Eagles Among the Granite and Wildflowers

We live in granite country.  Quarries–some old and some still productive–are everywhere, and there are a number of granite warehouses within miles of our place.  Commercial buildings are sheathed in granite of different hues.  Our garden walls and steps are granite, and everywhere a person may want to dig, there will be granite.  Eagle Park is strewn with granite boulders called core stones that have surfaced from the granite bedrock.  The igneous rock in this area is made up of clear to gray quartz, black mica, with pink and white feldspar crystals and is called Rockville Granite.  I’ll walk you around the park of granite boulders, eagles and wildflowers.

The milkweed was abundant, and each ball of buds or blooms was a shade of candy-confection pink.  No wonder the monarch butterflies love this plant!

While I was looking at flowers, Chris spotted an eagle in the tree ahead of us.  It is hard to differentiate the male and female bald eagle, especially when they are not side by side.  The female is larger and has a deeper beak.  The male generally has a sleeker head, so by comparing the pictures from the last post, I would say this is father eagle!  He flew from this perch overlooking the floodplain back to the nest in the gnarled hackberry tree in the center of the park.

The path circles the park, skirting the immense granite boulders and winding past giant oak trees.

Thistles have encroached upon the park from an adjacent untended pasture, living side by side with the prairie grasses and wildflowers.  The prolific seeders take over more ground year after year.

A trio of fuzzy-leaved mullein stands poised, ready to bloom.

Meadow rue and prairie phlox adorn the granite.

Leadplant and butterfly weed brighten the landscape.

Blue vervain and purple coneflower have prominent seed heads, insuring the propagation of their kind for another year.

And a lovely young oak puts on its yearly coat of new growth.

The granite has been in this place for eons.  This pair of eagles has been here for ten years now.  They have adapted to the circling of curious spectators as they raise their eaglets in their home high above the grasses, thistles, and wildflowers.  We all take our place in the history of the eons, adapting to the changes that come our way.  We learn from the hard times and the thorny issues that invade the beauty of our lives.  We need to feed upon the candy-confection beauty of the world and let the seeds of that beauty–love, compassion, kindness, faith and hope–spread beyond our own selves.  We need to view the world from that high home in the sky.