Category Archives: 2023 Grand Finale Tour

Why do we need a New Attitude to Nature?

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Affinity, New Attitude to Nature, Orchids of Manitoba, Pollution, Wild Flowers, Wild flowers of Manitoba

This is a photograph of one of Manitoba’s lovely little orchids that are blooming right now. I am a wild flower guy. I hate what is happening to flowering plants, and other plants, around the world!

Some people don’t–no make that most people–don’t think we need a new attitude to nature. They are content with the current attitude to nature that is deeply embedded in western thought. Fundamentally, this is the attitude that we humans are not part of nature.  According to the conventional wisdom, we are separate from nature and in fact superior to it, so that we can do with nature as we please. Nature is just a resource. When Europeans arrived in New World, as they called, even though there was nothing new about, they brought this attitude with.  That is a pity because the indigenous people had an entirely different attitude which I will comment on soon.

This is the western attitude to nature in a nutshell which has been with us for millennia and is supported by Christian scripture, though fortunately, some modern Christians are trying with heroic efforts to turn that ship around. I wish them luck.

There is some very recent history to support my contention that current attitudes have got us in big trouble. Recent studies have shown that pollution caused by humans is killing 9 million people a year around the world.

The recent study is based on data from the Global Burden of Disease Project.  That study found that air pollution caused 75% of those deaths. That means that air pollution is responsible for 1 in 6 deaths around the world!

 

The study was published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health and it said that toxic air and contaminated water and soil “is an existential threat to human health and planetary health.” According to the Guardian Weekly review of that research, “The death total dwarfs that from road traffic deaths, HIV/Aids, malaria, and TB combined!”

Of course, pollution is produced by humans the greatest serial killer on the planet. Humans produce it because they don’t care about nature.

Another recent study has shown that 80,000 plant species world-wide are currently categorized as “heading for extinction because people do not need them!” Many of these are flowers which as a flower child I lament of course, with special feeling.

And for those who don’t care about wild flowers or even nature, but care about money, and that includes a lot of people, here are the economics: “The researchers calculated the economic impact of pollution deaths at $4.7 tn., about $9m a minute.”

That should get their attention.

And in a nutshell, that is one reason why we need a new attitude to nature. But there are many.

Silly Mountain

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Arizona, desert, Wild Flowers of Southwest USA

 

 

Silly Mountain is the first Mountain I ever climbed. It is a pretty modest mountain of course, but I loved the walk up with the Driedgers a few years back in my first winter in Arizona. I will never forget the experience.

It was not just the flowers that were gorgeous.  The desert turned green! Hard to believe. A green desert but that can happen in the Sonoran Desert which gets more rainfall than any other North American desert.

 

A dead Saguaro and one very much alive

But this year was different. This year the flowers were stunning.

Today the flowers added a luster to the walk. We did not walk up the mountain. We just strolled at the base and took a few photographs.

 

One of the things that was striking about Silly Mountain is not just the yellow flowers but the base of green. All the rain we had in the autumn last year and then from January to March have produced an abundance of vegetation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Far from the Maddening Crowd

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Arizona, Arizona Photos, desert, Wild Flowers, Wild Flowers of Southwest USA

 

These are not great photos because they were taken directly into the sun but I have tried to capture the crowds that came to look at wildflowers at Lost Dutchman State Park Arizona. I estimated there were about 250 flower lovers.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to see such crowds coming to look at wildflowers.

The people were of all ages. Old Codgers like me to young bright and eager kids. It was spectacular. Wonders never cease.

 

 

If you click on the photo and make it bigger I think you will see what the park is usually like. Finally I was far from the Maddening crowd after I lost them. I took a wrong turn.   How can you lose 250 people?

 

Flower Children going wild at Picacho Peak

2023 Grand Finale Tour

 

 

 

This was another strange day during a super bloom. I went to Picacho Peak State Park by myself since Christiane was not feeling well. As soon as I drove into the park I realized there would be trouble. Once again there was a lineup of cars.

 

This time, as the above sign indicated, it was really slow. I considered driving home until I noticed progress in the line was excruciatingly slow but had no stopped completely. Flower children are determined folks.

I loved a licence plate on a car next to me. The owner was happy to have me photograph it. She said it was a favorite saying of her mother.

The flowers were definitely worth the wait. Word of a super bloom was spreading, but I was told every year at this time this park was filled with lovers of wild flowers.

The wind was not my friend and made wildflower photography very challenging. There was a family with 2 lovely young girls being photographed among the flowers. I think they were meant to be graduation photographs.

“Super bloom” is the term given to an above-average number of blooms of desert wildflowers blooming at the same time. It is a rare occurrence that should be appreciated when it happens.

I read an article about the flower boom at Picacho Peak State Park and the man who was interviewed said it “my Superbowl.”  That’s the way I felt about it too.

Picacho Peak

Picacho Peak

Hawk’s nest in a Saguaro

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Arizona, Arizona Photos, desert

 

There was nest of a hawk or eagle in the crotch of this Saguaro butwas empty.  It might be that no bird was occupying it, but also it could be that the crowds were spooking the birds and not able to nest.  I hate to think that eggs in the nest were not being attended to because of the crowds.

This is another shot of the saguaro with an empty nest. Somebody ought to have warned the birds that this would be a super bloom year and hence they would be plagued by flower children.

 

 

Is Flower watching more Popular than Golf?

2023 Grand Finale Tour

 

 

I went to Lost Dutchman State Park today for a wildflower walk with the Park Ranger and I couldn’t believe my eyes! Normally, at such events, which I frequently attend there are about 10 to 12 people at the most, that attend. This year at one such event, when I drove into the park there was a lineup-from the Interpretive Center and Ranger Station all the way to the highway. It must have been about ½ mile long. It was impossible.

Owl Clover

 

I wondered why there were so many people. First, I was told, it was the start of Spring Break so lots of young people were out and about. That has happened before and there were never such long line-ups. It must be something else. And there was something else.  It was a super bloom. People came from far and wide to see wildflowers.

Can you believe that there were more people coming to watch flowers than golf?  I estimated there were about 250 people signed up for this walk and talk. I was stunned. I’m sure no T-box had half as many people. The poor Park interpreter, a fine young lady, had to stand on top of a picnic table and shout to the crowd to be heard. It was crazy. Are wildflowers guys like me taking over the world? It sure looked that way to me.

She did the best she could. She was an enthusiastic flower girl and gave us some interesting information about wildflowers. The line was so long no one could hear what was being said at the front except those right beside her so he always stopped to let us hear what she was saying. At least she did it to the best of her ability.

Because the line was so long about half-way through the walk I got separated from the group There was a place where many people were going up the trail to the mountain and others turned left. I did not realize it until it was too late, but I followed the wrong group. After that I was on my own.

 

A Flower Child arrives in Heaven

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Arizona Photos, Natural History, photography, Wild Flowers, Wild Flowers of Southwest USA

 

 

 

When I was a young lad going to University, it was the time of hippies and flower children. I always considered myself as on the fringes of this group. The term we liked to refer to ourselves was “freaks.”  But I always liked the expression “flower children.”  It called to mind these crazy kids at the Kent State  University Vietnam War Protest, and other places, who stood in front of the national guard members that were pointing their rifles at them and they smiled at the guards and placed flowers in the barrels of the gun.  How crazy is that?   Much to my surprise I actually became a flower child of sorts many years later when as an adult of sorts I became interested in wildflowers. I remember my mother was amazed. How could this happen?  Well, my answer to her was, “How could it not happen?” What is there not to like about wildflowers?

It was a very windy day, so I gave up on trying to freeze images of flowering blowing in the breeze.

One afternoon this winter in Arizona Christiane and I went for a jaunt on Red Mountain Road and Saguaro Lake and then headed south to complete a loop to Busch Highway and then Usery Pass Road.  We saw many wildflowers along the way. But we were really shocked at Usery Pass Road  where there was a long line of cars parked beside the road. What was happening we wondered? It was the wildflower children going crazy photographing flowers. My sport has been turned over to the rabble! And there was good reason for that. The flowers were outstanding.

 

There was a traffic jam of sorts in the countryside where we saw these wild flowers. Everyone, it seemed wanted to see these gems. Who can blame them?

 

More than remarkable

2023 Grand Finale Tour

 

At Usery Pass Road, on the north east edge of Mesa Arizona there were carpets of flowers, particularly California Golden Poppy, also called Mexico Poppy.

One person we met today who lives here said it was the most spectacular bloom of flowers he had seen in 40 years!

It was astonishing what can happen to the desert. The Sonoran desert gets more rain than most deserts so it has the greatest diversity of plant life of any of the North American deserts. But this was unusual.

First, the desert was greener than we had ever seen it before. By desert standards it was lush. Ditches even had water close to our rented house, where we rarely saw water. This year was special.

To call this year in the desert “remarkable” as I had been doing was really to use a word that is too mild. It was sensational. It was heaven for a flower child like me.