My life in... flowers

Our time in Texas didn't get mentioned in my previous post. North Texas does have trees, of course, but it's not big tree country. It used to be prairie. There is grass, and cacti, and flowers. Even the cacti have flowers.

Transplanting myself from cool damp British woodlands to hot dry Texas prairies meant learning a whole new wildflower vocabulary. Instead of Cowslips and Ragged Robin, there was Turk's Cap and Indian Blanket. In the spring, you didn't go to take photos in the bluebell woods, but among fields of bluebonnets.

English bluebell woods

Texas bluebonnets

So much of the original prairie has gone now, that there is a strong movement towards preserving what is left, and planting native species. We visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Centre in Austin, which is stunning - lovely buildings merging beautifully with the surrounding scenery. And I had a go at cultivating my own patch of native flowers in the backyard.

Even when you don't think you're a nature expert, it is disconcerting to move to a place where all the flowers are unfamiliar.

As a kid, I remember sitting on the school field making daisy chains and seeing how far we could shoot plaintain flowers.

Snapdragon flowers could be pinched to open and shut like little mouths, and of course my friends and I had several tries at making rose petal perfume, always resulting in a foul-smelling sludge.

All these small interactions build up a background level of familiarity, which is suddenly lost when you move to a different country. The good thing is that even the most common plants and animals become interesting, because they are new. We were enamoured by possums (regarded as a nuisance) and Graham was desperate to see a rattlesnake, which many Texans will kill if possible.

Then, when you move home, the familiar here seems exciting as well. We went for a walk during our first summer back in the UK, and it felt like hiking through a jungle! I had forgotten just how enthusiastically everything grows in the short summer season, fuelled by plenty of rain.

A British jungle!

I feel like I should be writing something more profound, but surely this is enough: Flowers are beautiful. I'm so glad we live in a world with so many kinds of flowers.

Purple coneflower, Texas

Comments

The Churnet Way: a wonderful walk

The loop from Oakamoor to Froghall and back was one of the most enjoyable walks I've done in a long time. It had a bit of everything: woods, ponds, rivers and railways; steep climbs and sweeping views; an unusual church, an ex-industrial wharf, and, as a final bonus, car parks with toilets. Of course, the sunny weather helped too. I parked in Oakamoor and set off along a quiet lane called Stoney Dale. This is the route of the Churnet Way, which deviates away from the river for a couple of miles. After a while I turned right and climbed up through the woods on a gravelly path, then dropped down to the B5417. a spring in Oakamoor Crossing the road, I entered Hawksmoor Nature Reserve. It has some fine gateposts commemorating John Richard Beech Masefield, "a great naturalist". I found a photo of the opening of the gateway in 1933; unsurprisingly, the trees have grown a lot since then! A track took me down through the woods to East Wall Farm. Lovely view! Nice duck pond as

The Churnet Way: bells at Alton

Alton village and Alton Towers are perched on opposite banks of the Churnet, with the river cutting a deep valley between them. Most people drive straight through the village on the way to the theme park. But I have a great liking for walks and no fondness at all for rollercoasters, so I found a large layby to park in at Town End, in Alton, and pulled on my boots. The church bells were ringing as I set off. I vaguely wondered if there was an event. A wedding? Unlikely on a Tuesday morning. Maybe a funeral. I followed a footpath across a few fields to reach Saltersford Lane. This was the width of a single-track road, but mostly overgrown and muddy. I was grateful for the strip of stone flags (and some more modern concrete slabs) which provided a dry surface to walk on. Presently I came out into some fields and dropped down a slope to the old railway line, at the point where I left it on my previous walk . bit of old rail There followed several miles of walking along the railway path.

The Very Persistent Widow, or, We're Going on a Judge Hunt

Image by Pexels from Pixabay At church this morning I was leading the kids group for the five- to seven-year olds. We are studying parables at the moment - the short and punchy stories that Jesus told. Today's was about the persistent widow, who kept on going to the judge's house to demand justice. As I read it, echoes of The Very Hungry Caterpillar came into my head: "...and he was STILL hungry!" as well as images from We're Going on a Bear Hunt: "Mud! Thick, oozy mud!" So here is the version of The Persistent Widow that Jesus would, I am sure, have told, if his audience had been a group of infant school kids. They seemed to enjoy it. I hope you do too. If you have a small child to help with the knocks and the "No!"s, so much the better. The Very Persistent Widow Lydia was a widow. That means her husband had died. She didn’t have any children, so she lived all by herself. Now someone had done something wrong to Lydia. Maybe someone had

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog