Flower Spies

The high desert landscape where we lived outside of Albuquerque was rather careful with its use of flowers. I guess with the intense sun and the lack of moisture the plants have other things to worry about besides putting out huge showy blooms. The desert did have its gems though and I remember walking on our mountain this time of year and enjoying the verbena, yucca, chokecherry, primrose, prickly pear and some gorgeous irises that had escaped from someone’s garden long ago, found their way into the National Forest and taken up residence in a few of the arroyos. In the desert, the effort each flower represents is cause for celebration.

In Maine it is a different story. Spring is an obscenity, with flowers popping up wherever they please in enormous sprays and giant clumps anywhere they can find room. I almost forgot how beautiful spring is in climates of the wetter variety. Here, flowers are a celebration of a long, hard winter finally come to an end.  Um, amen.

In the Sandias of New Mexico I would take long walks in the spring for the sole purpose of seeking out flowers.  Here, we needn’t go much farther than our own yard, but I think Luca enjoyed his first flower spying mission anyway.  Here are the results.

P.S. I know its been a bit quiet around here.  It’s difficult to sit indoors and type when I have an amazing porch outside the door, the ocean down the street and the whole of Acadia National Park a few short miles away.  Writing has become a rainy day affair.  As an update, Kreg and I are still involved in the rather maddening task of purchasing our first home, Luca has produced two teeth (they aren’t actually whole teeth yet, but little toothlets poking through his gums) and is almost beginning to enjoy carrots and avocados and I am still desperately awaiting the arrival of my acupuncture license and trying to knit Luca a little hat on #4 dpns, which requires almost as much dexterity as wielding those little needles I love.

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