Dear Grandma,
I understand that you requested to see some of our wildflowers. If you lived next door, I would have brought over a big bouquet of them. As it is, I can only share these by photograph. I wish you could smell them.
These are Indian Blanket and Firewheel. Both flowers are subspecies of something else, so they are very difficult to tell apart. They have a rich, spicy sort of smell.
There’s a little cornflower in this photo.
This is the most classic example of an Indian Blanket that I have ever seen in my backyard.
This was supposed to be an Indian Blanket, but I think it is confused. Perhaps it was trying to be…
…a Mexican hat!
This is the yellow form of Mexican Hat.
Wild oats. Yes, you can eat them.
Lemon Mint. This is a native herb to Texas prairies.
Horse mint. Nearly the same as Lemon Mint. Smells just as good. For somewhat obvious reasons, this is a favorite flower of mine. 
This one is shy.
Close up of the horse mint.
Cow vetch. Farmers seed their pastures with this and rye grass for their animals. The rye grass is terrible for the wildflowers because it’s aggressive. Cow vetch is not so bad and it is edible for humans. We could feed this to our birds too, but Kathy and I haven’t tried that.
Bug on the cow vetch. Don’t ask me what kind it is ’cause I haven’t a clue. There’s a lot I don’t know about bugs.
I know about this one. This is a damsel fly. They come in blue or grey around here. In the creek beds, it’s possible to find bright red and black ones.
That little green bug is a lacewing. Lacewings are wonderful beneficial insects and we have them by the hundreds in our wildflower field. They are hard to photograph because they move so quickly.
I do not believe this is a honey bee. There are many different native bees to Texas that I’m only just learning about.
Here is a honey bee.
You can see the tongue on this one!
The bees were so happy their back ends were wiggling while they sucked up the bountiful supply of nectar.
This is not a bee. It’s a bee mimic - a fly.
This is either another sort of bee or a yellow jacket. I didn’t get close enough to this one to be able to tell.
Wasp woman.
Joy. Joy loves the wildflower field. There are lots and lots of rabbits for her to chase.
I hope you enjoyed my pictorial bouquet as much as I did putting this all together! As more come into bloom, I will endevour to post them. We actually have more flowers, but they’re further out and it was too thick and wet. I didn’t want to risk coming across a snake (we’ve been spotting snake road kills everywhere - the population seems to have exploded). I’m not scared of snakes, but I am careful. In a few days, it should be dry enough for me to get some more pictures.
Have a wonderful week!
Love, Karen
