Along The Road

As most of my commute to work is along the highway through the prairie, one might think the landscape doesn't change much. There's grass. There's corn. It's flat. Really flat.

But over the years, I've come to appreciate the subtle beauty of the sea of grasses and corn. In the spring, green emerges from the brown earth. Soon, various wildflowers shoot up, begging us to notice them as they sway in the wind. In the fall, the grasses turn from green to gold.

Several weeks back, I noticed a familiar flower nodding in the wind - sunflowers. In that ubiquitous grassy area between the northbound and southbound lanes of the interstate. A small cluster of them here and there, then an explosion of yellow flowers for all traveling to enjoy.



Last week I noticed the mowing crews were out - cutting down the overgrown grasses along the sides of the interstate and in the median. Each day, they made their way closer to where the sunflowers grow. Then the small, single clusters of sunflowers were gone, and the larger field, too. I realize these workers have a job to do, that their job isn't to make the interstate pretty, but I was saddened to see the flowers cut down.

Yet somehow, a couple plants were spared from the mower's blade.



If you look carefully, the area behind the flowers are freshly mowed. I snapped this shot because I thought it would be the last time I would see them. The grasses in front of the flowers are now gone. I guess someone thought it would be nice to leave some flowers along the interstate. For that, I am grateful.

The above image was processed using two textures from Kim Klassen. The original photo is here:


The screen shot of my layers in PSE


Linked to Texture Tuesdays.