Windy Sikes Lake Monday With Evening Primroses

On this second Monday of the 2025 version of April, it was to Sikes Lake I ventured for a windy lake walk under a clear blue sky.

As you can see, via the photo documentation, it is that time of the year when the Texas landscape turns colorful, with wildflowers, with the most prominent wildflower, seen in my North Texas zone of the Lone Star State, being the pink bloom known, for reasons unknown to me, as Evening Primroses.

I remember way back late in the previous century, in April of, I think 1998, driving to Texas to test the feasibility of moving there, and being surprised by all the flowers we were seeing between Amarillo and the Dallas/Fort Worth zone.

In April of, I think, 2001, I ventured south to what is known as Texas Hill Country, to hike up Enchanted Rock and visit Fredericksburg. This was to be my one- and only-time seeing Texas wildflowers in all their glory. 

The wildflowers of Texas Hill Country were not quite as colorful as the tulip fields of my old Skagit Valley home zone. But, being natural, not a cultivated agricultural product, made the Texas Hill Country wildflowers as impressive, if not more so, than the Skagit tulips.

Let me see if I can find a photo I took that day, early this century, of Texas Hill Country wildflowers...

The above scene was seen a few miles north of Enchanted Rock. As you can see, wildflowers far into the horizon. Except for the model in the foreground...

Walk Around Sikes Lake With Pink Evening Primroses

Since I last walked around Sikes Lake a couple days ago, the lake has become surrounded by pink evening primroses, one of my favorite Texas wildflowers.

If memory serves the evening primroses are usually the first wildflower I see when wildflower season starts up.

My first encounter with evening primroses happened way back late in the previous century, when I drove to Texas, from Washington, to see if moving was something I might want to do.

It was at some point east of Amarillo, heading to the Dallas/Fort Worth zone, on Highway 287, that I began seeing pink flowers carpeting the landscape alongside the freeway.

At some point I felt compelled to geta closer look at these delicate looking flowers, so I got off the freeway to get a good look and a good photo.

It was a year or two later I came to learn the name of these pink wildflowers.

Texas wildflowers are sort of a natural wild version of coloring up the landscape like my old home zone does with cultivated flowers of various types, like tulips, daffodils and others I am not remembering.

The State Wildflower of Texas is known as the bluebonnet. I see few bluebonnets at my current Texas location, during wildflower season.

In my old home zone of Washington I would see bluebonnets, only in Washington the flower is known as a lupine. I recollect seeing a lot of lupines blooming the last time I was at Mount Rainier, August 11, 2008.

I recollect remarking that I did not know Texas bluebonnets blossomed in Washington, to find myself being told that those are lupines.

Googling "lupine" I learned the following...

Lupinus, commonly known as lupin, lupine, or regionally bluebonnet etc., is a genus of plants in the legume family Fabaceae. The genus includes over 199 species, with centers of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centers occur in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Maybe Texas needs to consider what the State Wildflower is... 

Windy Sikes Lake Walk With Evening Primroses Coloring The Landscape

It was to Sikes Lake I ventured this third Saturday of the 2023 version of April, for a walk around the lake, along with dozens of other walkers enjoying the high-speed wind.

Since my last visit to Sikes Lake the Evening Primroses have blossomed in pink bloom mode.

Way back late in the previous century, in late April, I recollect heading to Dallas/Fort Worth on Highway 287, at some point after passing through Amarillo pink blossoms began coloring the landscape.

This was my introduction to Texas wildflower season. 

At some point, after Amarillo, I got off the road so as to check out, up close, these dainty pink blooms.

It was a few years later I finally learned the name of this Texas wildflower...

Mighty Fine Saturday Time Biking With Evening Primroses & A Colt

 

The past couple gray drippy cold days have been like stereotypical winter days in the Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest.

With all that drippy cold I had not had myself any outdoor endorphin inducing aerobic activity for way too long.

And so on this third Saturday of the 2021 version of April my bike took me on a ride, with me layered up like it was still winter, because even though the sky is no longer gray, the outer world has not returned to being warm.

The rain the past couple of days must have triggered the evening primroses into blooming. I have never seen so many blooms of this particular Texas wildflower previous blooming seasons at Sikes Lake. They were even blooming around the lone colt who is still missing its mama who disappeared a long time ago. As in maybe a year ago.

I never have learned what happened to the mother horse. Soon after an explanatory plaque was installed, explaining mother and child horse, the mother disappeared. 

April is over half gone. At the start of this month, hoping the weather would be conducive to increased outdoor exercise, I thought this would be the month I would lose my COVID-25 and once again be able to fit into more than just two of the pants in my pants collection.

I am still thinking there is a chance I may escape Texas this summer to go to Washington.

I think I may have mentioned I have a high school class reunion happening this summer. For a variety of reasons I was not planning on attending that event. And now it appears that common sense will be prevailing, with that reunion postponed for a year.

Maybe an extra year will give sufficient time to plan a reunion that I might want to attend. Maybe...