you have rabbitbrush up there! plants are amazing! it honestly sounds like it looks like a little piece of the southwest right there.

chamisa (rabbitbrush) is the biggest local allergen in pollen season, ha. besides junipers. very important to local ecology in that it is a great bird-food and animal-hiding/food plant, and it stablizes the soil in washed out heavy clay areas that get intermittent heavy rainfall and periods of drought/flood.