yearofplenty

Consider the Buttercups

Spring is doing its typical two steps forward and two steps back in Spokane. Snow, sun, rain, and hard freezes are all taking their turns. The plants are in the greenhouse and I'm once again looking hopefully for signs of new life emerging in the garden. I wrote about this annual experience of waiting and paying attention in my book. The excerpt is available to read here. Here's the part that came to mind this week:

As Jesus puts it, consider the lilies, tune into the smallest details that point to the biggest truths: Creation, Creator, Created. It’s probably no coincidence that Jesus chose among the earliest and most tender of spring wildflowers to highlight God’s glorious grace. Lilies put on the most elaborate of displays, breaking the dull drone of winter gray and announcing the certainty of the turning of the seasons. More broadly Jesus is saying consider the glorious springtime. Before you plant and harvest and “make” the world in the heat of summer, remember that the world was made and you are caught up in the drama of the making.

Yellow bell lillies are what I had in mind when I wrote that. They are the earliest spring wildflower in one of my favorite nearby spots but in most places in the Spokane buttercups are the earliest display of spring color, and they are all I've got to work with right now. 

I've always found them uninteresting and took their display of waxy yellow petals as a sign that I need to look for the good stuff to emerge, but this year I'm putting my commitment to pay attention to the smallest details to the test. I'm considering the buttercup and I've discovered that they are actually quite fascinating.

There are over 600 species and I've noticed several varieties on recent walks. The most common is Ranunculus glaberimus or sagebrush buttercup. They are so toxic that Indians used them to make poison arrows and spiked meat with their leaves to kill coyotes. Wikipedia notes that there is a legend associated with them in our region:

In the interior of the Pacific Northwest of the United States the buttercup is called "Coyote’s eyes" in Nez Perce. In the legend Coyote was tossing his eyes up in the air and catching them again when Eagle snatched them. Unable to see, Coyote made eyes from the buttercup.

Besides all that they are much more beautiful than I had ever noticed before. 

So, as I navigate the fickle weather of spring and the home stretch of Lent I'll consider the buttercups as evidence that new life is approaching at its own pace, and it's not my job to make it happen, rather it comes as a gift freely given, one small detail at a time.

Beautiful Foxglove - Wildflower Outing In the Seattle Area

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I'm over in western Washington this week and am stunned by the beautiful foxglove. I never noticed them in all my years living in the Seattle area. They would be the equivalent of Arrowleaf Balsamroot in the Spokane area as far as abundance and beauty. The problem with beautiful wildflowers growing in vacant lots and under power lines is that they become so common we lose the ability to appreciate them. So to everyone who lives in a place where foxgloves grow like dandelions, this is your reminder that they are among the most beautiful flowers around. (My ER Doc sister also reminded me that they are deadly poisonous. I guess they make a medicine from them that slows your heart rate. Behold them but don't bite into them.)

Exotic Inland Northwest Wildflowers

 

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I'm in a little bit of writing slump but I've been having some great outdoor adventures, so I thought I'd share some new flower finds in our family quest to chronicle the wildflowers of the Inland Northwest and a cool photo of a shelf mushroom. I also added personal photo of a happy me decked out in my doctoral hood. 

The first picture is a fairy slipper which I've photographed before, but I actually had some sun to work with in this picture. Blog props to the first person to ID exotic wildflowers 2-4.

Signs of Spring

 

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Here are some samplings from recent outings. As last year's cattails finally disintegrate, the signs of new growth are emerging. The trillium (second picture) are especially beautiful.

 

Favorite New Flower: Prairie Coneflower

I started these Prairie Coneflower (Ratibida columnifera) from seed in the greenhouse this year and they are beautiful. Of course the Purple Coneflower remains my all time favorite.

Wildflower Seedbomb Dispensers Coming to a Neighborhood Near You

I love this idea of wildflower seed bombs distributed via converted gumball machines. h/t Kelly Rand.

Here's how they describe it;

Made from a mixture of clay, compost, and seeds, "seedbombs" are becoming an increasingly popular means combating the many forgotten grey spaces we encounter everyday-from sidewalk cracks to vacant lots and parking medians. They can be thrown anonymously into these derelict urban sites to temporarily reclaim and transform them into places worth looking at and caring for. The Greenaid dispensary simply makes these guerilla gardening efforts more accessible to all by appropriating the existing distribution system of the quarter operated candy machine. Using just the loose coins in your pocket, you can make a small but meaningful contribution to the beautification of your city!

Whether you're a business owner, educator, or just a concerned citizen we'd like to work with you to get Greenaid in your community. You can purchase or rent a machine (or two, or ten...) directly from us and we will develop a seed mix as well as a strategic neighborhood intervention plan in response to the unique ecologies of your area. You then simply place the machine at your local bar, business, school, park, or anywhere that you think it can have the most impact. We will then supply you with all the seedbombs you need to support the continued success of the initiative.

Unprecedented Struggles for Northwest Bees & Beekeepers

I was talking to Jerry Tate of Tate's Honey Farm at the Farmers' Market last night and he explained that bee colonies are experiencing something that he's never seen in his 40 plus years of bee keeping; bees starving to death in June because there are no flowers.

I hadn't thought much about it, but I have noticed recently in my efforts to take pictures of all our area wildflowers that there really aren't many flowers out there. All the cool weather spring flowers have come and gone but the hot weather, high nectar producing flowers like vetch have yet to really get going. I mentioned to Jerry that I have seen a lot of yellow clover, but he explained that even the yellow clover doesn't produce nectar until the temperature gets higher so even though there are flowers, they are not producing the food from which bees make honey.

I am continually surprised at my blind spots when it comes to the web of food and nature. It wasn't until Jerry started explaining that the current conditions are leading whole colonies to starve to death due to a lack of nectar and honey that it occurred to me that bees make honey as food stores for the colony and not just for me to buy at the farmers' market. Instead of bees filling up beekeepers stocks of honey, the beekeepers are having to feed the bees to keep them alive. The more I pay attention to the matrix of food and nature the more delicate and miraculous it appears.

Jerry did say that a beekeeper friend of his in Dayton, which is a week ahead of Spokane weather, has an abundance of vetch in bloom and when it came on his bees filled up the hives with honey in less than a week. Hopefully the heat will come on in the next week and the bees will bounce back.

For a February post about the challenges facing northwest bees and beekeepers go here.

Jerry Tate's honey is available every Wednesday from 3-7pm at the Millwood Farmers' Market.

Picture: Vetch, one of the high nectar producing flowers that bees rely on in our region.

The Many Faces of the Delightful Fairyslipper Wild Orchid

I went out hunting for wild mushrooms last night with some friends and while we did find some tasty morels the highlight was coming across an abundance of Fairyslipper wild orchids (Calypso Bulbosa) in the dense shade of the forest floor. I found one last year but it was so dark I couldn't get very good pictures. I have a better flash now and better camera sense so I was able to capture some images that do at least a little justice to these tiny wonders. I'm going to need to get more lighting equipment to really do it right.

 

There may be scientific physiological reasons why traipsing around in the woods is good for you, but beholding the beauty of these orchids reminds me that being attentive to the delight of nature does more than just set off a chemical reaction in the brain. It helps me find a more secure footing in the world, recognizing the wonder of Creation and my place in it as one who is created. It puts me in the way of Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount;

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

Go here from some of my recent reflections on the intersections of faith and nature.

Look for the Chocolate Lily Wildflower This Weekend

If you're out and about in the wilderness this weekend in the Pacific Northwest you might want to keep an eye out for the elusive chocolate lily (purple lily, mission bell, Fritillaria lanceolata). It is actually quite common but is very difficult to see because of its coloring. This lily was one of the specimens collected by Lewis and Clark on their expedition on April 10, 1806 at the current location of the Bonneville Dam. They wrote;

"Specemin of lilliacious plant obtained on Brant Island 10th of apl 1806, the root of this plant is a squawmus bulb and is eaten by the natives. The Clah-clel-lar [Indians] opposite this Island call it tel-lak-thil-pah."

It's one of my new favorites. The pictures below were taken around Liberty Lake, WA.

Spring Wildflowers In Blue

The wildflowers are shifting from yellow to blue. Some of them look kind of purple but my wildflower book categorizes them as blue.

The Common camas (the photo above) is the breviflora variety (Camassia breviflora). Upon seeing an abundance of camas flowers on the Lewis and Clark expedition, Clark wrote;

“… our camp is agreeable Situated in a point of timbered land on the eastern borders of an extensive leavel and butifull prarie which is intersected by Several Small branches near the bank of one of which our Camp is placed. the quawmash is now in blume at a Short distance it resemhles a lake of fine clear water, So complete is this deseption that on first Sight I could have Sworn it was water. …” [Clark, June 12, 1806, at Weippe Prairie, Idaho]

The next two photos are in order, Upland larkspur and Whitestem frasera.