Time to Stop and Appreciate the Finer Things

'Hope for Humanity'

In the back of my mind, ProfessorRoush has a little nagging voice that keeps saying "you should post, it has been awhile," but I would not have thought that I wouldn't post during the entire month of August.   My, how it flew by!

I blame the unusual weather, more rain than usual, and temperatures that kept weeds growing and me mowing weekend after weekend.  I blame my unfortunate needs for cash, which keep me working long hours during the week, ticking down the clock of my life, time I can't replace no matter how valuable I think it is in the moment.  And I blame me, for not making the blog a bigger priority over eating, sleeping, target-shooting, reading, watching TV, or the hundreds of other distractions that occupy my time.   

Liatris spicata

But then a fall morning comes, like this morning, and it's cool (53ºF) and sunny, and I'm walking with Bella down the road at 7:10 a.m., and I remember that a beautiful world awaits, every single morning, if I only take time to look.

Time to look and stop to take a quick photo of 'Hope for Humanity', pictured at the top.  There has to indeed be some hope for a species that breeds and distributes a rose this beautiful.

Time to pause on the walk and relish the beauty of this clump of Liatris spicata, returning year after year to the roadside northeast of the house.  A "blazing star" of the highest magnitude (see what I did there?).

Time to appreciate that the Kansas state flower is the native Sunflower, thriving where the ground is disturbed by hoof or man, a roadside beacon to reflect the morning sunshine.

'Morden Sunrise'

Time to fawn over the delicately hued petals of this 'Morden Sunrise', a Parkland Canadian rose bred by Lynn Collicutt and Campbell Davidson in 1991.  I have one in front, 3 feet tall and now overshadowed by a "dwarf" lilac, and this second two-year-old in back.

'Comte de Chambord'

Time to stop and "smell the roses", in this case the Portland rose 'Comte de Chambord', a reliable bloomer and cane hardy to the toughest Kansas winters.  She looks fragile and virginal and perfect, but she's touch as nails. 

And time to appreciate all the beautiful and more mobile creatures who share the morning walks with Bella and I.  For the city folk reading this blog, the behavior of the left hand male bovine at the rear of the longhorn cow may look strange, but to an old farm-boy and veterinarian, it's anything but.  That cow had just hunched up and passed urine and he's checking to see (the "Flehmen response") if this particular cow is available for some morning "go-time".   Truly, there's nothing more natural on the prairie than a little lovin' at the first rays of the sun.  

I think we'll just leave this blog entry right here, in a light and educational moment, and not veer off into the weeds of biology trying to extend it.

A Walk Down The Road with Bella

Tall Goldenrod

(warning:  picture and link heavy)  Every once in a while, ProfessorRoush decides that Bella needs to lose a little weight and we embark on a program to walk nightly down the paved area of the road, about 1.25 miles total in a down-and-back walk.  This week, as we walked, Bella was willing to impatiently wait as I snapped photos of any blooming flowers along the roadside.

So consider this a short tour of the ditches alongside the road.  Of course, this time of year, Goldenrod is everywhere.  My plant identification is suspect as always, especially here given the number of native Goldenrods, but I believe the photos above and left are of Tall Goldenrod, Solidago altissima, although it could be Canadian Goldenrod, the former being a subspecies of the latter.

Snow-On-The-Mountain, Euphorbia marginata, is nearing the end of its bloom cycle, and not nearly as prominent in the landscape as previously this season.

Of course, Blue Sage, or Salvia azurea, one of my favorite wildflowers, is blooming everywhere now.  I thought this specimen looks a bit more faded then most.  It is also known as Pitcher's Sage, in honor of Dr. Zina Pitcher, a US Army surgeon and botanist.

Sunflowers, the state flower of Kansas, are still represented by the Common Sunflower,
Heliathus annuus.   I'm not anywhere near certain of the species name for this specimen, and I wouldn't have a clue at all without the marvelous kswildflower.org website.

There is a lot of White Sage, Artemsia ludoviciana. on the walk, everywhere in the adjacent prairie, its hairy-gray leaves befitting a plant adapted to drought and grazing.

Another white flowering plant,
Brickellia eupatoriopiodes, or False Boneset, is likewise a very frequent visitor to these hills, blooming in the worst of drought and leaving behind an interesting winter skeleton.  It's taproot is said to reach 16 feet in depth when necessary.

Nearly last, but certainly not least, clumps of the the most "garden-worthy" of the prairie plants, Dotted Gayfeather, Liatris punctata, "dots" the prairie with low light purple spires.  Butterflies love this plant, and often are above it in a swarm.     

Wax Goldenweed

A new Plant ID for me was Wax Goldenweed. Grindelia papposa, or at least I think that's what it is.  The plant is in the Sunflower family and is an annual named for David Hieronymus Grindel (1777-1836) a German botanist.  Livestock reportedly don't like it and I'll have to watch for it in the pastures to see if they avoid it.

And that is a walk down my late-September road everyone.   Not as literary-worthy as Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, but its none-the-less my own little "Walk Down the Road with Bella."

Sunflower Haven

I spend a lot of time and energy bemoaning the weather and the soil and the harsh wind and the boiling sun and the general misery that is Kansas gardening. I'm also constantly envious of the plants that others can grow but which will just obstinately shrivel up and die here. But I'll be the first to admit that if you want to grow sunflowers well, come to the Flint Hills.

It isn't named "The Sunflower State," and the state flower isn't the sunflower for nothing, folks.  The Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses website (http://www.kswildflower.org/) lists 10 different sunflower species (Helianthus sp.) that are native to Kansas and the Flint Hills area. These fancifully named wildflowers, the Stiff Sunflower, the Hairy Sunflower, Sawtooth Sunflower or the Plains Sunflower, they all open up in August and provide 4-6 weeks of brilliant color to contrast sharply with the azure prairie sky until the birds pick the seeds off in October and use the energy burst to wisely head south. The most statuesque of these sunflowers is somewhat drably named the Common Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and it really is the most common species in my area.  It usually grows around six feet tall although it's listed as growing anywhere from two to eight feet tall, but if a wild seedling gets started in good cultivated soil with lots of organic matter, and if it's protected from weed competition and watered, it will try to take on the Beanstalk role from the children's fable and it will easily top twelve feet and have a stalk six inches in diameter (ask me how I know). 

The group of Common Sunflowers at the right was taken at the end of our lane at peak bloom time.  As I turn onto Prairie Star Drive coming home from a weary day of  work, this is the picture that greets me home in late August and early September. So take that, rest of the world, you may have camellias and gardenias and orange trees and bluebonnets, but we've got some world-beating sunflowers that grow wild for the price of  a mere song in our hearts.