Spring Prairie flowers in Bluff Country

On Saturday Mrs. T's nephew Ray Junior came down from the cities to visit her at memory care  in Rochester. Later that afternoon because he had indicated an interest in Prairie wildflowers I took him South for a ride along the Iowa Minnesota border. It was a very special place. We saw some rare and very rare wildflowers. This year the flowers were relatively late because of the two long and too cold spring weather this year. The first pictures are some scenes from my point-and-shoot camera and the second batch is from my photography mentor Mr. Science who quite simply is a world class photographer and Prairie expert. I hope you enjoy.
Among the prairie wildflower connoisseurs native orchids  are often the top prize to photograph. In this case two cars and six people were cautiously checking the ditches   for a  very rare orchid specimen  in Minnesota and Iowa. It was the white lady slipper as luck would have it Barb's nephew Ray, a complete novice, spotted them. The other group, keeping an eye on us and looking for the same thing, quickly caught up. These orchids are protected by law but there is a certain secretiveness involved here  as occasional  lawbreakers are known to exist. These are people who dig orchids up and usually kill them off as they are very difficult to transplant successfully
. Thus some become endangered or even extinct.

White lady slippers and the somewhat larger and less rare yellow lady slippers

 

From the same area taken by Mr. Science (Gary)

 

Prairie Phlox

 

Prairie smoke

 

 

White lady slippers

 

Shooting stars

 

Cream Indigo

 

The following pictures were taken several years earlier of Baron and a very large patch of shooting stars. If you compared to the first pictures taken this year you'll note that the area is much more wide open  meaning there on lots of shrubs and little trees sprouting up all over. This is because the local conservation agency had not deliberately burned this area to defeat the shrubs and allow the wildflowers to thrive in nature this process would have been continued by lightning storms. For the photographer it's also much more difficult as you have to scrounge through the thickets to find the wildflowers.

Baron among the shooting stars. My big guy  fondly remembered