Easter Stroll

Instead of hunting for easter eggs today I travelled back out into the sagebrush to hunt for wild flowers. Walter and I took Nancy and Elliot along with us to the Miller Ranch/Fishtrap Lake area. It was nice. The very early flowers are up such as lomatium, butter cup, blue bells, yellow bells, and prairie stars. The arrow root and hookers balsam are coming up, yet not blooming. We could find the wild onion leaves by the smell but no blooms on those either. The day was actually rainy and cold and felt more like fall. We roamed around the highland area checking out all the ponds (we could hear frogs) and then headed down to the lake where we discovered TONS of empty beer cans. We filled my pack with cans but could not pack all of them out because there were so many. BLM land tends to be sort of trashy in the popular areas because there is very little oversight. Nancy took a nap in the grass while I looked at the desert flower book. We are wanting to go back next week to see the changes. We found some really cool fronds coming up through the rocky soil and I would like to know what they are. I am sure they will flower. Here are some of the pictures I took from our blustery walk.

Fishtrap Lake

Fishtrap Lake again

Fishtrap Lake from above

A cool and weird tree stump

Pond

Another pond

Nancy and the Boys

And still another pond

Coyote den