Kaitlyn in Bluebonnets

Bluebonnets are the Texas state flower--each year in the spring, they bloom a deep, stacatto blue which dots landscape for a few weeks. In fact, years ago, Lady Bird Johnson, as part of her highway beautification project, had wildflowers planted along the roadways--I love the fields which include Black-eyed Susans and beautiful, crimson Indian paintbrushes. We traveled down to Central Texas during bluebonnet season this year and I was surprised that the blooms have very different colors in different regions--down south near Austin they seemed to be much more blue-colored, and up north they are nearly electric purple. All over the state, though, it is common during the spring to see cars pulled over and parents photographing kids in huge fields of bluebonnets. It's sort of a tradition.

Not our family though--Fran had a nasty run-in with fire ants which has so far kept her from getting too sentimental regarding bluebonnets. Last year was a bad year for bluebonnets because of the drought, so this year they've come out in full force. Fran and her sister (Fran is the youngest of 9) were spending the day together, and her sister insisted on taking Kaitlyn's picture in the flowers beside a building--One of the most common images is to stop down the aperture, get the person in good focus, and blur the field behind them as a practically infinite background of bluebonnets--sometimes the angle is tough to get. This particular picture was one of the only useable one out of about twenty...