First let me apologize for the quality of the first 2 photos. They were taken on a cell phone. This was the view from my backyard. Beautiful isn’t it. It’s not there anymore. They built houses and now there are no more poppies. I live close to the poppy preserve here in California so I can always go there to see the poppies, but my heart’s just not in it anymore. That is my daughter ’80 in the photo, she and ’79 were still in high school when these photos were taken many years ago.
There was a lot of life in those fields including a white crane who nested there every year. I know why they tear down nature and put up houses…. no not progress; money. My own house was put up over similar fields 35 years ago. I see these pictures now and it makes me so sad. Just one more side effect of urban sprawl.
This is ’79 in the same field. If you are wondering why I am waxing nostalgia today it’s because I get this way every May, which is when the poppies begin to bloom. Sometimes the color was so bright an orange it hurt your eyes to look at them. The hillsides were ablaze with orange. Now for the high quality professional pictures.
These were taken in the same area as my photos above. They say for every wildflower picked, one hundred wildflowers will not bloom the next year.
The dessert may be hot, dry and have winds up to 40 miles an hour on a regular basis but it still has it’s own special beauty.
Poppies do not have a fragrance but the sage and dessert lavender do. When there is a storm on the way and the ozone is crackling in the air and all is hushed, this is my favorite time.
Sometimes I get tired of the desert and I miss trees and green things but on a day like the one above, watching the sunset, as the poppies close up for the night I am left speechless by God’s pallet of color. My California poppies, gone but not forgotten.
passions and soapboxes 
Lovely!
Those poppies are so beautiful. I’ve never seen a whole field of them!
Beautiful. I love desert flowers. I remember front yards would be covered in a riot of yellow and orange of desert daisies this time of year, but now everyone sprays and weeds and you just don’t see it anymore.
Reminds me of the Wizard of Oz — simply gorgeous…you are lucky to have lived with such a view!
The 2 girls in the pictures are my Irish twins
I miss them so much! The early spring is the best time for desert beauty. I remember after a very rainy “El Nino” season years ago, everything was in bloom; miles of bright poppies, almond blossom trees, scatterings of goldenrod and purple in the foothills and even the joshua trees bloomed with those big white fluffy flowers. They hadn’t bloomed for over a hundred years, all they needed was heavy rain for 4 weeks straight. It was the most beautiful time for the valley. I still remenber you taking us to go running in the fields as little girls after the almond blossom festival.
Wow. What gorgeous photographs. I’ve never seen poppies like that, but the tone of your post made me feel bittersweet. As if I too, were watching the change in landscape.
Wow! How pretty!
Kas
so beautiful. do you have a ‘now’ shot of the same view?
I just don’t have the heart to take one. It would be a sea of tract homes.
How sad that the field has been taken over by housing :(
I went to school in So Cal and it kind of reminds me of Joshua Tree…. after the rain when everything has that brief moment of explosive beauty. I don’t where the Poppy Preserve is, though.
I’m coming back to No. Cal next week and this makes me wish we’d chosen to go south instead…