What I did for Easter Weekend

T McArthur

Adventurist
The 4th seemed like a perfect day for a hike. Temps in the 80s and high cirrus clouds looking very confused. First I thought I'd check out the poppy preserve. I'd heard it was a big disappointment this year due to lack of rain. They were right. Only a few scattered plants well to the west at the bottom of gullies and along the side of the road where they got pavement run off.

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So instead I drove down to Pyramid Lake to see what all was showing in the chaparral there. At first I thought I was walking into a zoo. There were a zillion cars in the parking area and you could hear boom boxes everywhere.

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I persevered and by simply walking a mile up the paved road I left it all behind. It wasn't my intent to follow the river but rather to catch am old fire road a couple miles ahead. Once every couple weeks the forest service patrols up this road - just to make sure it is still there, I guess.

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This road goes up a couple miles and turns into a foot trail which eventually gets to an abandoned fire lookout tower.

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I wasn't here to visit thew tower but rather to look for whatever flora and fauna I might be lucky enough to find. The ground was not carpeted in flowers as can happen after a good rain year. However they were still there if you cared to look for them. Probably the most common were the oaks which were all in bloom and hosting huge numbers of honeybees. In this case I found a ladybug hard at work looking for aphids.

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These were what I think are Mountain Phacelia. If I misidentify any plants, please feel free to correct me!

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This is a butterfly on bristly fiddleneck.

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And the trail kept going up.

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Purple sage, just beginning to bloom:

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Yerba santa:

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The non-native invasive, Spanish broom:

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The poisonous wild cucumber:

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Also poisonous California milkweed. How many bugs do you see in this picture? There are seven but I don't expect anyone to see all of them in this low res version:

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Here is the caterpillar for the Monarch butterfly, one of the few critters who actually like milkweed. By eating the milkweed they become toxic themselves and are brightly colored to identify themselves as such. The adult Monarch butterfly is also toxic. The Viceroy butterfly takes advantage of this by mimicking the monarch. Birds leave them alone despite the fact they don't eat milkweed and aren't toxic.

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You don't really have a notion how steep a path is until you look back. This is quite steep:

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I don't know what this is called but it sure is pretty:

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Purple nightshade. Poisonous. Seems like half the plants in the desert are poisonous.

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Thistle starting to bloom. This is edible if cooked and humming birds love it:

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Morning glory. Psychoactive and potentially lethal.

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And we go up further:

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The clouds look very confused:

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And we go up and up and up:

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Desert dandilion (edible):

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I think some bugs on golden yarrow:

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Here's the view of Pyramid Lake Dam from where I decide to stop. Eight miles round trip isn't very much but I don't have all day. I have a second Seder my presence is required at. There were lots of other flowers I could have included here but these were the ones most common that I was able to get a decent picture of. It was a very good day.

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Thanks for sharing the report. That is an area not too far from home, that I have driven past a number of times but never actually stopped and explored
 
Great pictures and report, however, I shall refrain from asking the obvious question regarding elimination... :D
 
Ahem...Speaking of fertilizer....the plant you're curious about is one of the varieties of Vicia, or more commonly Vetch. It is in the legume family and is a nitrogen fixer. Can be invasive but has pretty flowers and interesting shaped stem. Vining growth.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicia
 
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