Wednesday, August 14, 2013






A SECRET PLACE.......A hidden meadow along a remote back road...at 5300 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Where on the 1st of July each year we can find hundreds of wild Leopard Lilies. But not this year. The normally wet meadow, spring fed, was dry and crisp. Three small lilies hung brown and limp. The victims of our very dry winter. What about the butterflies, bees and birds that make this place their summer home? In all our years of visiting this sacred place we had never seen such a disaster.We looked under the tree root where a Junco always builds a nest. Nothing. We pack all our camera gear back to our car, thru the thick growth of trees which hide this place. We follow down the series of normally wet meadows to where the forest is thick and covers the small almost dry creek. Hiking thru the forest to the creek, with some water now, we find a thick grove of lilies. Some survive! There is hope for the future of our hidden meadow. All we need is rain. Now if we can survive too?