@f00l That’s beautiful. Where are you (what state)?
I’m in MA and for the last 3 weeks it’s been like one day of almost-spring followed by one day of more-like-winter, repeating.
Today is spring-like, which means I’ve got yard work to do… pros & cons…
This is N Texas. It’s been bouncing between spring and winterish weather here also, but that doesn’t mean cold here as it means in MA.
The norms are in the sixties and gorgeous. But it also been in the 30’s a few times in the last few weeks. Just weird.
The best part is lots of rain. Prob no drought and heat records this summer. Yea!
First Lady Lady Bird Johnson was an intense wildflower aficionado and she sponsored many gardening and restoration/beautification projects during her life. Here in Texas, those projects are taken seriously, and the green areas besides highways become wildly floral with local indigenous varieties every spring.
There are various small-highway “spring wildflower drives” here every spring, in the way that Vermont and NH attract hordes of fans of fall foliage every October.
It’s not nearly as congested tho. We have fewer drivers/SqMi and lots more space, and an enormous state small-highway system. So just about anywhere in Texas, there are nearby glorious spring wildflower drives, and you can do these drives at normal speed.
I took those pix along HWY 121, on the N/S portion directly west of DFW International Airport. I was prob in Colleyville at the time. That is not part of a “planned wildflower drive”. That’s just a fairly normal April highway roadside.
So many roads have areas that look like that. The State Highway Dept and the Agriculture Dept have wildflower planting programs, ongoing since the 1960’s, if not before.
And many owners or rural land will not mow their pastures until after spring wildflower season.
So every year it just gets better. it’s such a treat, when the world is weighing heavily, so see all that fragile color.
@f00l That’s awesome. Haven’t seen fields of wildflowers like that in MA (although, I’m sure they’re there if I knew where to look), but I spend a lot of time up in VT where that stuff is everywhere.
@mfladd Bring a sleeping bag to sit in and another one for your daughter to sit in when she is on the sidelines. Having shoveled snow off of soccer fields for f-ing games (northern Idaho)… well all I can say is been there many, many times and have the t-shirt. Have fun.
It’s bouncing up and down between winter and spring here also. Quite unusually coolish.
But that means something a bit different in terms of local temps.
I do hope you get a wonderful summer.
We didn’t have soccer, lacrosse, or field hockey as school team sports when I was young. For females, just basketball, softball, and tennis, that I can recall. Glad your kid’s school has better sports!
@Barney@f00l Looking to see how old this made @f00l (eg youngest possible age) I read that lacrosse was first played by Native Americans which is pretty cool. I didn’t know that. And field hockey was from the middle ages.
@f00l As for sports, the Kansas school system also offered both soccer and field hockey (lacrosse is more of an eastern U.S. sport). Not surprised that the Texas school system did not have this, they are ass backwards in so many things.
Not surprised that the Texas school system did not have this, they are ass backwards in so many things.
Sigh. I will only defend the local school systems by saying that teachers are better paid here than in many places, and that the schools are not uniformly terrible;
In spite of constant activist efforts to make them so by attempting to ban anything to do with either science that isn’t “extreme-religious-fundamentalist-inerrancy-approved-science”, or by attempting to ban “analytical and critical thinking”
(which are obviously commie subversions attempting to interfere with absolute and total parental righteous authority, doncha know?)
Some public schools are quite good. Many are decent.
Altho I am a product of the TX public school systems, please don’t judge the entire system based on that. I am a clear “nutcase outlier”.
It could be that there were many more school sports opportunities for females at the time than I knew of. I was focused elsewhere.
As soon as we get a little rain (we haven’t had enough yet this spring to get the ground wet) the desert will be alive with little yellow poppies and flowering cactus. I took these a couple of years ago a couple of miles from my house.
A few more
@f00l
@f00l
@f00l That’s beautiful. Where are you (what state)?
I’m in MA and for the last 3 weeks it’s been like one day of almost-spring followed by one day of more-like-winter, repeating.
Today is spring-like, which means I’ve got yard work to do… pros & cons…
@DennisG2014
This is N Texas. It’s been bouncing between spring and winterish weather here also, but that doesn’t mean cold here as it means in MA.
The norms are in the sixties and gorgeous. But it also been in the 30’s a few times in the last few weeks. Just weird.
The best part is lots of rain. Prob no drought and heat records this summer. Yea!
First Lady Lady Bird Johnson was an intense wildflower aficionado and she sponsored many gardening and restoration/beautification projects during her life. Here in Texas, those projects are taken seriously, and the green areas besides highways become wildly floral with local indigenous varieties every spring.
There are various small-highway “spring wildflower drives” here every spring, in the way that Vermont and NH attract hordes of fans of fall foliage every October.
It’s not nearly as congested tho. We have fewer drivers/SqMi and lots more space, and an enormous state small-highway system. So just about anywhere in Texas, there are nearby glorious spring wildflower drives, and you can do these drives at normal speed.
I took those pix along HWY 121, on the N/S portion directly west of DFW International Airport. I was prob in Colleyville at the time. That is not part of a “planned wildflower drive”. That’s just a fairly normal April highway roadside.
So many roads have areas that look like that. The State Highway Dept and the Agriculture Dept have wildflower planting programs, ongoing since the 1960’s, if not before.
And many owners or rural land will not mow their pastures until after spring wildflower season.
So every year it just gets better. it’s such a treat, when the world is weighing heavily, so see all that fragile color.
More in a bit …
@f00l That’s awesome. Haven’t seen fields of wildflowers like that in MA (although, I’m sure they’re there if I knew where to look), but I spend a lot of time up in VT where that stuff is everywhere.
@DennisG2014
Above are pix from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX.
https://www.wildflower.org/
Below is Lady Bird among some of her favorites:
@DennisG2014
More common roadside views, these not taken by me:
East Texas
Hill Country (central Tx w of Austin)
Big Bend
@DennisG2014
Today is January 111, 2018 where I live, so it’s still winter. Not sure when it will be spring.
Getting ready for my daughter’s lacrosse game it is currently a balmy 36 degrees - fucking 36 degrees! Enough of this shit!
@mfladd Bring a sleeping bag to sit in and another one for your daughter to sit in when she is on the sidelines. Having shoveled snow off of soccer fields for f-ing games (northern Idaho)… well all I can say is been there many, many times and have the t-shirt. Have fun.
@mfladd
My sympathies.
Various sporting goods companies make “wearable sleeping bags” that someone can walk around in.
Perhaps pick up one?
https://www.google.com/search?q=wearable+sleeping+bag&client=firefox-b-1&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4mv-l9svaAhWhna0KHShsB88Q_AUIEigC&biw=414&bih=614&dpr=3
It’s bouncing up and down between winter and spring here also. Quite unusually coolish.
But that means something a bit different in terms of local temps.
I do hope you get a wonderful summer.
We didn’t have soccer, lacrosse, or field hockey as school team sports when I was young. For females, just basketball, softball, and tennis, that I can recall. Glad your kid’s school has better sports!
I’ll be rooting for your kid!
@f00l
That’s because they hadn’t been invented when you went to school.
@Barney
What’s your age in relation to mine?
I forget.
Are you also too old to remember?
Kid transport to school during my youth
/image dinosaur wearing saddle
@Barney @f00l Looking to see how old this made @f00l (eg youngest possible age) I read that lacrosse was first played by Native Americans which is pretty cool. I didn’t know that. And field hockey was from the middle ages.
/Calling Guinness book of world records
@f00l
I don’t believe we’ve met. Have we?
@f00l As for sports, the Kansas school system also offered both soccer and field hockey (lacrosse is more of an eastern U.S. sport). Not surprised that the Texas school system did not have this, they are ass backwards in so many things.
@Barney
Sigh. I will only defend the local school systems by saying that teachers are better paid here than in many places, and that the schools are not uniformly terrible;
In spite of constant activist efforts to make them so by attempting to ban anything to do with either science that isn’t “extreme-religious-fundamentalist-inerrancy-approved-science”, or by attempting to ban “analytical and critical thinking”
(which are obviously commie subversions attempting to interfere with absolute and total parental righteous authority, doncha know?)
Some public schools are quite good. Many are decent.
Altho I am a product of the TX public school systems, please don’t judge the entire system based on that. I am a clear “nutcase outlier”.
It could be that there were many more school sports opportunities for females at the time than I knew of. I was focused elsewhere.
/giphy focused elsewhere
@Barney
I forget. Are you in KS or OZ these days?
/giphy “traveling light”
@f00l Currently my heart is in Arkansas.
@Barney
/image Arkansas wildflowers
More rain. More wildflowers.
The Bluebonnets are almost done. a few are still hanging on.
And other flowers are dancing the spring dance.
Took these today.
@f00l
@f00l
@f00l
@f00l
Cactus flowers, took these on my walk with the dog a couple of days ago. It will be a riot of flowers soon, maybe already.
As soon as we get a little rain (we haven’t had enough yet this spring to get the ground wet) the desert will be alive with little yellow poppies and flowering cactus. I took these a couple of years ago a couple of miles from my house.
We still have a little spring left.
Took these over the last week or two.
@f00l
@f00l