Texas Wildflowers Bloom Boom at Tandy Hills Park

This time of year Texas turns very green and very colorful. This year's wildflowers are being particularly plentiful. I've lived in my current location for most of this century. Up til about 5 months ago I did not realize I lived just a couple miles from Fort Worth's best park, that being Tandy Hills Park. I used to drive dozens of miles, sometimes more, to go on a hilly hike. I could have saved so much gas had I realized Tandy Hills had fun trails. And a lot of them. Miles and miles. A maze of trails.

Last Saturday the 3rd Annual Prairie Fest occurred at Tandy Hills Park. I'd been there just a few days prior and in just those few days the wildflowers at Tandy Hills had really amped it up, just in time for the festival. I saw a wildflower I'd not seen before, that being the yellow one you see above. It's real delicate, like an orchid.

In the photo above you see a lady with a kitchen utensil in her hair, sitting amongst the wildflowers and painting them. I don't mean she was painting wildflowers, I meant she was painting a likeness of the wildflowers. She was among many artists doing the same thing in one of the Prairie Fest activities.

In the above photo you see some Prairie Fest goers walking towards the main part of the festival. That is cactus in the foreground, I believe it's called prickly pear cactus. It also blooms and produces this fruit that is sort of tasty.

Above we're looking at a Tandy Hills trail heading through a patch of wildflowers, mostly bluebonnets, the official state flower of Texas.

I'm deeper into the Tandy Hills in the above photo. The wildflowers were being particularly thick here.

If you've never visited Texas and are thinking it might be interesting, April is the time you want to aim for. Texas looks its best. The temperature is not scorching yet, usually. In fact, the past couple days we've plummeted from being in the 80s, with a cold front from the north dropping the temps to natural air conditioned levels, as in it is 78 out there right now, but it got down to 46 last night. Brrrr. And in April, if you're lucky, you might get to experience a real wild Texas storm.