An Abundance of Spring Blooms
Empty fields can provide a touch of nature in a bustling suburban area.
I know that it’s currently in the mid 40’s here and it is November, the start of our few months of Texas’ dreary winter weather, but let’s look back at the delights of spring, shall we?
It had been a few years since I had visited my parents at their suburban Fort Worth home, the home where I grew up, during Easter, and as such needed to stretch my legs in the middle of the weekend. Since delving into the world of iNaturalist over the last few years, I am always intrigued about new places I can find to log new (and more) species. I am prone to walking slowly and poking around, now looking for insects just as much as I’m looking for plants.
I chose a field not far from their house, maybe half a mile down the road, and adjacent to homes and other businesses. The field has always been there, since my parents moved into the house in January 1986. Similar fields around the corner had succumbed in the last decade to crammed in homes and it felt necessary to document the life in this particular field. And what I found was much more diverse than I was expecting.
It had the bones of a remnant prairie.
Here’s a few interesting bits I found.
They come in pink, too!
A palette of wildflowers!
I could have trolled through the field longer, gone a bit further in and honestly, I would have liked to have seen it in summer and autumn. It’s the kind of field that easily gets a random grocery bag or two drifting across it, the one that never gets paid attention to as people drive to and from their errands. There are thousands of places like this around the state begging to be appreciated before they are paved over.
So, if you’ve been driving by a place like this for years, decades even, stop sometime and check it out*. You never know what is waiting for you!
Oh, these photos are beautiful.
So enjoyed your discovery of prairie remnants and tribute to this forgotten field. Beautiful photos too.