Spur of the Moment

Not everything has to be planned out, but it is usually easier when it is.

There are times that I want to know exactly where I am going or what is expected of me, and there are times when I want it to all be spontaneous.  I like the adventure of spontaneity.

When we travel, we sometimes combine the two approaches.  We generally have a definite destination in mind with an expected time of arrival, but we often leave the details to spur-of-the-moment decision-making.  "Oh, look, there's a rabbit!" -- or maybe it was a squirrel.  Making a U-turn to capture a photo is not an uncommon occurrence for us.

The other day we decided to explore our neighborhood a bit.  Since recently moving to the area we wanted to get better acquainted with our surroundings.  There is a large lake to the west of us, and we wanted to check out the amenities and look for where we might be able to launch a canoe once we deemed the weather was conducive to that activity.

As we traveled along the backcountry roads, we saw a large patch of wildflowers and decided to make a record of their ephemeral appearance.  We found ourselves wandering for longer than expected as our vehicle sat parked on the side of the road while we went from bright-colored blossom to bright-colored blossom using the iNaturalist application on our phones to photograph and identify the various species.  Several of them have been used in posts on this blog.  Today will be another.  It is a species of Larkspur in the genus Delphinium.

There are about 300 different species within the genus which was named for Chios (Delphinium) which was an ancient Greek city.  There was also a Roal Navy ship, the HMS Delphinium.  The plants are often cultivated for their beauty, but they are very toxic to humans although butterflies love them.