{"id":132,"date":"2011-03-30T20:44:24","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T01:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/?p=132"},"modified":"2011-03-30T20:44:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T01:44:24","slug":"springtime-in-texas-brings-bluebonnets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/springtime-in-texas-brings-bluebonnets\/","title":{"rendered":"Springtime in Texas brings Bluebonnets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Springtime has come to North Texas, albeit shyly.\u00a0 The first few days of Spring brought sunny skies, warm breezes, and temperatures in the mid-70’s to low 80’s.\u00a0 And then Spring played hide and seek for a number of days, leaving us with dreary overcast, and drizzly cold days and miserable nights.\u00a0 Flowers and trees were confused, grabbing little jackets as we<\/em> all went through closets and drawers dragging out newly stored warm clothing.\u00a0 Of course, it is early Spring and Old Man Winter just doesn’t give up easily.\u00a0\u00a0 And then Mother Nature is always on the sidelines throwing a twist into our expectations.<\/p>\n

But, Texas’s annual sign of Spring arrival, the Bluebonnet, has been showing off its cobalt blue color and attracting bees for weeks now.\u00a0 First, a small clump here, and one over there, and then two converging and then suddenly great fields of this incredibly beautiful flower burst into view, taking hold of Spring announcing its arrival, even days early.\u00a0 Excitement in North Texas is in the air as adults become giddy, putting children and dogs of all sizes into their vehicles of choice and driving up and down country roads looking for T H E choice spot for trampling down the blooms to get that cute and once-in-a-lifetime photo of their loved one.\u00a0 Okay, I’m guilty, too.\u00a0 I admit it.\u00a0 There is just something about this Springtime rite that is irresistible.\u00a0 It is awesome to look out over a field and see large swatches of cobalt blue mixed with green and yellow grass, waving languidly in the Spring breeze.\u00a0 Eventually the Indian Paintbrush will slowly creep in exploding red and orange among the elegant blue, forcing the Bluebonnet to give up and fade to white waving its goodbye until the following Spring.<\/p>\n

Last Saturday, before the temperatures took a dive sending us back to late Winter, I grabbed my camera and headed down to the State Park and was blessed with unblemished patches of these spectacular flowers.\u00a0 I could not wait.\u00a0 The first large patch I came to beckoned to me and I pulled over and parked.\u00a0 For the next 30 minutes I stood, bent over, sat, and laid among the Bluebonnets happily taking photos, lost in my favorite color.\u00a0 Cars slowed, heads turned, fingers pointed and I knew that my pristine spot was being targeted for future use as soon as I left.\u00a0 I eventually moved on, taking photos of other things and left two and a half hours later to go home, but I returned later with my wife and our youngest dog Lexie, a Maltese with a hurried brush out.\u00a0 This is not a dog that understands “sit\/stay” very well, so it becomes an exercise in how quickly can you focus and hit the shutter button before the little dog moves.\u00a0 Thank goodness for multiple exposures!\u00a0 We both came away with a few good photos.\u00a0 Lexie, however, did not get her opportunity to run unabashed through the grass and flowers taller than her, but she did have a good time.<\/p>\n

This weekend we will take our annual drive to our favorite hill in Ellis County so that hopefully we will get photos of the Bluebonnets before they begin to thin out and become trampled by the caravans of people jostling for the best position, the thickest concentrations of flowers, the best lighting and the fewest feet and legs invading our perfect photos.\u00a0 We are always eternally grateful to the people that open their fields to us at this time of year, understanding our passion to digitally capture this Texas treasure that visits us once each Spring.<\/p>\n

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Texas's rite of Spring<\/p><\/div>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Springtime has come to North Texas, albeit shyly.\u00a0 The first few days of Spring brought sunny skies, warm breezes, and temperatures in the mid-70’s to low 80’s.\u00a0 And then Spring played hide and seek for a number of days, leaving us with dreary overcast, and drizzly cold days and miserable nights.\u00a0 Flowers and trees were confused, grabbing little jackets as we all went through closets and drawers dragging out newly stored warm clothing.\u00a0 Of course, it is early Spring and Old Man Winter just doesn’t give up easily.\u00a0\u00a0 And then Mother Nature is always on the sidelines throwing a twist into our expectations. But, Texas’s annual sign of Spring arrival, the Bluebonnet, has been showing off its cobalt blue color and attracting bees for weeks now.\u00a0 First, a small clump here, and one over there, and then two converging and then suddenly great fields of this incredibly beautiful flower burst into view, taking hold of Spring announcing its arrival, even days early.\u00a0 Excitement in North Texas is in the air as adults become giddy, putting children and dogs of all sizes into their vehicles of choice and driving up and down country roads looking for T H E choice spot for trampling down the blooms to get that cute and once-in-a-lifetime photo of their loved one.\u00a0 Okay, I’m guilty, too.\u00a0 I admit it.\u00a0 There is just something about this Springtime rite that is irresistible.\u00a0 It is awesome to look out over a field and see large swatches of cobalt blue Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seasons","category-weather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2y5uS-28","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enrjyzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}