• Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas

    Poking Around Campsite H | Lost Maples State Natural Area

    Since our hiking mileage wasn’t large, maybe six miles or something, we took several breaks during the hike to campsite H. We got behind a slow group of hikers on a very narrow trail, stopped to check out a clematis, and refilled our water at the last place before climbing up the bluff. It was the furthest campsite out at the park and I thought maybe we’d be alone….which of course was dumb of me to think. The campsite is up a bluff and we took the long way around to see what the rest of the trail in that area looked like. Unfortunately we were mostly socked in with…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas

    Along the West Trail & Dry Can Creek | Lost Maples State Natural Area

    Missed a post? See these: Along the Sabinal, Hale Hollow Creek, The View, and Monkey Rock. I had thought that perhaps when we left the main area of the park and embarked on the West Trail that we would leave the crowds behind. There was a slight incline as we hiked up the trail which I thought might deter folks, and for awhile we didn’t see anyone. Then we saw one family, then another, and another until we knew this was not going to be our time for peace. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled by going to so many natural areas and not seeing a soul, or very few at least.…

  • Gardening,  Thoughts

    Grey Days

    Yellow bird magnolia buds….these are going to be gorgeous! Winter thyme and a bunch of other seeds We had a sulphur and a moth hanging around during the cold days, not moving for a long time. Definitely alive, just chilling until it was warm enough to fly. One of the last weekends that Chris worked in Beaumont, we went to a plant nursery outside of Beaumont on Tx 105. I’ll have to dig up the name of the place, but we walked around the whole nursery wanting a lot of things but not putting anything on our list of things to buy until we walked in the main store area…

  • Family

    Christmas

    Christmas is so much more fun now that there are kids around. It is complete mayhem too! My nephew looks like my dad here quite a bit, particularly in the hair department (sorry dad!). Zoe loves Kylie (original name Colley, Zoe named her. Short story: Sugar and Spice are Kylie’s parents. Sugar and Spice are brother and sister. They weren’t fixed yet. They bred. Had babies. My brother and SIL didn’t need more kittens so my mom adopted Kylie after Red died in June. Mom didn’t like the name Colley so she renamed her Kylie. Kylie has a brother Nathan who is still at the other house. End story) but…

  • Thoughts

    Action(s) for 2013

    Now that we have been in our house for six months I feel like I can have a clear head again. The unpacking, updating, painting, this-and-that of moving into a house is time consuming and we’ll be doing it for awhile. However, my studio is basically complete. All I need to paint is a baseboard on the wall that I did not paint white and the painting is complete. The general organization is done and I just need to buy some frames to hang some art. Hopefully I’ll be acquiring more art and creating more art to hang on the walls in the future. Since that is done, I have…