Nanohana: The Mustard Flower

     I love this time of year.  Everything has that brilliant glow of new green life.  It's the only time of year I don't feel too awkward wearing these bright green flats.  The birds are back, the flowers are blooming, and the cantankerous old squirrel that lives across the street has returned to carry on his morning ritual of screeching at the world.  I even love the rainy days (of the non-typhoon variety) and today was one of those days.  

    For our first couple of years here my girls and I used to go to a nearby campground for nature walks. It was the only quiet place around and even though it took about 30 minutes of walking to get there, the girls indulged me in seeking solitude and tried not to complain.  They knew how much I needed it. 

    On one of our visits my youngest saw a yellow flowering plant and took some seeds home to scatter in our yard. Then we all forgot about it. This spring I noticed something coming up that looked a lot like broccoli. Since we've never planted broccoli, we were a little perplexed, but out of curiosity we decided to let it grow.  As it grew it turned into this enormous flowering plant. It's called Nanohana (mustard flower) and is in the same family as broccoli hence the similarities. Since this will be our only year to enjoy it, I thought I'd snap a few photos to remember it.