Spring in Texas – Bluebonnets!!!

Happy weekend,dear friends! Springtime has come to Texas and this past Tuesday as I was heading home from Corsicana, Texas, the fields of bluebonnets were calling!!! Calling HARD! I found a side road to pull off from the freeway and happily went to town with my iPhone camera…

When you think about it, the Texas bluebonnet or Lupinus texensis is America’s equivalent to France’s lavender. It grows on rocky soil and doesn’t need much water to bloom and produce next year’s crop of seeds.

According to Google, there are five species of lupine but the most recognizable is the Texas blue with white tips. I personally love to see the white and pinkish-red varieties, but they aren’t generally growing here.

These photographs were taken in upper Corsicana, Texas on HW 45 heading north. I believe TXDot originally seeded the side of the freeways and since then, these freeway fields’ bluebonnets and other wildflowers have naturalized themselves into the landscape.

The Ennis Bluebonnet Festival happens in April, in case anyone wants to come out to follow the trail of bluebonnets. Here’s hoping for some good rains as that really helps the spring show!

We used to have it growing wild around the last middle school I worked at in Southern California. Loved seeing it grow there!

I am sorry the bluebonnets aren’t as vibrant as I would like. It was 3:00p.m. and totally the wrong time of day to be out snapping pics. 🙁

I could have waited until 6:00p.m. for the golden hour of sunlight, but didn’t want to be stuck in Dallas traffic all the way home.

I haven’t altered any colors here. The sky and grass were really this blue and green! Soooo lovely….

Later, as I headed back around from the sideroad, I had to cross over the freeway and U-turn to get back heading north. Here at this intersection, primroses and yellow mustard were growing amongst the bluebonnets.

This time of year is sooo fleeting… Like the blooms on apple and pear trees. One week is about all you have, maybe two, then some other flower springs forth and takes over obscuring the lupine.

Closer to home, I was avoiding the standstill traffic on the freeway by driving on the side road. I was stopped at a light and saw this beautiful pond…

But right after…

There was a car on fire right after the peaceful pond! Scary!!

I still had my hand on my phone which is how I grabbed these photos. I had barely started creeping forward (maybe 30 – 50 feet towards the next stoplight).

Thankfully the firefighters were already on it. 🙂

I think I’d rather still be thinking about bluebonnets… 😉 How about you? What’s blooming around your home area?

.

.

Happy spring equinox, y’all,