The farthest from home
The farthest point from home that we reached on April 23rd during what ended up being an 8-hour, 250-mile wildflower-seeking circuit west of Austin was along FM 152 a few miles into Mason County. As had been true for some land on Llano County Rd. 106 a little earlier, the land at our last stop wasn’t fenced—in fact a local resident who happened to drive by stopped to tell me to be on my guard for any loose bulls wandering about. Duly alerted, I still relished the freedom from barbed wire to move around and compose pictures as I wished.
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Some people in my country not only condone racism, they’re working to institutionalize it, even as they hypocritically prattle about “dismantling institutional racism.” For yet another example, you can read Neetu Arnold’s May 3rd article “Illinois’s Plan to Fund Public Universities on the Basis of Race,” with subtitle “Schools with abysmal graduation rates would get more money simply for enrolling minorities.”
© 2024 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Thank you, Steve, for the magical field that seems to bloom with wildflowers of glorious red!
Joanna
gabychops
May 10, 2024 at 4:32 AM
“Magical” and “glorious” are good words to describe the vast spreads of wildflowers we saw that day in so many places west of Austin.
Steve Schwartzman
May 10, 2024 at 5:44 AM
Thank you!
Joanna
gabychops
May 10, 2024 at 5:46 AM
PS. I also love the perfect image of fluffy clouds in the blue sky, and the contrast with the wildflowers. The dead tree adds well to the contrast!
Joanna
gabychops
May 10, 2024 at 4:40 AM
I’m a sucker when it comes to playing scraggly dead trees off against clouds. You may recall how the dramatic clouds enhanced the last picture in a post 10 days ago.
Steve Schwartzman
May 10, 2024 at 5:49 AM
Yes, I do, but then clouds have been an object of fascination from time to Memoriam, not only for their beauty but also as an enigmatic messenger carrying the news from one person to another on the wings of the wind!
Joanna
gabychops
May 10, 2024 at 6:02 AM
And jumping forward to popular culture in our own era, Joni Mitchell looked at clouds from both sides now.
Steve Schwartzman
May 10, 2024 at 10:18 AM
Yes, thank you!
Joanna
gabychops
May 10, 2024 at 10:54 AM
I love the mix of land and sky
beth
May 10, 2024 at 5:04 AM
I’m a photographic guy who combines land and sky. There’s nothing to nix in those kinds of pics.
Steve Schwartzman
May 10, 2024 at 5:55 AM
The second photo appeals because of its various contrasts — land and sky, living and dead, scraggly and smooth — but the first is another fun one. I always get a kick out of looking over an image like that, seeing how many ‘hidden’ gems it contains: like the small cluster of daisies and the prickly pear in this one.
shoreacres
May 10, 2024 at 6:56 AM
After this post appeared I realized I’d forgotten to include my usual identification of the wildflowers. All the more reason for you to have looked carefully to see what’s in the picture. It’s still not clear whether this was Gaillardia amblyodon or pulchella. I posed the question in the Texas Flora group and learned that the botanical key distinguishing the two species relies on inconspicuous characteristics. As I’ve said so many times, photographing wildflowers is often so much easier than identifying them.
Steve Schwartzman
May 10, 2024 at 10:16 AM
I could spend hours in that first photo!
Eliza Waters
May 10, 2024 at 8:10 AM
Stay as long as you like: no extra charge for lingering.
Steve Schwartzman
May 10, 2024 at 9:49 AM
It was worth the 8-hour drive. Very pretty flower carpet. The future of US universities is uncertain.
Alessandra Chaves
May 10, 2024 at 8:10 AM
It sure was worth the 8 hours, even as worn out as I was at the end.
I was tempted to write another letter to Columbia, my alma mater, encouraging them to keep the main library, tear down all the other buildings, and turn the newly vacant land into a park.
Steve Schwartzman
May 10, 2024 at 9:52 AM
Universities are trying to re-invent themselves as Artificial Intelligence renders higher education worthless for getting a job. I feel for them, because they have been a center for education for so long. Trying to become pools of diversity, centers of social and political activism, or whatever crap they come up with only defeats the purpose of teaching people how to think and how to find reliable information, which is what they should be doing and which would allow them to thrive in the era of information and AI taking jobs. A human who knows how to think and to reason logically, and how to tell reliable information from worthless information will never be irrelevant.
Alessandra Chaves
May 10, 2024 at 10:41 AM
What a great summary! If only university presidents felt that way. A few do, but many show evidence that they believe in and are pushing an opposite view of education.
Steve Schwartzman
May 11, 2024 at 5:38 AM
I am glad for your safety that there were no bulls around but I can’t help thinking that a bull in a field of wildflowers would have been a great photo op. That ‘thinking’ of mine makes me think again about one of my favourite stories, The Story of Ferdinand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Ferdinand
Gallivanta
May 10, 2024 at 6:41 PM
In springtime Texas there are always people who look to take pictures of longhorn cattle in bluebonnets.
As for Ferdinand, I noticed in your linked article that “All the other bulls dream of being chosen to compete in the bullfights in Madrid….” Given the inevitable fate of the bulls in Spanish bullfights, the ones in the story other than Ferdinand apparently have a death wish. Noticing that the publication date was 1936, I got to wondering whether there was any connection to world events. The Wikipedia article about Munro Leaf provided an answer: “The story, which follows a gentle bull in rural Spain who prefers smelling flowers to bullfighting, sparked considerable controversy because Ferdinand was regarded by some as a pacifist symbol. Banned in Spain and burned as propaganda in Nazi Germany, the book had over 60 foreign translations.”
Steve Schwartzman
May 11, 2024 at 6:00 AM
The longhorn cattle and the bluebonnets look great together. As for poor Ferdinand, over the years, he has had so many theories and ideas thrown at him. As a kid I just thought it was nice that something fierce like a bull could be tamed with pretty flowers. This thought probably means that the book should have come with a warning “Do not attempt to pacify bulls with flowers.” https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2018/09/01/the-beef-about-the-story-of-ferdinand-spains-most-controversial-childrens-book/
Gallivanta
May 11, 2024 at 11:25 PM
Good article. I’m anything but surprised that supporters of each new trend or ideology find a way to cast Ferdinand as their hero.
When it comes to your suggested “Do not attempt to pacify bulls with flowers,” alas, companies hoping to head off litigious lawyers have increasingly put on their products warnings so obvious that no normal person is need of them. It’s common now in advertising for medicines to find the message “Don’t take [name of medicine] if you’re allergic to any of its ingredients.” What sane person would think otherwise?
Steve Schwartzman
May 12, 2024 at 6:47 AM
It was worth the trip! That field at the top is stunning!
circadianreflections
May 10, 2024 at 7:04 PM
Definitely worth it. What distinguished some of the wildflower colonies from the usual ones was how far back from the road they extended.
Steve Schwartzman
May 11, 2024 at 6:02 AM
The trees look great in these wildflower scenes. And the wildflower displays roll on!
tomwhelan
May 10, 2024 at 11:35 PM
“Roll on” is an apt way to put it. I just replied to the previous commenter that “What distinguished some of the wildflower colonies from the usual ones was how far back from the road they extended.”
Steve Schwartzman
May 11, 2024 at 6:04 AM
Your first image could be a Monet. It’s stunning.
Heyjude
May 11, 2024 at 4:39 AM
You’re not alone among people who’ve reacted to some of these recent wildflower extravaganza photographs in thinking of paintings by Monet. Too bad he never got to ply his art in Texas in the spring.
Steve Schwartzman
May 11, 2024 at 6:06 AM
Yes, imagine the scenes he would have painted. You don’t do a bad job yourself though in a different medium.
Heyjude
May 11, 2024 at 7:37 AM
I appreciate your vote of confidence.
Steve Schwartzman
May 11, 2024 at 7:57 AM
A 250 miles roundtrip to search for wildflowers is quite an accomplishment. The photos tell me that it was worth the effort. From the many driftwood sculptures that I posted on my blog you might guess that I especially liked the photo of the dead tree.
Peter Klopp
May 12, 2024 at 9:48 AM
Yes, I see the commonality between the dead tree and the driftwood sculptures you favor.
The 250-mile circuit we made that day was one of the best ever, and well worth the tiredness at the end.
Steve Schwartzman
May 12, 2024 at 7:06 PM
I like the way the foreground flowers add to the feeling of perspective in the floral landscape. Are these flower fields called prairies, or plain grasslands?
Maria
May 12, 2024 at 7:44 PM
That’s a good observation about the effect of the foreground flowers.
Now you’ve got me wondering what name the people who live in that area would use for these flower-filled fields. I tend to use “prairie” for land further east in Texas, but that might be my idiosyncrasy.
Steve Schwartzman
May 13, 2024 at 10:43 PM
The reason I asked is because I’m reading about ‘The Great Plains’ and it’s known to encompass the expansion of flatland in North America. It includes prairie, steppe, and grassland. It also includes the western part of the Interior Plains, which also include the mixed grass prairie, and the tallgrass prairie. I suppose your shots of wildflowers were shot in open grassland in nearby regions? The reason I ask is because I’m reading about different ecosystems and biomes.
Maria
May 13, 2024 at 11:06 PM
I’ve heard about and even read about various kinds of ecosystems: plains, steppes, long-grass prairies, short-grass prairies, mixed-grass prairies, savannas, and more. I’ve never understood to what extent these types of ecosystem are mutually exclusive and to what extent they overlap. The land shown in this post and other recent posts lies in central Texas an hour to two hours west of Austin.
Steve Schwartzman
May 14, 2024 at 6:20 AM
I guess my question was whether these flower fields can grow in vacant lots, public lands, etc.
Maria
May 14, 2024 at 8:58 AM
That’s a question I can answer with an enthusiastic yes. “Vacant” lots have provided me with hundreds and hundreds of fantastic wildflower colony photographs over the past two decades. The problem with that in a fast-growing metropolitan area like Austin is that dozens of the properties where I’ve taken those pictures have gotten developed. I’ve recently been losing an average of 4–6 sites per year. Public lands also sometimes host great wildflower displays, and at least those properties won’t get developed.
Steve Schwartzman
May 14, 2024 at 7:45 PM
Well, they’re beautiful! Thank you.
Maria
May 14, 2024 at 7:56 PM
You’re most welcome—as are great wildflower displays like these.
Steve Schwartzman
May 14, 2024 at 8:00 PM
Like the dichotomy of the dead tree and wildflowers. And besides, I just like dead trees! 😀
denisebushphoto
May 14, 2024 at 12:33 PM
I have a thing for dead trees, too, and have had for a long time. In a recent post I played a dead tree off against some great swirly clouds.
Steve Schwartzman
May 14, 2024 at 7:48 PM