Today's Flowers - March 13

Common Milkweed
Asclepias Syriaca

A plant with a 'common' name has uncommonly beautiful, and fragrant, flowers. I took this photo in July, 2010, at the Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, located about 20 miles southwest of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Today's Flowers is a weekly Meme created by Luiz Santilli, Jr. and currently hosted by Luiz Santilli, Jr., Denise in Virginia, Laerte Pupo and Sandy Carlson. I invite you to visit Today's Flowers to see lovely flowers from all around the world. If you have a flower photo of your own to share, information about how to participate in the weekly meme may be found on the 'Procedure' page.

Spring Creek Prairie - Nebraska

I've been mentioning the trip I made this past July to visit my youngest daughter, who has retired after 30 years in the U.S. Air Force and now lives with her family in Nebraska.   I was there for several days and had a marvelous time exploring the historic town in which she lives and getting to know the members of her husband's family.    After several days of staying close to home, we decided to go a little further afield to explore a place that was of interest to both of us, and which she had not previously visited.

The photos above were taken at the Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, in Denton, Nebraska, a few miles southwest of Lincoln, NE, and approximately 60 miles from my daughter's home.  Mother Nature provided us a beautiful day for the trip; bright sunshine and gentle breezes.

Following is very brief description of the photos in the mosaic, moving clockwise beginning with the top left image:

Spring Creek Prairie Education Center.  

View from the back porch of the center looking to the left.  

View from the same place looking to the right.   

Wagon wheel hoops placed in some remaining ruts.   

Three samples of flora -- butterfly weed [orange], tall grass, common milkweed [pink] -- found on the property and a view of the pond.    

Historical marker (lots of information to be found on the web site, the link to which is provided above.) 

Information concerning the hay-bale construction of the Education Center.    

Cut-out in the wall of the entry area showing the actual hay bales.

Before too long, as time permits, I'll post more photos and a bit more information about what we saw, heard and smelled.

Tomorrow is also a day.

Yay! - A Drippy Day

Goat' s beard

The photo above has nothing whatsoever to do with this post. I just ran across it while looking though some of my older Picasa folders.  This Goat's beard seed pod was among the hundreds of prairie plants at the Audubon Spring Creek Prairie, just outside Lincoln, Nebraska, which I visited in July of last year.  I had never before seen this plant and thought it was interesting. The resident master naturalist identified it for me. 

Today really has been a drippy day. For the first time in over a week, the temperature rose above the freezing point.  The snow on my roof has finally started to melt and I've listened to drip, drip, drip all day. While there is still quite a bit of snow around, it is gone where the ground gets sunlight for most of the day, but still pretty thick in the shade. It will take a few more days of warmer temps for it all to disappear. At least the icicles that were hanging from the eaves are gone.

I've worked most of the day on church records, a sometimes tedious task, but one I don't mind doing.  I'm just grateful that I have the same software (Excel) and can work on them from home.  I don't even like to think of how long it would take me to do these reports without computer assistance.  

Not much else going on here at almost the midway point of January. 

Tomorrow is also a day.