The Liatris are blooming...

...along our walk.

I don't think liatris were part of my consciousness until my mother was ill in 1990. My brother brought a bunch to her room in ICU at a time when we thought (wrongly) we would lose her and were allowed to break a lot of ICU rules. I look for them every October now.

The purple of the liatris was beautiful against the background of  goldenrod. White asters were blooming too, as were broomweed and ragweed*, but it was the saturated yellow and purple that caught the eye.

Fall had arrived, if only for a few hours. We were in long sleeves and light jackets and we suspected the deer would wait for us on this cool crisp morning. We were right.

As we entered the near meadow we could hear the ball players arriving at the fields behind us in the park. [When did it become okay to schedule little league ball on Sunday morning in this conservative rural community? When did I become such a crank?]

The weeds were chest high and gave the deer good cover.

So we saw flashes of yellow and flashes of purple and then flashes of white tails as two scooted into the woods. And that was all we needed to encourage us down the road further. In the far meadow other deer were grazing.

We immediately saw the unmistakable long neck and big ears silhouetted against the dark woods at the far end of the meadow. That doe watched us for some minutes and then moved into the thin strip of woods that separates the meadow from the park. There were others with her...perhaps two yearlings.

Then we noticed another doe closer to us. She casually fed and then, head up, watched as we moved to within 100 or 120 feet of her. Then she started her dance.

She bounded across the meadow. [How does one describe a doe's ballet? What is the term for a deer jete? The dazzling leaps still play in my mind.]

She stopped mid-meadow and watched us for a moment more. Then turning, she completed her  meadow-long dance and entered the woods  behind us, where she joined the others who had kept pace with her. We had watched their movements within the woods, a corps of dancers just behind the primary.

I have only seen this dance, this stunningly beautiful, graceful escape played out across 150 yards of high grass and fall wildflowers, once before.

"What a gift." I sighed to DH as we started our long walk home.


Notes:

*How to figure out what is blooming?

Go to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website (www.wildflower.org). They have an image gallery that can help you decide just what kind of liatris or goldenrod, or broomweed you saw on your walk. Okay, maybe I had to go to my wildflower books to decide about the goldenrod and I don't care which variety of ragweed, but the others were there (Liatris elegans, Prairie broomweed).