A different rain-lily
Rain, rain, rarely here,
Come again another year.*
Until this past weekend, for month after month we in central Texas had had only a few showers of very limited range and duration, sometimes lasting only a few minutes and not even covering a whole neighborhood. I think one of those micro-showers must have come to my part of Austin at the end of September, because on October 1, when Eve and I went to Costco and began walking toward the store from the place where we’d parked, we noticed that a few rain-lilies had sprung up beneath some trees on a little island in the parking lot. Not yet fully open, these were the smaller rain-lilies of autumn, Cooperia drummondii, rather than the taller and somewhat larger ones shown in the springtime of this blog in a first post and then a second post on June 29.
Not about to miss my chance on the first day of October, I let Eve go on into the store while I drove the two miles home, grabbed my camera bag, and returned to the little island in the parking lot to do what I so often do: lie on the ground and take pictures. Here’s one of the results.
It’s now several days past this weekend’s welcome rain, and suddenly instead of a few stray rain-lilies Austin is covered with thousands of them.
For those interested in photography as a craft, points 1, 2 and 4 in About My Techniques are relevant to today’s picture.
————
* My friend H.J. Hewitt objected to this little ditty because it sounds as if I don’t want rain this year; that was the sense of the original nursery rhyme: “Rain, rain, go away, / Come again another day.” So, as we near the end of 2011, here’s a rain-lover’s rewrite:
Rain, rain, rarely here,
We hope for more this coming year.
© 2011 Steven Schwartzman
Lovely! The rain has been glorious, and the flowers are starting to come out again up here, too.
wallswithdoors
October 13, 2011 at 11:17 AM
Let’s hear it for the rain (and the rain-lilies)!
Steve Schwartzman
October 13, 2011 at 2:36 PM
this is a great capture!
adrianduque89
October 13, 2011 at 12:26 PM
Thank you; lying on the ground can do great things.
Steve Schwartzman
October 13, 2011 at 2:37 PM
Simple, yet beautiful.
tifloyd
October 13, 2011 at 5:46 PM
Thank you. Sometimes simple is best.
Steve Schwartzman
October 13, 2011 at 5:58 PM
Very nice shot. Simple and well done. Excellent background.
Victor Ho
October 14, 2011 at 9:59 AM
Thanks, Victor. Simplicity can be a virtue.
Steve Schwartzman
October 14, 2011 at 1:31 PM
Keep doing what you so often do Steven so I can keep indulging in my visual feasts. That rain lily is so simple and incredibly beautiful
Claire Takacs
October 15, 2011 at 12:11 AM
A visual bon appétit to you, Claire. With nature’s cooperation, I’ll do my best to keep providing a feast.
Steve Schwartzman
October 15, 2011 at 2:27 AM
Beautiful image.
Meanderer
October 15, 2011 at 7:35 AM
My minimalism strikes again.
Steve Schwartzman
October 15, 2011 at 7:44 AM
[…] a rain-lily bud beginning to open; […]
Nearing the end of the cycle « Portraits of Wildflowers
October 16, 2011 at 5:54 AM
[…] a rain-lily bud beginning to open; […]
The end of the cycle « Portraits of Wildflowers
October 17, 2011 at 5:46 AM
[…] in the large parking lot. It was on one of those islands last October that I found and photographed a rain-lily flower that was opening after some much welcome rain. On February 1 of this year, after I spent time on […]
Silverpuff « Portraits of Wildflowers
February 11, 2012 at 5:49 AM
[…] A rain-lily flower beginning to open; […]
When is a rain-lily black? — Take 2 | Portraits of Wildflowers
October 25, 2013 at 1:34 PM