A small blur buzzed by me and landed on a bare branch, watching me carefully. Satisfied that I was harmless, a hummingbird zoomed back to work on the flowers. What a moment.

A few days ago after rain I took these photos of Jewelweed. One article I read about Jewelweed claimed it was named for the way water droplets shone like jewels on its leaves. I think it’s for the deep rich tones of the flower.

Then today I saw a huge drift of jewelweed at the edge of a tiny creek.

But what I saw next was magical! Tune in tomorrow…

I can’t believe how many local wildflowers or plants I have seen this year that I have never seen before in my life.

I was walking along a tiny rivulet in the woods beside our pasture. It’s been a wet summer, so there were jungle-like conditions. Mosquitoes were plentiful, although not as bad as two weeks ago.

I saw this vine, and thought at first it was a kind of vetch flower. But the leaves are not at all vetch-like.

Hog Peanut (unfortunate name once again; I’m tempted to rename it…fairy vine?) is a versatile plant with edible seeds at the base of the plant, peanut like– not the seeds from these flowers I took pictures of. Yes, two sets of flowers and seeds on one plant. Amazing.

A sacred plant to the Osage people.

A thunderstorm brought strong winds, and this oak tree in our pasture was felled, bringing destruction to this complex apian civilization. Their structures look so alien to me.