Olives and Creamy Butter

I went adventuring up the Flint Hills today on a rarely traveled road--I'd been housesitting for several days and seen many turkey but nary an automobile! It had showered, so I took a bucket and a shovel and set out to dig some wildflowers--purple seems to be the prevalent color of the week, and many shades of it!
I stopped for some light lilac beebalm and ran into this fellow:
He let me carry him up to the truck and patiently waited for me to dig out the camera. I think he liked the view from a high level, as he made no attempt to struggle and didn't zoom away when I released him. Wasn't sure if he might be a rat snake(nah) or a yellow-bellied racer--if so, he was NOT a sprinter!

I might add here, that digging up flowers is IMPOSSIBLE. The shovel will go in about a 1/2 inch and hit rock. It took a lot of work to obtain several different types of purples, but I eventually got some--this plant was a couple feet across in width and was actually quite bright, but looks digitally lackluster here!

After dripping sweat and filling up 1\2 the truck bed with many plants, I drove over the next hill. Holy Cow! I had to stop...I had seen this plant before, just randomly, and only collarbone high, but this scene looked like something from Dr. Seuss:

I parked and jumped out just to see this amazing sight--a huge valley or giant ravine filled with a tremendous forest of flannel mullein. I'd never seen anything like it. Nate had found a little bog in Hawaii; here was a little pocket of "nature gone wild"! It was crazy with these towering sky-high plants. I couldn't reach the tops and I wandered around engrossed in this little microcosm of alien plants on steroids. I read that pioneers lined their shoes with the fuzzy leaves for warmth. Well, these would fit in a giant's shoes:

I'd always thought this plant seemed rather dry and ugly, but I have changed my mind. The whole ravine was filled with yellow blossoms and at their bases grew wild raspberries which also surprised me. I managed to get a pic of an awesome large insect tipped with maroon and orange...some type of hymenoptera nearly 1 1/4" across...and I don't believe we had him as part of the insect collection Bailey won the state entomology contest one year--the freezer and kitchen was filled with everything imaginable, plus enough for classmates too!:



The day ended with a large rock being slipped down a hill, tilted up at an angle at my tailgate, then the impossible task of trying to pick it up. 30 minutes later (getting my thigh trapped under it, then my right hand) I remembered that my brother carried a pole when rock hunting. I found a farmer's fencepost in the ditch and used it to pry/brace/tilt it up enough to push it in.
Here's an intensely sharply-leaved primrose? flower that was quite pretty blowing in the breeze. I thought it's papery petals were a nice contrast to it's devilish needles:

Then I saw a spider larger than the palm of my hand and had to get the hell out of there. Ugh.