Sunday Snapshots: The Flowers of Pioneer Cemetery/Baldwin City Cemetery

Known as both Pioneer Cemetery and Baldwin City Cemetery, this Douglas County burial ground’s first interment was in 1858 on land not far from a then-still-active Santa Fe Trail. The sign at the entrance highlights the native wildflowers on the grounds. It is poignant that many of the markers bear flowers, too.

R.J. Barricklow’s white bronze marker shows a barely opened blossom, symbolizing the death of the very young.

Flowering Spurge.

Wild fringe leaf ruellia.

Wild blue sage.

Mary Frances Fry’s headstone shows a rose in full bloom. It’s stem has been snapped, symbolizing a life cut short.

Searching for Higher Ground

Ottawa, Kansas was scoured by a two-hour-long storm that dumped nearly five inches of rain before it moved on. With so much rain, the birds and bugs were all scrambling to get out of the water. The normally hidden rolly pollies were just hanging on in the backyard after the rain had passed.

I could use a little help here…

Sunday Snapshot: Driving into the Storm

This weekend, 50 of us authors signed books at Town Crier Bookstore‘s annual Author Extravaganza in Emporia, Kansas. I hopped onto old U.S. 50 to take a slower, more scenic ride back to Ottawa.

It was definitely scenic. I found myself driving right under a squall line churning its way north as I crossed into Coffey County. It was scary and majestic and darkly beautiful.

Sunday Snapshot: Caterpillar at the library

A bedstraw hawk moth caterpillar crawls along the rocks outside Ottawa Library.

Sunday Snapshot: Little Cave in the Corner

Whisky Creek cuts a little cave out of the side of a hill in Franklin County.

Ask the average Kansan to point out the closest cave and they’ll probably point east to Missouri.  According to the Kansas Geological Society, the Kansas landscape includes several hundred little caves. While exploring southwestern Franklin County, we found this little cave carved out by Whisky Creek near the corner of Kingman Road and Georgia Road.