Goldfinch, Prairie Smoke, Mt. bluebird

Sat., friend J. and I left bright and early for a photo outing, planning to do a first-run down a long county road just over the Wyoming border. An hour or so later we were met with a No Trespassing sign and had to double back, and come up with Plan B. Taking a different route that went back to Spearfish, SD, we came across this young coyote in the road...there was a second one further out in the grass.

Also sighted due to the initializing of Plan B was this pretty male American goldfinch. Yahoo!

Like so many other wildflowers this year, the prairie smoke is real abundant...I think it's so cool-looking. It's from the rose family, and this is the flower stage.

Finally, a decent shot of a female Mt. bluebird...I don't know why this one posed so nicely for me, but I was appreciative.

The last part of our long, bumpy, mucky, winding gravel travel was through an area known as the Jasper fire area. In Aug. 2000, a woman set the fire deliberately, burning 83,508 acres, approx. 224 million board feet of timber. It took 16 days to contain. I didn't live here when it happened, but seeing the vast sea of dead, charred trees covering the landscape brought tears to my eyes, last year when I first saw it, and this year as well. I happen to be married to a firefighter. I pray that woman has an inkling of the strife and danger she caused so many people (1,160, the max., on 8-31st)....see fire photos, facts HERE.

I thought the lupine and black-eyed Susan growing around this charred tree stump said a lot.