gone wild

Josiah's pumpkin flowers

One day

when we still lived in Fort Smith

and only had a tiny yard to maintain,

Tyler - not wanting to mow the grass,

made up a song.

"How do you know 

that a blade of grass won't grow into a tree?

A great big tree..."

A blade of grass won't grow into a tree,

but what looks like a blade of grass at 2 inches tall,

just might.

He waits as long as he can stand it every spring to begin mowing for the season

because I'm always sad to see the wildflowers disappear.

For various reasons,

Tyler hasn't stayed quite on top of the mowing like he usually does.

And you know what?

I've loved it!

Now, I do appreciate the grass in front of the house kept reasonably short

(it's actually mostly grass ~ the rest of our land though, is far more weedy)

and if the grass/wildflowers in the back get fairly tall,

I don't mind paths being mowed 

to make getting around a bit easier

(I actually asked him to mow a small section a few weeks ago, when it bothered my burn to have to step very high)

but I have just been so thrilled to discover all the varieties of flowers

we have

right outside our door.

even when they're spent, they're pretty!

Since they are usually mowed down before they flower,

the only grass dwelling wildflowers I knew we had were the little bitty early spring ones.
(well, and honeysuckle and passion flower. okay, and elderflowers)

I walk around and wonder why one earth people are so eager to use weedkiller. 

okay, so these aren't flowers....

So many times this spring & summer I've thought that I'd love to catalog them, and figure out just how many different species we have.

Of course, it would require actively looking for them on a regular basis - some don't have a long season at all.

The indian paintbrush we found when we discovered the yarrow - was gone a week later.

passionflower

Just one more thing to love about living out here ~ all the wildflowers.