A river of flowers

Rain has been scarce this year but that hasn't completely stopped the annual wildflower display around the ranch. Clever survivalists they are, wildflowers instead have concentrated their blooming and reproductive efforts along drainage ditches, the edges of ponds and puddles with some water still in them, and anywhere else the reduced amount of moisture has collected. 

When we built the house we worried about flooding, even though the house is perched on a pretty steep incline. On the back side we put in a small serpentine ditch, about two feet wide and eight or nine inches deep, and lined it with stones and gravel, to divert heavy rains away from the foundations. 

This year the ditch worked in a miraculous way: The little water that collected there created an ideal habitat for tiny yellow blooms that in effect have become a river of wildflowers. As an added visual bonus, the river meanders past one of our bedroom windows.  

I took this picture early in the morning when everything was shimmery, dewy and aromatic. A couple of cobwebs, about two feet across joined in the display (upper left hand corner) before they vanished under the heat of the rising sun.  

The river remains but I haven't seen cobwebs again.