Bear With Me

I've come back from vacation with ideas for a couple of different blogs, but I've been too busy catching up with work and unpacking to actually write any of them! I'll tempt your blog-buds with a picture or two, though.



We spent the majority of our time in Colorado and Utah, but Arizona took up a wonderful day and a half, and my foot was in New Mexico at the Four Corners Monument. The trip mileage on our rental car read 1,759.0 when we turned it back in - quite a lot of rubber on the road! We saw eight parks/monuments in eight days. The first picture is from Great Sand Dunes National Park, showing the sand dunes, of course. The second was taken from the car as we traversed a mountain pass between Ouray and Durango, also in Colorado.

April 30: Mountain Laurel

I'm ending the month with Pennsylvania's state flower, Mountain Laurel. Don't tell anybody, but I took this picture in Tennessee!

April 29: Spring Beauty, Squirrel Corn, Wild Geranium, and Rue Anemone

I am nearly at the end of April and I still have a lot of flowers to put on display, so you get an end-of-the-month four pack of blooms. These four are common springtime wildflowers in Pennsylvania and in Tennessee. I have pictures of each from both places. Spring Beauty is above; Squirrel Corn is below.


Wild Geranium above; Rue Anemone below. This particular anemone appears to have a double flower. Most anemone blooms don't have the extra layer of petals.

April 28: Cut-Leaf Toothwort

A fine Pennsylvania wildflower with a funny name :)

April 27: Angelica (I think)

On top of Roan Mountain in Tennessee.

April 26: Lady Slipper Orchids

These are flowers with highly unusual shapes!

April 25: Hepatica

Hepatica comes in sharp-lobed and round-lobed varieties. The lobes refer to the leaves. One species has leaves with round lobes, while the other's leaves have much sharper points. Round-lobed hepatica has a purplish tint to its flowers and leaves. The name hepatica refers to the liver. Because the leaves of the plant resemble the shape of the human liver, it was believed that the plant could cure diseases of that organ.

April 24: Trout Lily

Here's another familiar flower that I remember from the time spent on my grandparent's farm. I remember that the leaves of the lilies sometimes nearly covered the banks of the creek.

April 23: Doll's Eyes (White Baneberry)

April 22: Goat's Rue

More of a summer flower, Goat's Rue tends to grow in disturbed "waste" spaces.