Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Whenever I got frustrated, as a teenager, about things my dad thought were silly, he'd spring the above phrase on me. Well, I wasn't really worried yesterday, just too busy to post my photos. Then, this morning I got distracted - another one of my specialties - by a meadowlark. Anyway, here are those Indian Falls area photos. From bottom to top, the first is chickweed, a member of the pink family, not a mustard as I erroneously reported to another blog; it's an immigrant from Europe and purportedly has some medicinal properties. I love the way it looks, but, like most weeds, it is popular on the herbicide websites.
Next up is a cairn by the trail. I love cairns, simple piles of rocks although I've seen some pretty elaborate ones done by people motivated more by art than function. I like them both ways. When I was a teenager, climbing Mt. Washing in New Hampshire with my younger brother, we were absolutely dependent on well-placed cairns to find our way to the top in extremely thick fog. As we felt our way from cairn to cairn in a cold wind, we suddenly heard the whistle of the famous cog railway. It sounded as though it was about to run over us, but we figured if we were not standing in the track that wasn't likely. So, the train passed, incredibly loud and smelling of burnt coal, and all we could see was fog. When all sound had passed, we proceeded only to find we were less than 20' from the track! Anyway, I've loved cairns ever since.
See how distracted I get? The next photo up is the new leaves of what will be fawn lily blooming in another week or so. I'm giddy with anticipation. Then there's one of the Forest Service trail markers that identify major vegetative types and mention Maidu names and traditional uses. I liked the drawing, and Black Oak is my nom de plume for this blog, but I wonder, if the Maidu people were inclined to produce such signs, if they would design them differently or have different things to say. Design is spelled the same as de-sign, but don't get any ideas:)
Top photo is fan violet, one of several local species with yellow blossoms. This is one of the flowers, like shooting star and milkweed, that I can't get enough photos of. It's as if the act of photographing them is either an attempt to get the "perfect" shot, whatever that is, or perhaps the act is my way of paying attention longer and taking in the beauty, perhaps also waiting for the arrival of an exotic winged visitor. Ciao for niao.