Petal for your mettle: Will pondering wildflowers make summer feel cooler? It can't hurt.

In the midst of summer, it soothes the soul to sometimes look at photographs from cooler days.

That's the idea behind this mid-summer display of wildflower photographs made by readers and submitted over the last month. There's a rumor at the time of this writing that this weekend will even feature spring-like temperatures. Ah, if only such a thing were true; we can only hope.

Each year, the Reporter-News has published an annual wildflower issue in memory of Doug Hodel, a well-regarded Abilene photographer who died March 26, 2017, and five Big Country photographers answered the call this year.

Troylene Stewart, Darla McCollum, Suzan Newberry, Stephen Tulcus and Lisa Ambrose sent in their favorite pictures from this year's Texas wildflower crop. We've curated a selection here and encourage you to visit reporternews.com for a larger gallery of their work.

Why take pictures of wildflowers?

Maybe it's because, arriving in spring, they remind one of the freshness of the world. The newness of creation, when the light is cleaner, the color brighter and our hopes larger.

A flower growing in the wild, where nature is at her harshest, not only thrives but looks beautiful doing it.

You might call that a lesson ripe for picking.

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This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Petal for your mettle: Will pondering wildflowers make summer feel cooler? It can't hurt.