The Tiger's Flame

 There is nothing so brightly colored as our Tiger Lilies, just now coming into bloom. I remember when we first moved to Pinehaven how the property was literally inundated with them. The front flower bed was tiger lilies and nothing else; they grew across the road at the telephone junction box; they grew beneath both power poles. To say the least, we had enough of them the first year.
 And so ... we dug them all up.
 I carried them by the shovelful to the meadow and dumped them there. And a miraculous thing happened. They reached down to the soil and took root again. They are a tenacious lot; they cannot be easily stopped.
 And so as I stood at the kitchen window yesterday, I saw that the meadow was again afire. The brilliant orange is a nice contrast to the dark green of the pines. And so I walked up to have a look. To look down the throat of a just-opened tiger lily is to look into an open flame. You must squint.

When one sees these growing in many open rural ditches, one is inclined to think "weed". And so, I suppose, they have become. But such a gorgeous flower, once controlled with the spade, becomes a reminder that weeds are merely unwanted flowers and will submit to being moved. These, at least, I am happy with where they now reside.

 These six-sided orange stars are at the peak of their season and command many a country view. I trust they'll expand in the meadow until, some spring in the far future, there will be an orange blanket north of Pinehaven that tugs at the soil there far and wide. Without any water but the summer rain, these plants deserve any space they so naturally grab.