Oh the sunflowers!

Native Americans domesticated the common sunflower around 5,000 years ago.The seeds are small but edible. The Ramah Navajo sprinkled an infusion of prairie sunflower essences onto clothes for luck in hunting. (There distinct odor would have helped conceal the hunter). 

The Hopi dried the yellow petals and powdered them to make a yellow ceremonial face powder; when they found prairie sunflowers with many flowers, they took it as a sign that there would be ample rain and a good harvest. 

Good news! This summer the Oregon plains are alight with prairie sunflowers.

Diggin' the goo

California Tortoiseshell flits a silent braid through our hiking order, circles three times and then settles, burrows, into the lumpy, smelly mud. "Eeeewwww" murmur the 12 of us.

As it turns out, this was not a renegade butterfly, but rather a normal, probably male specimen that doesn't mind mud, dung and even blood or decaying flesh.

The theory goes that butterflies congregate on mud and such primarily for salts.  Males seem to benefit more from the sodium intake and its boost to reproductive success, with the nutrients often transferred to the female during mating. This extra nutrition helps ensure the eggs survive.