Mountain flora: part 1, around town

First off, I need to apologize for my lack of blogging. I do have good excuses, though! 

For one thing, we were able to host some good friends from college up here for several days, and we rather took lack of internet access as a feature, not a bug, while we visited, caught up, reminisced, and just generally had a good time.

After that group had all gone their separate ways, though, I figured I'd have plenty of time to go down to the library in town and blog. Well, that wasn't figuring with the horribly destructive wildfires Colorado is suffering. The loss of the tower that serves our local library is really one of the lesser tragedies resulting from the giant Spring fire in the SE corner of the state. But it does mean that the internet is even harder to come by up here than usual. (More about another of Colorado's EIGHT fires, one that I got a little close to, later.)

However, I did make the discovery that our local SAFEWAY, of all places, has free wifi! Who knew?! So here I am trying to catch up on some blogging and iTunes downloading before heading back up to our cabin and resuming my painting chores.

Being here at this time of year means that there are lots of wonderful wildflowers to enjoy (later in this dry summer, there won't be much, I'm sure). And I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you. I did my best (with two flower books which often use different common names for the same scientific ones) to identify them, but I'm not really sure about any of the names, so feel free to send corrections!

The lovelies at the top of the post are either yellow peas, golden banners, or false lupines(!). Here's another shot of them, next to a cabin that's being added on to (there's lots of new construction in our little village this summer):

Yellow seems to be a popular color:

I think these are golden asters

Heartleaf arnica

But there are plenty of other hues represented...

clover, by themselves

clover, with a guest

mystery flower that I couldn't find in either book

wild geraniums?

a closer look...wild geraniums?

There's even some wild roses, that smell heavenly, and are just as pretty as the cultivated varieties (and with even sharper thorns!):

I'm pretty sure these beauties, which are quite common around town, are either white checkermallow or wild hollyhock, depending on which book you consult...

The closest I could get to identifying these handsome guys was some sort of Indian paintbrushes, but they're much more delicate-looking than the paintbrushes we have at home. Plus I saw some "regular" paintbrushes along another walk up at the Divide (I'll show you flowers from that one next time). So I don't know, really, what these are. But they are lovely, aren't they?

Well, speaking of paint, I need to get back to work. Maybe the library internet will be working tomorrow and I can get some more blogging done.