Nature in the City | A Sunday Morning at Burroughs Park

For an earlier trip here, see this post and this post.

For most of the summer it seemed as if we were go-go-go or bury our head and do some kind of house project, well, that last part was Chris. August was our month to recuperate a bit, though Chris has been out of town for work a few times so he hasn’t gotten to recoup as much as he has wanted. We layed low last weekend but still wanted to do something fun and outdoors. The summer has been awfully hot as I think it has been for much of the country. Paired with barely any rain compared to the deluge we had in the spring and the summer has been difficult to deal with. For our little excursion we opted for Burroughs Park as I had explored there before and knew it had diverse enough habitat for us to feel as if we were getting some good nature enjoyment in.

The perils of a baby on your back! He plays with my hair if he’s on my back!

Capsicum annuum along the trail.

Erythrina herbacea

Forest has grown since we last used this backpack back in June so he was sitting a little higher than I think he should have. We didn’t think to change it until after the fact and well, we didn’t want to mess with taking him out and putting him back in and risk getting a fussy baby, so we left it.

Cnidoscolus texanus, bull nettle

Ilex opaca, American holly

Old barbed wire near the boundary of the park. We stopped to inspect what looked to be a seep.

We oohed and ahhed at the lovely water elm swamp as we passed by. It was still as beautiful as it was when I was last there. We could see traces on the vegetation of where the water levels had risen during the flooding in May, at or above my head.

Trifoliate oranges

Leaf cutter ant trails.

American beautyberry

This one stumped us. The leaves are in the next two photos. It is obviously (I think!) some kind of cucurbit but I’m not sure if it is native or a stray non-native. Anyone got a clue? We only saw it in a few places so it was not common.

Someone fell asleep about halfway into the hike. I need to see how other people manage their kid’s sleeping in a backpack like this. I don’t know if I need to fashion some kind of cushion for him or what.