...the revery alone will do

First camping trip of the year - and oh my, was it exciting in unexpected ways!  I think it's worth more than one post, to build the suspense a little.  We had never camped at this state park before, so after unpacking and settling in (which included an unscheduled trip to the nearest town to replace the forgotten air mattress!) a stroll down a few of the country lanes was in order.  Wildflowers and prairie grasses took center stage this time instead of one of the Great Lakes, and my quiet strolls, camera in hand, truly gave me back the breathing space I'd been sorely missing.  Here's a small sampling of the beauty I enjoyed...

Cattails ringed a nearby slough

 And shy little wildflowers poked through the grasses

I know a plain old fashioned farmhouse down a pretty little lane
 Where yellow daisies make a pathway to the fields of golden grain.

~~Al Jolson (from the song Black Eyed Susan) 

“With a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red came above the horizon, and immediately thousands of little birds sang out for joy, and a soft chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs came forth from the earth; the low whispering wind left its hiding-place among the clefts and hollows of the hills, and wandered among the rustling herbs and trees, waking the flower-buds to the life of another day.” ~~Elizabeth Gaskell  (from Ruth, published 1853)

I'm going back to a shack where the Black-eyed Susans grow 

I love'em so, they're all around on the ground 

where I found the one I know so long ago. ~~Al Jolson

Aren't these little buds beautiful?  They reminded me of lovely lace.  Maybe they are worn by fairies in the moonlight?

And of course the wild clover, nestled in among the prairie grasses, brought this favorite Emily Dickinson poem to mind...

To make a prairie

it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a gee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

And goodness knows, surrounded by all the natural beauty at the park, I had revery to spare!!

Here's a question about tomorrow's post...I take pictures of wildflowers when I go on a hike.  But what does my son do when he's out hiking with his girlfriend?  Find out tomorrow!