Stress Buster: Wildflowers

Posted on by Rebecca Wallick

Selling a house. While attempting to buy a house on the other side of the country before said sale is closed. Stressful!

Coordinating the timing of both transactions so that I – and my dogs – don’t end up homeless. Hugely stressful!

It’s crunch time, juggling closing on my sale while searching for something to buy, and I’m not sleeping well. I hope I’ll succeed. I struggle to stay positive. I realize it’s a first world problem, one I’m fortunate to have, but still…stressful.

So, this morning’s jaunt in the national forest, full of wildflowers to photograph, was a wonderful de-stressing time for me. My dogs also enjoyed it, even though it was unseasonably warm. They got to follow their noses, and that’s all that matters to them.

Hot dogs on a hillside covered in wildflowers, some spent, some emerging.

I have so many thoughts and ideas of topics to blog about, but…stress, and the need to focus on other more immediate tasks (of the sort that actually provide income), keeps me from proper blogging.

In the meantime, please consider these wildflower photos – from the forest and from my own wildflower garden – as a placeholder.

Lupine.
Wild onion.
Wild parsley. Its flowers reach out as if offering a hug to the world.
Payette penstemon, a beardtongue, the third largest group of wildflowers in North America, with over 100 individual species documented in the Mountain West.

Greeting me at home, a host of columbine in my wildflower garden are bursting with blooms in shades varying from creamy yellow to pink and magenta. They enjoyed being under the sprinkler for a few hours.

I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of bumblebees to harvest their pollen.

Published by Rebecca Wallick

I delight in exploring the national forest near my Idaho home on foot, whether trail running, hiking, or xc skiing, with my two dogs by my side, taking photos of nature and wildlife. An author and freelance writer, I love observing and writing about the natural world, and dogs, and am a long-time contributing editor at Bark magazine. I used to practice law for a living. I much prefer the writing life.

25 thoughts on “Stress Buster: Wildflowers”

    1. I love poppies and have tried to grow them in the wildflower garden near my house, but either they don’t like the soil/climate, or they’ve been bullied and crowded out by the columbine and lupine.

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  3. The coolumbines look wonderful. I was quite taken aback by the beautiful wild onion flower, until I remembered that it must be closely related to narcissus, amaryllis, and snowdrops. Must have been a great run

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    1. I’m no expert on plants, but my wildflower book says this wild onion is a member of the lily family; Allium brevistylum, Liliaceae. They do have stunning flowers! They’re easy to spot because they’re fairly tall, blooming atop a long (10-12 inches), slender stem. Sometimes I’ll see a handful of plants with flowers near each other, but mostly I see them a solitary flashes of purple against a green backdrop of grasses, shrubs and other wildflowers. A few pop up in the field grass on my lot. Very random, very pretty.

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      1. Lilies are also a lovely family. I can’t say I understand the logic of plant phylogeny. As I understand it, genus Alium was considered to be in family Liliaceae, but in 2009 angiosperm taxa were rearranged to put it into Amaryllidaceae. I may not get to see A. brevistylum here, but I’ll certainly keep an eye out for the flowers of its farmed cousin. I wonder whether they are edible.

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      2. The wildflower book I used to identify the wild onion is old (1989) so the classification is likely out-of-date as you point out (thank you). As for whether they’re edible, that book says, “The bulbs, much stronger in flavor than the garden varieties of onion, can be cooked and eaten.” I haven’t tested that; I prefer to leave them as I find them. But I imagine they were a source of food for indigenous peoples.

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    1. We’re enduring a heat wave here at present (into the 90s where I live; 103F in Boise), breaking records for this early in the summer. At least last night’s heat-induced weather system of thunder, lightning and wind also brought a little much-needed rain, keeping wildfires at bay a bit longer.

      I’m preparing myself for a humidity adjustment when I arrive in Vermont! 🙂

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  6. I wouldn’t stress over all the stuff going on. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? OK, maybe you and the dogs would have to live on the streets of Boise for awhile, sending Conall out to get voles for a dinner cooked over a Sterno can but, really, is that honestly so bad? You could take photos of the weeds coming up through the cracks in the sidewalk. See, a positive side to everything! 😈 Let me know if you need/want any more free advice.

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  7. It’s going to be OK. I finally resigned my self to taking flight within a week of the deal closing, coming out here with the dogs, finding a cabin where we could live for however long it would take to find a house, and finding a house. The really stressful part of that was the repair to the roof of my house that needed to be done before the deal closed. If I had known what I know now, I’d have relaxed and enjoyed the transition more than I did, but I’d been freaked out for so many months that it was kind of a (bad) habit. I had come out a month or two before to look at houses without the dogs. I didn’t find a house at that time but I couldn’t have put the down payment down anyway. I did find my town and that was a huge stress reliever.

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  9. These flowers made my heart smile, thank you very much. I hope you are able to finalize the sale and the move. Have lots of tea to de-stress! Also, I saw a video today that reminded me of you. It is on how we are so mistaken with the lives of wolves. It is on Youtube from Anton Petrov – We were wrong about wolves and wolf packs. I immediately thought about you and your dogs when I saw it.

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    1. Thanks, glad you enjoyed the flowers!

      Thanks for mentioning that video about wolves. Yes, we humans have been wrong and stupid about wolves for centuries, which is why we keep trying to exterminate them, my current state of Idaho being among the most ignorant toward and dangerous for wolves. That ignorance and the horror of wolf hunting and trapping is the primary reason I’m leaving.

      My love of wolves comes from my love of dogs and in particular Alaskan Malamutes, but also because wolves in the wild are examples of families that work and thrive (when left alone by humans). Maybe that’s why so many humans demonize wolves and strive to destroy them: because as humans, they subconsciously know they don’t and can’t measure up to wolf standards.

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    1. Mostly virtually. And yes, tricky. My realtor there walks me through via video using WhatsApp, so I can ask questions in real time. And my friends – at least in a recent instance – walked through with the realtor and took video and photos of their own to share with me later, along with their thoughts. It’s not practical for me to fly back and forth; new listings get offers within hours/days and would be “pending” before I could get there. It’s crazy, but it is what it is. Any offer I do make will be contingent on an inspection, so that’s my best insurance.

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  12. It is a very stressful time indeed for you Rebecca, however you have found a way to decompress with these beautiful flowers. Wishing you the very best on this transition. Will look forward to hearing more about your journey.

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