A Love Affair With Thistles

You're going to think I'm demented. You're right. But darn it, thistles are pretty and they have so much more character than many other flowers. A thistle is pretty, and it will kick your butt if you step on it, suckah! For that matter, Goldfinches like thistle seed. And look at this Musk Thistle growing with this Chicory. You can tell God had fun with that. So who cares if it's called a weed? That's what I want to know.

I don't suppose anyone would buy a hand made greeting card line featuring pictures of thistles and delightfully curmudgeony messages? Then I have a deep and abiding passion for milkweed. You'll never see any sissy geraniums growing straight up through blacktop, by George. And the butterflies like them. That has to be a sign of class. (See previous entry wherein butterfly voluntarily climbs up my pant leg and try to ignore my shameless self-aggrandizement.)

Wild onion sprouts some funky blooms too. And you can chop the whole thing up and put it on top of your baked potato. That could be a cafe theme! The Artsy Potato. You'd eat there, right? Don't tell me if you wouldn't.

Is that a silver birch off to the right there? I passed that thing driving in the morning, and I am not kidding: it looked like the silver tree that grew on the first day of Narnia in "The Magician's Nephew." If that is an obscure literary reference, well, that is not my fault. I've read the entire seven book series 20 times. Why haven't you?

Okay, well, besides drawing stares by stopping at the side of U.S. 27 to take the above pictures for you, I've been occupying my time this past week while Charlie was at Grandma's by harrassing Killdeer(s?) and stalking butterflies and other bugs as follows:

Kildeers are a Darwinian anomoly to me. In the days of foot travel, particularly when shoes were a luxury not necessarily afforaded by everyone, I can see how hiding this single egg in the stones would be a good idea. But honestly, it's time to adapt: now the only places you find rocks like this are roadsides, parking lots, and the desert. How are there still Kildeers in the world? Don't all their eggs get run over? It's not as if that whole "broken wing" trick lures away the 18-wheeler baring down on the nest. As a matter of fact, vis-a-vis the following insect pictures, I have to wonder that animal camouflage works at all...

 

This is the only buggy I tried to photograph who managed to hide from me, and then it was only because my zoom wasn't strong enough. What is the etymological world coming to?