Celebrating a Lily

 The Oakland Camp Road, or, I should say the shoulders on either side, have been the site of several hundred of my wildflower and insect photos over the past several weeks.  I am planning to offer a nature journaling workshop this coming Saturday that will involve walking a particularly beautiful stretch of this road and meeting at a quiet, shady pool in Berry Creek, just off the Oakland Camp Road.  At least that was the plan.  On Monday, the road department dispatched one of its monstrous machines with a weed eater on the end of a hydraulic arm and decimated all vegetation in a 5-foot wide strip all the way to the camp entrance.  I suppose this is considered by them an improvement.  I was horrified.  I had come to think of this strip as my own private wildflower garden and teaching laboratory.  Oh, well.  Yesterday I explored the remains to see if it was still a viable route for my class to take.   When I got to the pool on Berry Creek I found one Leopard Lily blooming.  This one blossom seemed like the most beautiful one I had ever seen.  I had a powerful flashback of a scene in the movie Soylent Green in which the Edward G. Robinson character cries over the beauty of what might be the last fresh tomato on Earth. 

 I photographed this blossom from many angles and didn't want to leave the site.

 The plant was surrounded by several others that had buds, and I found their potential just as beautiful as the oe that was blooming.  It seemed that the sounds of birds in the alders overhead and the cicadas in the shrubs were more intense than usual.  I started having visions of other Leopard Lilies I have photographed in some of my favorite spots around Quincy - the mouth of Gilson Creek, the Greenville Y, the East shore of Snake ake, and so on.  When I got home to look at these photos on my computer, I couldn't help but retrieve one of the Leopard Lily's cousin,

 the Washington Lily, that I photographed last summer and have recently discussed with a botanist friend.

 Then I got back to thinking about my forthcoming class and search for other inspiring items that might have survived the onslaught of the beautification machine.  One wonderful patch of Crimson Columbine was nearly destroyed, but I did manage to get a few photos of this one at the foot of the dirt road up to the pool on Berry Creek.

 The spring-fed ditch about half way between camp and Berry Creek was also mowed.  This was a great watering hole for many species of butterflies.  I wonder if they will return since most of the flowers are gone.  I did manage to find a surviving specimen of Water Plantain and got a close-up of its tiny flower.

 I also hiked a short way up the Tollgate Creek trail as a contender for Saturday's outing.  The most memorable sighting on that brief walk was this caterpillar of the White-lined Sphinx moth. I could understand why many people believe that this incredible color pattern was 'designed' to please us humans.   I put the caterpillar back on the same plant where I found it and fantasized about telling my group about it and then finding it again in the same place on Saturday morning.  Such are the drams of naturalists.