Some orchids and a poem

White bog orchid, Platanthera dilatata

Found while hiking in the Pioneer Mountains
to Betty, Goat and Baptie Lakes.
Goat being the highest lake in Idaho.

An Encounter by Robert Frost

ONCE on the kind of day called “weather breeder,”
When the heat slowly hazes and the sun
By its own power seems to be undone,
I was half boring through, half climbing through
A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar
And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated,
And sorry I ever left the road I knew,
I paused and rested on a sort of hook
That had me by the coat as good as seated,
And since there was no other way to look,
Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue,
Stood over me a resurrected tree,
A tree that had been down and raised again—
A barkless spectre. He had halted too,
As if for fear of treading upon me.
I saw the strange position of his hands—
Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands
Of wire with something in it from men to men.
“You here?” I said. “Where aren’t you nowadays
And what’s the news you carry—if you know?
And tell me where you’re off for—Montreal?
Me? I’m not off for anywhere at all.
Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways
Half looking for the orchid Calypso.”

On the way to work the other day...

I finally got to shoot a photograph of an antelope. Usually when I see them they are long gone before I get my camera out but not this one. He seemed very content to be resting in a pasture with horses. It was a treat to be able to see one so close up instead of watching one bounce away. I know, I know he looks like a colt all curled up...but he's not. Click on the picture so you can see it enlarged and it's an antelope. Really.

And today I took lunch in a field full of flowers. Some of my favorites, pussy-toes and prairie smoke, are in full bloom right now. According to my Mountain Wildflowers book and I quote "Pussy-toes are not particularly attractive, but they are so numerous that one cannot help but notice them"....

I'm quite partial to them.

Rosy pussy-toes Antennaria rosea

And in the same field lots and lots of prairie smoke.

Prairie smoke Geum triflorum (pink)

With lots of Slender and Early cinquefoil
Potentilla gracilis and concinna (yellow)
and a little bit of Upland larkspur
Delphinium nuttallianum (blue)

More cinquefoil