Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: west of river

We passed by a boulder at Sandy Beach three days ago, where a leaf print is nicely displayed. The rock formation is around 40 million years old. If you look closely (LOL), you can see the veins. Apparently, it is most likely a Poplar leaf.

I haven't heard whether anyone has seen a first Prairie Crocus in bloom yet, this spring. They can be seen as early as mid-March, but more often closer to the end of March, I believe. This image was taken on 26 April 2011, probably at Sandy Beach, Calgary.

Now that plants and trees have started to bloom, I'll be posting photos of the various flowers to add to my Plants of Alberta Sets. They probably won't be of too much interest to some of you, so please bear with me, LOL! This photo shows the male flowers of the Trembling Aspen tree, seen a couple of days ago at Sandy Beach.

Well, the poor Prairie Crocuses looked rather battered and droopy this morning, after the awful snow storm we had two days ago! They were all closed up, with their little fur coats - solar heating, Crocus style! "This furry little perennial is actually not a crocus, which is in the Lily family; it's really an anemone, in the Buttercup family."

I must add straight away that, no, I wasn't lying flat on my stomach or back to get this photo and, no, I didn't pick the flower, LOL!! When I was on a walk with friends on Friday morning, at Sandy Beach, one of us noticed that this Prairie Crocus flower had been broken off, probably by foot or by dog. Of course, I didn't want to see it wasted, so I made sure I took a few photos of it : ) Oh, by the way, it's SNOWING again this evening!

Not the best of photos - much too blurry for my liking - but it's a bit different from the other, more "usual" photos of Prairie Crocuses that I took yesterday. It was a very overcast afternoon and quite windy - not good for photographing thousands of tiny, gold hairs, LOL. However, I had just been to get my Taxes done and this location was nearby, so I wanted to at least try and find a few of these wildflowers. So great to have them finally in bloom! Oh, and by the way, I placed something dark behind the flower head to make it show up against all the tangle of dried grass in the background. I'll post one of those "messy" photos another day : )

LOL, "everyone" takes photos exactly like this one! This is just a typical shot of a typical cluster of these unique flowers. Everyone is thrilled when the first ones push up through the dried grasses or sometimes even through the remaining snow of winter. They tend to be the first flowers to bloom each spring. They are such furry little flowers and a delight of mauve and yellow. Happy spring! A HOT day today - I think it was supposed to get up to around 20C and up to 21C tomorrow. Caught me totally unprepared : )