Pages

Monday, May 28, 2007

In between the rain, wild gourd



A thick patch of wild gourd, looking wilder from the frequent rain we've been having.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You'll have to go back by moonlight and catch the buffalo gourds dancing by the light of the moon.

jarvenpa said...

send some Texas rain to N. California, please. My bear would be happy.
The title of your post sounds like the first line of a poem.

raindog said...

this looks peaceful. a nice place to be. great shot!

Susanna said...

gourds are so cool. We use to use them for a lot of diferent stuff in the living history memory I worked at. nice pic

Larry said...

What are the white flecks dotting the distant hillside? Limestone outcrops, perhaps? Tombstones? They seem to be confined to a delineated strip crossing the flank of the hill.

Nice composition!

harlequinpan said...

Are you a biologist or a botanist? I think your observations on plant are very professional.

Anonymous said...

"Massive roots of large specimens may weigh several hundred pounds."
Sounds like a Texas plant, all right.

Lori Witzel said...

Hey, it's all y'all!

:-)

Dang, staying up past my bedtime, but had to say a fast hello.

Marly: *snork!* What a wonderful, magical, giggly image you conjured -- and since I'm going back to the same place this weekend, will look for tiny green hoof-prints where the buffalo gourds went a'dancin'.

Jarvenpa: Here's wishing you rain, or at least a very exciting rain dance. I've been hoping for poems lately, but the words are slow as molasses, so I have to play with images for a while longer I guess.

Raindog: It is, it was -- but I did get the first two (itch) chigger bites (itch itch itch) of the season. I am human bait for bug-bites, and am hoping the chiggers don't make mincemeat of me this coming Sunday (rain permitting.)

Susangelique: They ARE cool. I had a dear friend who planted bottle-gourds around his lattice-covered patio, and when the gourds grew over the lattice, they grew down dangling like earthen Christmas ornaments. Glad he didn't plant watermelon...

Larry: You got it -- limestone outcroppings, some ancient ocean showing beneath the very thin soil of the Central Texas hills. I'm going to walk up over them this weekend, or so I've been dared...

Harlequinpan: Well, thank you for your flattering words, but I'm just an armchair student of botany, geology, etc. The place I live is a confluence of at least three different biological regions (Edwards Plateau, Llano Uplift, and Blackland Prairie,) and it's been great fun to learn as much as I can about it all.

Dave: Ever'thang's bigger in Texas...(usually said by someone with two first names tooled on the back of a leather belt.)

:-)

dinahmow said...

Larry asked my question and your answer has allowed me (with help from Nat. Geographic!)to see where you are. Now I have to go to the library for more details!

Granny J said...

That huge root enables the buffalo gourd to prosper even in Arizona in ever-so-dry years. Woe unto he or she who tries to remove such a gourd.

Lovely picture.