Springtime in Texas!
My favourite season in Texas is here!
Having survived two winters in my new home - the last one featuring some ridiculously cold polar vortexes - and summertime (where it is simply too hot to be outdoors and temperatures are often in excess of 40 °C/ 104 °F), I can safely say that springtime in Fort Worth is glorious.
Yes, there's autumn (mental note: fall), full of pumpkin-scented- and -flavoured everything and beautifully mild days; however, the thought of an imminent winter makes that all seem less appealing. But along with new life, growth and greenery that I came to love with springtime in South Africa, I now get to experience the loveliness of Texas wildflowers in all their abundance.
Spring here also marks the start of tornado season. Gulp. But that's for another time. Let's just say the last tornado that passed through Fort Worth was in 2000 and leave it at that.
Having had no knowledge of Texas wildflowers prior to our move here, last spring was a complete revelation. Bluebonnets (the Texas state flower) start popping up wherever there's a patch of grass, from open fields to highway embankments. They are more purple in colour than blue and, from a distance, look a lot like lavender fields when clustered together. Vivid red Indian paintbrush (Castilleja) appear between the bluebonnets, creating effortless picture-perfect landscapes. Those are the two kinds of wildflowers featured in my photo, taken on Easter Sunday last week as we were driving some South African friends around Fort Worth. We happened to spot this beautiful field and an impromptu photo shoot ocurred. It is not uncommon to see families taking photo's in the bluebonnets, complete with family dog, most weekends while the wildflowers are blooming.
Pink Primrose (another of my favourites) give the appearance of exquisite confetti, scattered over stretches of grass, for all to enjoy. There are hundreds of different types of Texas wildflowers and I'm definitely going to enjoy learning to identify them over the next few years.
