Wildflowers

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant! ~Edward Abbey

Ever since I was a young girl, I have loved wildflowers. Every day, I would pick a bouquet of roadside blooms. Upstate New York has quite a variety of pretty ones.  During my adult life, living in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New York has exposed to me to many different native flowers. However, I have never seen such a plethora of beautiful colors as I have seen the past few weeks in Texas. And its October! Wild sunflowers, daisies, and others I need to research the names of are in full bloom in the fields everywhere!
I snuck back behind our development yesterday, where there is a little forest with small meadows and awesome gnarly trees to take some photos.  Today, I couldn't resist picking some while walking Rose to school.  In New Hampshire, you can get ticketed for picking wildflowers.  I don't know the laws in Texas, so I have been expecting the military police to track me down all morning.

Daisies in October!  In New York, they are a June flower. In NH, late June, early July.   In NC, they are a May bloom.  Although this flower is in the daisy family, it is not the same species as the spring variety.  Still is pretty, though.

 This looks like a sweetpea.

 I think this is some sort of sunflower.  They grow rather tall with multiple blooms on each plant.

 If you take a close look at the leaves, they are really cool.  I have no idea what type of flower this is.  I need a flower identifier for this area.

 Some short ground level yellow daisies.

 And here is my bouquet, which I am sure will be the cause of me being dragged away by the MPs.

I am rather embarassed by the fact that I don't know the names of all of the flowers. I think I need to take a trip to Barnes and Noble for a Wildflower field guide. And maybe a latte. 

Adventures in San Antonio

On our trip to San Antonio, I was on  a secret mission to find designs, colors, and architectural elements to inspire my patterns, doodling and painting.  San Antonio is a city that I would love to live in.  The place is saturated with Texas history, and the buildings and streets are so old and elegant. The hotel we stayed in was once a bank.  There were etchings, moldings and Arts and Crafts style fixtures everywhere, and in the basement was a vault!  The basement level of the hotel had an entrance to the Riverwalk which was absolutely beautiful. 
I brought my camera along and caught a few shots.

 I love the chains holding up this little bridge...

 A mosaic on a wall portraying the historical city buildings...

 I let my daughter take some pictures, too.  She loved this statue.
Then of course there was the Alamo....

 For some odd reason, I kept on finding lonely stars in the oddest places....

 I love old stone churches, this is one of the churches in downtown area...

 And old, abandoned buildings... something about the contrasting colors in this building is so attractive.

 Gridwork in the hotel entrance...

 Stone banners in hotel lobby (formerly Alamo National Bank 1929)

 A stained glass window in same hotel lobby

 Another star, in the ceiling of the hotel.  I love the designes on the left and right.

 The sky is so big here, the clouds are fascinating me lately.  Can't wait to pull out some pastels to paint them.  This is the view from our hotel window. 

Luckily, San Antonio is only 2 hours and a few minutes a way.  This weekend was mostly a work weekend and we only were able to see a small portion of what the city offers.

Texas skies

We took a drive out to the country today and visited our neighbor's horses which are stabled around 12 miles off post.  The clouds, sunset, and landscape were gorgeous.  It felt great to ride a horse as well.  

Loving the Big Sky!