Balsamroot Extravaganza and the New Trail

The big balsamroot show has begun with fields and fields of flowers near the Jumbo Saddle.  Another development up there is a new trail that takes off switchbacking north from the saddle and replacing a straight-up trail-of-use.  Here is a bit of that trail with Mt. Jumbo and Lolo Peak farther off.  Wild hyacinth, woodland stars, death camas, and paintbrush are blooming, too.  The notable rain recently has greened things up.

 





Here are wild hyacinth (Brodiaea douglasii) above left and woodland star (Lithophragma parviflora), a member of the saxifrage family, on the right.  Saxifrage! 

William Carlos Williams 
 "A Sort of a Song"

Let the snake wait under

his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
— through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

Meadow death camas (Zigadenus venenosus) and paintbrush (Castilleja) are blooming now, too.  Jose Celestino Mutis named this species after his teacher in Cadiz, Spain, Domingo Castillejo (1744-1793).  
 




And balsamroot everywhere.

The new trail leads to new perspectives.  Through the ponderosas, off to the left of the trail in the photo below, you can see Cha-paa-qn (elevation 7996 feet), with a Salish name meaning, according to the Ninemile Ranger District of the Forest Service anyway, "shining peak."

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

About a month after the first leaves and buds of the arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) appeared, flowers on many plants are fully open now.  Schiemann notes that Meriwether Lewis collected a specimen of this plant.  

The grass is greening up, and the meadowlarks sing and sing.


"We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.  We loiter in winter while it is already spring."

HDT, "Spring," Walden

Simple

 


How simple, clean, solid the shape of fritillaries! 





"It is well to find your employment and amusement in simple and homely things."

Henry David Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1856







Yellow fritillaries are still blooming near the saddle, and someone has built a stone spiral around a biscuitroot.  

Biking on Catharine's Birthday

Bike Path Haiku
 
Blue sky, 
nice clouds, 
no long underwear



Lolo to Florence 
for gelato!

North Hills

 
                     

Great to see flowers 
we haven't seen yet this spring!


Out on the North Hills 
this afternoon 
we saw phlox,





 







lupine,  






 










and delphinium/larkspur 
(not quite open yet).

We also looked 
across the interstate 
to see the ball field 
and St. Mary's Cemetery 
(just over the crest of the hill).

                         

Windy April Afternoon

It was so windy at the saddle that we almost couldn't hear each other's voices, but then south of there, up in the trees, things calmed down.  



On a quick walk today we saw the peaks to the north, bluebirds, and shooting stars (Dodecatheon pulchellum).

Traveling at Home

Even in a dim, homely photo one of our happy places seems shiny in its own way.  This neighborhood trail takes us past favorite ponderosas and pretty directly to the saddle.



Being home, watching the fescue green up, seeing the first yellow in the silvery balsamroot petals, looking for the next flower to sprout by the saddle, and listening for the next returning songbird provide happiness and satisfaction. 

There have been snow squalls of the blowing-sideways variety recently, and I have covered the dicentra for the last two nights.  It was 19 F when I went out for the paper this morning.  Still, the towhees are back with their screen-door-spring call.