Wildflowers #21 + Wildfires

The day dawned, the heat rose, the sun set on a new fire burning in Alpine, between Salt Lake City and our town of Woodland Hills.


In the meantime, the new flowers—curlycup gum weed, sunflower, and goldenrod—indicate that summer is really here.

Helianthus annuus

Grindelia squarrosa

Solidago ???

FIREWATCH

Still very hot. Windy. Extremely dry.


Fires still burning, although none we can actually see at the moment.


But where there's fire there's smoke—and ash.


And where there's the threat of fire—there we are cutting back our scrub oak, Quercus gambelii, lessening the likelihood that the house will burn if there's a wildfire. 


Scrub oak is tannin-rich, so scratches and cuts heal slowly.

Wildflowers #17 + Wildfires + Summer Scenes

Some new flowers yesterday and some views from our deck and finally an attempt to reproduce the sounds and scents (no luck with the latter) I hear and smell through my study window.


[My brother John would have been 61 today. 21 years without him. Wish we could sit together on the deck this morning and have a late breakfast and listen to the bees and smell the flowers and share stories and contemplate the future.]

coreopsis, Coreopsis grandiflora or lanceolata?

sego lily, Calochortus nuttallii

showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa

Mexican evening primrose, Oenothera speciosa