April Showers

I've lived in Central Texas for most of my life, and this is one of the best years I've ever seen for wildflowers. I had to drive up around Lake Buchanan yesterday, and it was amazing. The flowers along U.S. 281 were varied, plentiful, and colorful. But what really blew me away was the carpet of bluebonnets that flanked FM 2341 between Burnet and the lake.

Lush, dense, vivid - MS Word doesn't have the synonyms to do them justice. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me, and even if I did I doubt if I could have captured the scope and intensity of the blooms. The bluebonnets literally carpeted the shoulders of the road for miles.

For the last two years this part of the country has suffered under a terrible drought. Streams and creeks have dried up, rivers dwindled to a trickle, and area lakes were down 50% or more. But this winter and spring have been wetter than normal, and things are slowly getting back to normal. Botanists say the drought has helped the wildflowers, since competing plants are stunted and sparse. The wildflower seeds are able to lay dormant for several years, sprouting only when conditions are conducive to growth. So this year they sprouted with a vengeance. I don't know if it's due to an intelligent Creator, intelligent design, evolution, or random chance, but it's truly a marvelous sight to behold.

And believe it or not, some of the credit has to go to TxDOT (Texas Dept. of Transportation). They have a program of sowing wildflower seeds and suspending mowing during the spring, which contributes to the emergence and growth of native flowers and grasses. Of course, being a government agency they find other ways to waste our tax dollars. But in this instance, credit where credit is due.

The scenery was so delightful that I turned off talk radio and cranked up the tunes. I came home in such a good mood that my wife thought I'd been up to something...