Dahlia

 


 Photographer's Note

   Thanks to the nostalgic feelings for the old wilderness property, we had the opportunity to go there with one of our children who drove. Our original venture was truly amazing looking back at it now. How in the world did we have the intestinal fortitude to do this unusual lifestyle in the middle of nowhere, dead of winter at cold temperatures, in heavy snow, with no electricity, nor water, nor phone....and four years of this cramped in a small cabin with 6 of our 7 kids....? It seems beyond belief.

   It was just before we left our old place in 1992 that we discovered the original homestead of the turn from 1899-1900, where this picture was taken. We knew of it back in the day...but had forgotten over time. Now there is nothing left of the old log cabin and if it were not for these unusual flowers, one would forget the place existed...but we knew of the flowers. We knew that we had never seen them anywhere else in the mountains of almost 49 degrees north. So on this day of revisiting, I took a picture with my now fairly new lens....I took a few...maybe I took a couple hundred. I don't remember....but of this flower and over the long time the place had been abandoned in the middle of nowhere at 3500 feet elevation...the flowers still grow every year.

   I have asked "around" of friends as to what these might be and been informed that they are the national flower of Mexico, a Dahlia. Or rather they are many Dahlias; there are a number of them. And we were told that they probably wouldn't grow in the place where they are indeed growing. Here they are.......and this year we took some home....because I have no idea of how long they will grow in this old place, now neighboring an abandoned small hunters trailer. It looks as though random hunters have used it in past hunting seasons. There are beer cans bleached by the sun with small bullet holes in them, laying here and there...and signs of a campfire someone must have used to stay warm.....I am sure they went home with their game...and never knew what bloomed there in summer...for nobody goes there...with exception of my wife and I and our child now grown.

   If Dahlia is an annual, then how come these are there every year with nobody around? It isn't a hardy annual....although these are in a location that if they drop seeds, they will be protected by deciduous dropping Tamarac needles about a half inch thick. It is the only answer I can come up with..

   For fear of people invading the privacy of the wilderness shared by only an handful...I will only disclose this. The picture was taken at approx 3250 feet in elevation, in Ferry County Washington, in the mountains. The only access road is 5 miles and up on a very rough road of slag and dirt...perhaps some clay. And there are no other signs of tire tracks, with perhaps some old dried up ruts made by hunters during fall...it is my "secret garden" I will tell no more....