Cactus Among the Grasslands
High desert among the grasslands of Colorado? Pawnee National Grasslands are a bonanza for walking and birdwatching and flower spotting too. This is a long excerpt, but there’s even more if you click through. More pictures, more interesting descriptions. It makes me want to go visit, you know.
This spring brought downpour after downpour of rain, making the prairie burst into bloom. The pioneers who came here in the 1880s learned that plowing the sod in the arid high desert shouldn’t have been done and when the Dust Bowl hit in the 1930s, the farms were abandoned.
After the people gave up on their dreams and forfeited their land, it reverted back to its natural state. Remnants of homesteads, windmills and cemeteries can be seen from the trails near the Buttes…
Whenever we’d see a photo opportunity, I’d say, “Stop!” Wild flowers were everywhere we looked, a sea of lavender, Vetch, Yellow Evening Primrose, Ball Cactus, Prickly Pear Cactus, Sand Lilies, bright pink Locoweed, Penstemon, lavender, Fleabane, and yellow sweet clover.
Just watch where you step, OK?
