I went driving down Three Lake Road this afternoon, to allow OmegaDotter to get a nap in before we went swimming.  The sunflowers are blooming profusely, and the Little Yellow Flowers (coreopsis, goldfields, some aster-y thing, and, I think, a yellow buckwheat) are starting up.

In two weeks, we will need to haul butt up onto the plateau above Three Lake Road to do our annual "dotter in the yellow flowers" picture.

You have no concept of what it's like.  Let's talk a 50-acre meadow.  Covered with yellow flowers.  Everywhere you look.  An ocean of yellow.

Amazingly, it's rather difficult to capture in pictures.  This is three years ago:

This is last year:

Somehow, I have mislaid the pictures from two years ago.  I suspect they are on the other computer, which is still waiting for a new fan (if you turn it on, it turns itself off within a few minutes).

People in Texas do these pics with Bluebonnets.  I do them with DYCs (damned yellow composites).

Yellow flower season means we are into autumn here.  Yes, I know it's August, still.  But suddenly, the monsoons have vanished, the sky is crystal clear and vivid, heart-stopping blue, the sun is suddenly setting earlier and earlier.

We haven't heard any elk bugling yet, but it should happen any day now.  The woods around us are filled with the sound of shotguns going off--the hunters practicing their shooting.  The other day, at work, I heard one of the guys saying, "Yup, got a ticket for two cows..." and another one reply, "Heeey...I got one for a bull!  I've been out scouting the past few weekends..."  For a moment, I was befuddled, thinking cattle, then realized--Ah!  Hunting season!

Hereabouts, hunting season is a big event.  The guys all arrange to have a week's vacation scheduled very tentatively for Sometime in September.  Then they put in for the hunting license lottery.  If you get picked, you had darned well better shoot what you got licensed for; otherwise, you get your general hunting license yanked for a year or two.  Anyway, the guys drop out for a week here and there, then reappear with tales of freezers filled with elk or deer steaks, ground elk, deer ribs, you name it.  At my previous job, my office mate would bring in elk chili to share.

Then there's the "junior hunting" division days, when pop gets to take the kiddos out for their first hunts.

Most of the hunters I know have a wilderness ethic:  keep it clean, keep it neat, pack out what you bring in, don't poach, shoot only what you're licensed for.  But then there are the others, who litter our road from the highway with empty six packs and garbage galore.  OmegaDad snarks about how much heavier the beer cans are when they're empty, because there's no other reason to leave them by the side of the road.

It's a way of life.  It's a sign of autumn.  When you go hiking in September, you make sure to wear bright clothing--yellow or red or vivid blue--just in case someone thinks you're an elk or a deer.

Autumn also means heritage camp.  This is our first year going.  Anyone going to the Fraser camp?  If so, drop me an email at omegamom_01 at yahoo dot com, and we'll see if we can't meet up.

Technorati: Autumn, DYCs, hunting, heritage camp