Orchids for the Prom? Maybe a little small!

Most folks don't expect orchids in Nevada. It's a sand-box desert. Right?

Wrong. Not all of Nevada is Las Vegas style, dry and hot.

We live in northern Nevada, over a mile high elevation and hike the Ruby
Mountains, a half hour from our house.

Hiking in the Ruby Mountains in northern Nevada is like being in the Alps,
Tetons, or Rockies.

John and I hiked this morning in July before work up the stock trail to
Lamoille Lake in the Rubies. The sky was gray and cloudy. I'd smelled
smoke the night before and wondered if lightening had started something.
We've had a wet spring, and its' prime fire season now. there could be rain
up high today, and lightening in the valley below.

Grass and flowers are thick and high this year making our hike glorious.
Streams drop down the mountainside along the trail, some merely trickle
through granite crevices while others rush to meet the creek below.
It's a perfect day for a hike. Sometimes at this elevation the sun is relentless;
today the air is soft, temperature, cool.

Along the rills are lush gardens of Ceanothus, Brook Saxifrage, and
Shooting Stars.

Above all are small waxy towers, the Bog Orchid. Orchid bulbs are
eatable, but my Field Guide cautions against eating them because
American orchids are rare, although they seem to be common in our
Ruby Mountains. They're at home in high altitude, boggy situations
along streams.

Creamy white blossoms, thirty or so, wee versions of the cultivated
orchid John gave me for a college dance over forty years ago, are clustered
on stalks rising 1-2 feet above green orchid-like leaves. The plants
resemble exotic "mosque" towers, stately, and elegant, and I can
imagine imams calling the faithful to prayer from "places of adoration."

Appropriate that they be here. I can't walk by one of these brook
sanctuaries without stopping to adore.


Stopping is also an excuse for a drink and snack. Today it's chocolate
almond shortbread.