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A Rare Wildflower

Text and photo by Jack Olson

Your wildflower of the day is the endangered wood lily, also known as a Rocky Mountain lily and a red lily. This flower is very, very rare. I’ve been in Colorado over 50 years and have only seen it blooming in the wild twice. The first time was in the late ’60s or early ’70s. There was a known patch by a popular trail in Rocky Mountain National Park. I saw them there once, but they were not seen again and I’m afraid someone picked them or dug them up. 

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Emerging from Hibernation

Text and photo by Virginia Parker Staat

The freeze was record shattering. Just before Valentine’s Day, South Texas received over four inches of snow. It stayed on the ground nearly a week. Winter storm temperatures plummeted and stayed below freezing for three days in a row. 

Texas hasn’t recorded this kind of weather since 1893. Everything froze… plants, roadways, and, especially, water pipes. In many respects the resulting impact was much like a very cold hurricane. The aftermath included the same kind of power outages and water damage. This time, however, the water came from broken pipes inside homes rather than from rain and flooding outside. 

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The Original Photo Essay

Photos & text by Virginia Parker Staat

“Visual storytelling utilizes both language and art to pass on
the essence of who we are.”  
~ Debbie Millman

It has been over a year since David and I visited Australia. One of the highlights of our journey was our trip to the Mitchell Falls rock art complex. These ochre paintings are believed to be among the oldest surviving rock art in the world. Some as old as 80,000 years.

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Celebrating the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Text and photos by Jack Olson

Building in East Berlin 1959.
Building in East Berlin 1959. Translated, the sign reads “We demand: peace treaty for Germany and a demilitarized, free city of West Berlin!” © Jack Olson

November 9, 2019, marked the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I was in East Berlin in 1959. It was two years before the infamous wall was built and during a time when the Iron Curtain had imprisoned most people in Communist nations. At the time, I was a foreign exchange student with the Dutch Foreign Trade School. It was during my junior year at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. 

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