .

And this year. .

lots and lots of GREEN!

The golf cart is such a quiet ride. .

so the peacefulness of the trip was maintained. .

UNTIL. .

the cart wouldn't restart after we stopped to take pictures. .

Guess who drew the straw to walk BACK to the house to get the 4-wheeler and jumper cables??

Yup. .

ME!

Can you see the golf cart way back there. .

NO??

Let me zoom in my 30x optical camera lens. .

There they are. .

waiting patiently. .

While I continued to take pictures and walk. .

I was totally ECSTATIC to find this. .

Wild blue indigo growing in our pasture. .

I have NEVER seen it in our part of the country. .

And so I ordered a few of them from High Country gardens. .

2 of which are still surviving, but not blooming yet!

There were a good number of plants blooming down in the bottoms of the hills. .

but none that I could see from the driveway!

They were my favorite wildflower from childhood. .

I recall picking bouquets with them in it with my mom. .

and they lasted a long time!!

Since I rarely wear anything around the house but flip flops. .

I was SURE glad I spied THIS little guy before I found him with my toes!!

It's amazing that cactus AND wildflowers can thrive in the same acreage of vegetation!!

But they do!

Aren't God's creations magnificent!!

Hope you have a BLESSED Monday. .

And be sure and stop back by this week. .

The remodel is DONE. .

And the proof. .

is in the pictures!!

Native Wildflowers. .Part 2

Oh, what a week we have had!! Busy. .BUSY!!

But. .

We did carve out a little time to 

STOP. .

and smell the roses!

 We have been enjoying our weekly cruise through the pasture to check things out. 

Last weekend Grant, Devin, Cami and I packed on the four wheeler and took another wildflower tour!

Mostly the photos are for my own record to take note of what really blooms here!!

After my last post on wildflowers. .

my Kansas garden blogger friend, Gaia, shared with me the best website!!

http://kswildflower.org 

It seemed to be a little more helpful to me than the book I have been using. The flowers have multiple photos from different angles and seem to better show off the details. Additionally, one can search for them by name, by color, and by bloom time. It was just what I needed to ID some of blooms I had found!

I didn't even know that this type of flower came in white!! I ordered a purple one last spring from HCG that is blooming this year. .This flower found in my pasture is a White Prairie Clover.

I never was able to catch these blooms with nice flowers. .I think them to be Slender Greenthread, based on a photo that I found with dried up heads like these! There seemed to be a lot of them around!

This Palm leaf scurfpea was fascinating to me. .it has a great big bushy type foliage with tiny little two-toned purple flowers! Very dainty.

Grant and Devin both took their cameras along too. .nothing like trying to get fair-quality photos at the last minute. .but that's how we have seemed to roll this year!!

I thought these plants were really pretty. Woolly verbena or hoary vervain. I had the hardest time trying to ID this one, because it was found under different names in the sources that I used! Woolly verbena is very drought-resistant, with roots that can descend to 12 feet. Now THAT is a root system!!

The milkweed is blooming too. .I think that I may have some of this in my organized garden. .A patient had given me some seed to a common milkweed. The leaf structure is very similar. .but mine hasn't bloomed in the 3 seasons that it has been growing. Maybe soon!!

The Toothed evening primrose is still in bloom. It is very low to the ground. .in fact many of the wildflowers here aren't as tall as the guides say they might be. .I guess a lack of water!

This plant is still blooming. .I saw one a couple weeks ago. .but my driver was getting restless and deaf, and didn't heed my request to stop.

Found another one and I think it is a narrow leaf verbena. The brome grass has matured and is a golden color. Devin has mowed a lot of it down in hopes to get some light and moisture to the grass underlying. We had a little over an inch of rain last week, and cooler temps in the 80's to low 90's. That helps everything so much too! 

We have been consumed with 4-H stuff this week and next week will find several of us at camp. .

1 camper. .

1 counselor. .

and 1 camp nurse!!

Jeremy and Grant are at the race track this weekend. .

and the rest of us have some fun things planned here!

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Psalm 103:15-18

Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows , and we are gone-as though we had never been here. But the love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children's children of those who are faithful to his covenant, of those who obey his commandments!

The Great Wildflower Hunt

Mother's Day weekend was absolutely GORGEOUS!! Perfectly warm temps in the low to mid 70's, little wind, if any, glorious blue skies and lots of big, white, puffy clouds. .the kind just waiting for a mama and her babies to lay on the trampoline letting their imaginations run wild.

Blanket Flower (gallardia) and toothed evening primrose. I will have to go back next week to see what the grayish spiky flowers turn out to be. .my guess may be a lupine or a leadplant. .they were nearly blooming, but I couldn't quite tell what color they will be. .guessing purple.

Everyone enjoyed their own activities around our home.

Saturday afternoon, Devin, Cami, and I decided to take a four-wheeler ride through our pasture, scouting for wildflowers and wildlife. We so seldom have great spring rains like we have enjoyed this spring, that we don't always have the wildflower varieties growing that I have seen this year. From the house, we can't really see any wildflowers in the pasture. .

The lay of the land was exceptionally gorgeous Saturday. .with the different greens, yellow/gold, and pinkish lavendar. .quite a rainbow of color. Jeremy's shop is the first building, with the front of our house visible behind the large elm tree.

. .except for the liatris in the fall. But driving through the grass, we scoped out a nice handful of different varieties. .with others getting ready to bloom.

Here are some sand hill plums on the few little brambles that are out there. I have never actually picked these myself to cook up. .but I tell you. .they make the most DIVINE jelly you will EVER eat. .and it's not sold in your local supermarket (probably not, anyway-farmer's market, though. .that's another story!).

Devin and I used my Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers handbook to try and ID the plants. It was a great workout for both of us. This Toothed Evening Primrose came down to us counting the petals on the real plant and comparing it with a couple different plant photos in the book. Some of them even seem to come down to the leaf shape, since the flowers are so similar. This guy blooms in late spring. .and is found on rocky or gravelly prairie slopes. .which is where we happened to locate them.

We found white yarrow. .

and Sensitive Briar. .the kids enjoyed watching the ferny-fronded leaves curl up when touched with your fingers. I even had to take Grant back later to show him the plant.

We found a few that we didn't take time to ID (because the natives were getting restless). .and now I can't ID because of the poor photo quality (by now, it was getting tiresome for me to jump off the back of the 4-wheeler around the 2 kids in the front-so photos were coming from the 4-wheeler, sometimes while it was still moving. .HA!)

Addendum: Thanks to Gaia Gardener. .this plant IS a prairire larkspur. It looks a little different than the one in my wildflower book. .but is nearly identical to the pictures listed on kswildflowers.org

And a few that I couldn't ID. .Anyone have any idea what this is?? Cami and I noticed it along our driveway on our walk Friday morning. I can't find anything quite like it in the book I have. It's pretty. .and in 14 years. .I have never noticed a plant like that around here.

Addendum: Gaia was correct twice. .this is a velvety gaura plant. They are found throughout Kansas. Unfortunately, someone mowed it off before it finished blooming here. .and I haven't seen it anywhere else in the pasture! Very pretty blooms!! Thanks for your help!

The annual cheat grass (or drooping brome grass) is just gorgeous right now, with it's golden lavender seedheads.  Unfortunately. .it will soon turn yellow and die, leaving little grass behind. .Jeremy noticed that the native grass underneath the cheat is very scarce and very short. .as a result of last year's severe drought. He is having Devin mow some of the pasture down, so that the grass can get some sunlight and moisture to survive.

I don't know what this little grass tuft was. .it had really fine blades. .almost like the ponytail grass sold in nurseries. .except that the blades were pinkish-purple. .wish I would have had my shovel!! And now I can't remember where we saw it at!

Nearly 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule. .our Kansas wheat crop is nearing harvest! The head are turning from the green to a golden color, signifying ripe grains!

I'm smitten with the stuff!!

Devin used my camera on our way back to take this photo that I think seems pretty iconic of our home in Kansas. .barbed wire fences. .big blue skies. .wide open spaces. .and the promise of what people here do the best. .FEED AMERICA!

The person that started the rumor that Kansas was flat and boring. .

Didn't see ALL of Kansas!!

Say a prayer for the midwest farmers when you eat your daily bread tonight!!

Have a blessed week!