Deep In The Heart Of Texas...Are Some Amazing Wildflowers
Two years ago, at the start of the Covid pandemic, I found myself in Texas in the midst of some stunning wildflowers. That beauty gave me hope.
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Two years ago, Brent and I had just arrived in Georgetown, Texas, a very distant suburb of Austin and part Texas’ of famous hill country.
We’d come from Mexico City, where we’d been living as nomads. Texas was pretty much the last place we thought we’d ever end up when we left Seattle at the end of 2017 to travel the world.
But, well, Covid.
And Gillian, a good nomad friend we’d been traveling with in Mexico, had generously offered to let us go into lock-down with her in Texas while the whole world waited to see how the pandemic would unfold.
The house where we stayed was in the suburbs, surrounded by a lot of greenbelts and other undeveloped land. At first, it was merely nice to have the greenery and fresh air, because we knew many of our friends were locked-down in small city apartments.
Then something even more wonderful happened: the Texas wildflowers began blooming.
The bluebonnets came first.
But that was just the start. Spring is wildflower season in Texas, and each week seemed to bring the bloom of some wonderful new flower.
In fact, the bleaker the news of the pandemic, the brighter and more beautiful the wildflowers became.
Next, there was the Indian blanket, also known as Firewheel, bursts of red and yellow like fireworks frozen in time.
Soon there was Purple Horsemint, also known as Lemon Beebalm because when the crushed leaves smell of lemon. Bees especially love this wildflower.
One of my favorites was Mexican Hat, also known as Prairie Coneflower. I much prefer the name Mexican Hat, both because these flowers did look so much like a sombrero, and because it reminded me of our lovely time in Mexico.
Even as the bad news about Covid kept coming, so too did another wildflower bloom.
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