Flowers in TexasA display of early spring beauty. The

bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas. The soft red and off-white flowers are

Indian paintbrush.

The winter of 2008-2009 was unusually rainy, resulting in a bumper crop of bluebonnets in the spring of 2009.

When I am tempted with homesickness, I look at how stunted the trees are from the scorching heat every summer, compared to the tall, majestic, well-watered trees Tennesseans are accustomed to. Every summer, when I complain that it’s 97, my parents tell me it’s 104 in Texas, and that’s at the DFW airport, which is 30 miles from downtown, where it’s usually 110 in the shade.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing these wildflowers, courtesy of my Uncle Jack.

Underscore: Ralph Vaughn Williams, 5 variants on “Dives and Lazarus,” Philharmonia conducted by Leonard Slatkin