The infraordinary beauty of wildflowers

A couple of weeks ago, my wife Tiffany and I visited the LBJ National Grasslands as part of a small group of people interested in “wildflowering.” We like learning about flowers, but we didn’t know that “wilderflowering” was a verb until this trip.I thought this trip was going to be more of humdrum kind of experience. Just hike up and down trails, looking at fields of lots of pretty flowers everywhere, take some photos, but keep hiking to some agreed upon end. It was not really like this at all.The group was small, about 10 people. We were led by Mary, a woman of some 40 years of experience with wildflowers, and particularly with the flowers of this piece of land she would be guiding us through. She and everyone else in our group were dressed up in cool outdoor gear, complete with those brown hats with the floppy brim and the little tie to cinch up below your chin. They all looked like professional wildflower-ers. Even my wife was in her nice gardening overalls. But I was wearing…