Following the Wildflowers

It was a little frosty this morning. That’s a good thing. That means I can take that first walk with the dogs without breaking out the DEET. The mosquitos have been ferocious, especially in the evening when I want to be outside watching another magnificent sunset behind the West Thumb Geyser Basin.

This morning, we were the first ones out. The sun wasn’t yet over the Absorakas, but the sky was getting pink and light and the littlest songbirds were already out, dipping on the air like tiny winged porpoises. The lake, calm and blue against the dark green forested shores. 

The lupine is finally blooming here at 8000 feet. So are the yarrow, goatsbeard, spiny phlox, wild strawberry, and heart leaf arnica. All of this in the meadow above the lake. It’s so odd to be seeing these blooms after enjoying some of them (i.e., lupine) since the 1st of April. Of course they grow lupine bigger in Texas, and they call them Bluebonnets. It was April when I left San Antonio to begin the journey north for the summer, and they were bountiful through the hill country. I enjoyed them again in early May in the Grand Canyon, and again in late May in Missoula during my Avalon retreat,* when they were just beginning to bloom, along with the Camas. 

It’s not a bad life, following the wildflowers. 

* I have friends who have nicknamed their Montana home Avalon. This in recollection of the sanctuary and healing provided by King Arthur’s home in The Idylls of the King. My visits there, over the past few years have been healing and restorative. Their home is well-named.