A June in Nevada

I had to go to town today for our guild meeting, and decided that if the weather permitted, I'd take some pictures on my way home. This is purple sage growing on the road cut, just a couple hundred feet inside the Nevada State line. I think of the band, New Riders of the Purple Sage.
This poor juniper tree scrambles for purchase where it was planted. It's bare roots have nothing to feed on, and yet still is grows. The hillside is dotted with Buckwheat Flower, a wild form of Eriogonum. We are still having the unseasonable rains and would otherwise have no wildflowers now.






I love it when the Buckwheat blooms. We won't have yellow blooms again until September when the Rabbitbrush flowers. There isn't much Buckwheat but the Rabbitbrush is insanely populous, so I don't feel bad about using it for a dye plant.
It's all about geographic lottery. Juniper trees that fall by the feeder stream to Long Valley Creek are vigorous - life is good.


Juniper trees that fall on the scrabble and skree, just across the road, have to struggle for their very existence. Makes me think of my birth lottery and Africa.
There are still a couple of these guys around - Bush Lupine. Disap-
pointingly, as a dye plant it produces green. Laura called yesterday from Oregon and we chatted about dye plants and color, among other things. Mormon Tea (ephedra) is a dye plant, but you have to use four times plant to wool to get brown, and as she pointed out, I already have brown sheep.
This is a wetland plant, not growing anywhere else, but because there's a small spring on the road cut across from our house, it grows here and I don't know what it is. Our geology is fascinating. It's new in geologic time, and uplifts and breaks make water a gamble - how Nevada.
I took this shot across from our gate because it tickles my funny bone. It's California Poppy and this isn't California.