Cabin fever

It's been raining all day and Chloe and I are dreaming about getting back out and walking tomorrow. Until then, here are some wildflowers to remind us that there's a world outside this studio. Giant hound's tongue (Cynoglossum grande) setting some of it's lovely orange seed capsules and hosting a Silvery blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus), both spotted in a meadow a few days ago, along with a solitary Parasola plicatilis  mushroom a few feet away.

 Red larkspur (Delphinium nudicaule), one of my favorites. There's a patch I've been watching at Howarth Park whose leaves have barely emerged from the ground so this one took me by surprise in a rocky quarry area I've only recently started visiting. I drew it as a group of children practiced their archery in Camp WaTam. As the arrows began flying about the area I felt that I'd better wrap up and leave sooner than later.

 There are some lovely wood orchids that bloom in late spring and early summer at Howarth Park. By the time the flowers appear, the leaves are usually gone, so I wanted to sketch some while they're still there. I had hoped the leaves might help me with identification but I don't think they will, though I enjoy finding them. I've been amazed at how many end up as food, probably for deer. I see them one day, then go back and find just a stub coming out of the ground. Speaking of deer food...

...Fritillaria afinis  aka Checker lily and Chocolate lily  appears here and there in the park, too. I saw this one, ready to bloom, and came back the next day to sketch it, only to find it beheaded and a nice little deposit of deer scat nearby to tell me who had committed the crime. It seemed only fair to go ahead and sketch the headless plant. My paper still wasn't tall enough for the whole plant so the very top is shown on the right side of the page. Later I did a fast sketch of some flowers on another in a different part of the park.