I remember me as a little kid in the desert looking for things to do, having been sent outside to play. Alone and bored, I would notice tiny flowers. Mostly tiny yellow ones but there were also tiny purple ones and tiny white ones.

Carefully picking them with enough stem to put in a vase once I got back home, I would gather these delicate flowers until my hands were full.

I remember proudly walking in to the house with my dirty little fists full of the bounty of wild desert flowers I had collected all those long, hot hours wandering around outside alone.

Finding my Mom in the kitchen, I could hardly wait to give them to her, positive she would just rave at what a wonderful child I was.

My mom turned, looked at my offering and flatly said “Stacy those are weeds.” Then turned back to her dishes.

I remember arguing that if she looked close enough they were flowers, forcing her to see. Being a mom, she grabbed a Dixie cup and humored me along by putting them on the window sill then sending me right back outside.

As I got a little older, one of my main chores was to weed along the fence line. My parents, now convinced I’m the family expert on the matter, figured I should have no problem locating them and removing them.

No dead heading allowed. If I had a pile of snapped off weed tops to put in the wheel barrow at the end of the work day I had hell to pay. I better have a pile of weeds that look a lot like sad undeveloped carrots with visible roots if I had any chance of getting to go out that night.

Now as an adult, I live on 2.5 acres in the amazing desert that bumps right up against the Superstition Mountain. Things have started to bloom all over due to recent rains and our never-ending sunshine. I spend hours outside alone still but enjoy it so much more now that I’m taking pictures to share with everyone.

I may not pick those tiny little colorful buds and put them in Dixie cups anymore but I will argue all day long that I don’t see weeds… I still see flowers.