Wildflowers and roadkill.

Here it is once again... that magic time of the year when it's not nearly hot enough to be Summer, but warmer than it would be for Spring. The wildflowers are blooming, and the critters in the woods are starting to explore.

Wildflowers are protected here..... you can't mow them down till they've gone to seed, not even (especially not even) on the highways of the state. So wherever you drive, you will see oceans of bluebonnets, red Indian paintbrushes, tiny pink five-petal desert roses, and lots of different yellow blooms and purple buds that I don't know the names of. And don't let anyone see you picking bluebonnets, no matter where they're planted. Take pictures if you must, but don't touch the state flower.

As for the critters.... now is the time to see them all-- dead in the middle of the roads. The only time I've seen a live armadillo has been at the Houston Zoo, where they have an entire family, and I once saw an armadillo walking (waddling) in a quiet corner on the grounds of the local university. All the other armadillos have been in the middle of a road, with their four little feet pointing towards the sky.

Raccoons and possums--- all over the roads. And it's twice as sad to see one or two baby raccoons dead in the road right behind their mama, who they had followed from one side of the road to the other. Possums (either dead or alive) don't make me sad... they are the ugliest things on this part of the planet.... long hair-less tails, pointed snouts that are white and pink, and black bloated bodies that don't match the rest of them. And they screech when they're confronted by a dog (such as ours, who once did just that)... the possum just stood there without moving as Gracie barked and barked and jumped up and down all around the possum, who didn't move so much as a whisker.

The raccoons are as cute as they can be, but the mama raccoons will fight you or your dog if you get too near to their babies. I don't think I will ever forget the mama raccoon who got into our attic a bunch of years ago and dropped one of her babies into a space between the outside wall and the inside wall of our kitchen. The mama raccoon left our attic and my husband closed up the little hole that she used to get in...... and then we heard the baby scratching behind the wall. That night, mama raccoon came back trying to get to her baby but she couldn't get into the attic anymore. She sat up on our roof and wouldn't leave, and we heard her pacing back and forth all night long up there.

In the morning, we had to pull out the dishwasher and make a hole in the wall to retrieve the little Beanie-baby-sized raccoon. Poor thing needed water so badly and I was feeding it with a doll bottle that we had borrowed from a neighbor's child. My husband kept telling me that it was a raccoon, not a pet, and we weren't going to add "Vinnie" (my name for the baby raccoon) to our family. We put Vinnie out on our backyard deck that night in a laundry basket, and his mama came out of the flowerbeds and took her baby and off they went into the night, with poor little Vinnie screaming all the way over the fence.

Wildflowers and roadkill.... we think of little Vinnie every year at this time.