Wild Columbia Tiger Lily Time

Hello.. thanks for stopping by.  If you're a long time reader of my blog you'll recognize my favorite wildflower.  It's the wild Columbia Tiger Lily and it grows alongside the Historic Columbia River Highway and in sunny meadows.  It's small, about as round as a silver dollar.  It's very early for it to bloom, but everything has bloomed early this year.  I saw them in bloom on my way home from the rehearsal on Tuesday.  With the hot weather we're having, I knew they'd bloom and wither pretty fast, so my DIL Kristi hopped in the car with me and we went up near Vista House to get some photos.  I used my new camera to test it out on wildflower photos.  :-)  Aren't they pretty?

This is how they look on their stem.  

I love how their anthers hang down.

There were also Queen Anne's Lace nearby.

I tried to get an image of the underside of the flower so you could see inside.  Don't you love all the dark red spots?

These are so fleeting.. a whole year until they are back.  I must tell you that I saw a girl on the side of the road with a handful of these flowers that she'd pulled up by the roots.  I stopped the car, rolled down the window and informed her it was illegal to pick wildflowers within 500 feet of the center line of a highway in Oregon.  She told me she didn't care.  Hopefully my information made it into her brainpan for future reference?  She said she wanted to place them on a memorial on the side of the road, I told her she should buy flowers at the store next time.

More lace.

I am happy to report that there are more of these Tiger Lilies on the sides of the road than I've ever seen before, so they are self-seeding well.  

This is the view beyond where I was photographing the lilies.  The Columbia River looking West towards Portland, Oregon.

I still can't figure out the zoom to extend it.. this is as far as it would zoom, across the road to some purple wildflowers I can't identify.  Any ideas?

We drove on and circled around Vista House, then back into Portland Women's Forum.. this is the extent of my zoom from there.. WHICH is not as far as my POCKET Lumix.  ARGH!  But a nice image.  :-)

The wild Sweetpea is in bloom.  

A further out shot of the Mock Orange here at the farm.

The deck.. a nice welcome home.

My red Day Lily finally doing well since Dayle stopped mowing it. LOL!

Kristi planted this golden yellow Day Lily.

And this, I saved for last.. it's a close up of the flowers on the Sedum Kristi planted.  I adore the juicy look of this!  Isn't it pretty?

Our daughter Amy is arriving on Sunday with our two granddaughters.. I'm so excited!  They'll be staying in our travel trailer and should be very comfortable.  On Wednesday I've made reservations for a 2 bedroom suite at the beach for 2 nights for the girls and Dayle and me.  We head there the day after the "Big Event" on Tuesday.  I will be so ready for some beach relaxation!  I hope you have a nice weekend.  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)