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Words & No Words
It’s been 9 days. I want to write so much here but I’ll be honest, it seems silly to write here at the moment. My words are inadequate but I’ll break it down into a few single words. Outraged. Scared. Worried. Upset. Angry. Disappointed. Anxious. Horrified. Is this where the rest of us become preppers? Because, I’m thinking it may be. The optimism after the Women’s March last weekend* has been tempered heavily. I think that optimism and feeling of action was still going fairly strong until Friday and the knife was driven further in and twisted. And it’s still there, the optimism of action, somewhat. People are calling and…
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Around the Yard in Mid January
It didn’t take long for the pink bananas to resprout! They were starting to come back up early last week, a little over a week after the freeze. I have two Mexican orchid tree seedlings (Bauhinia mexicana) that I grew from seeds I nabbed at the zoo awhile back. I recently moved them up a pot size so they could put on some better roots. I’m hoping in a year or two they will be big enough to plant along our fence. In the yard the oxalis is trying to paint the yard pink, which I love! There were more blooms a few weeks ago but Chris mowed the yard…
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It’s Time To Pay Attention
October 28, 2008. I went to canvas for President Obama shortly after taking this photo. I did two canvassing events for him while I lived in Florida and I’m so very glad I did it. Some of you, dear readers, are like me today—raw and sober with the reality that what we imagined Inauguration Day being during those morning and afternoon hours of November 8th, that reality will not come to fruition. Instead we’ve watched the last two months as a cascade of warnings from experts, historians and journalists, become realities. Every time I’ve stopped and thought some people were over reacting or I’ve tried to see any kind of…
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Backyard Bald Eagle | Wordless Wednesday
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Update on the Side Yard Garden
January 2017 The good thing about having blogged and taken photos all of these years is that it is an excellent way to be able to revisit the garden to see the changes, good and bad. Over the weekend I managed to weed and mulch the two beds on the side of the house and I thought it would be fun to do a little photo history tour of the side yard garden beds. Here we go! A week ago—right after the freeze November 2016 August 2016 August 2015 March 2015 April 2014 September 2013 July 2013 February 2013 October 2012 September 2012 — we moved in last few days…
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Morning Hike at W.G. Jones State Forest
Saturday morning we got out for a bit to do a little hiking at WG Jones State Forest. We’ve been there many times but this time we opted to park in the eastern parking lot on the south side of FM 1488 instead of the usual parking lot on the western boundary. This entrance was hopping with trucks towing horse trailers entering through a locked gate to park about a half mile down the dirt road at the horse parking lot. There were a lot of riders out that morning! We crossed over Rice Branch, seen in the photo above, and I think both Chris and I wished we had…
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Freeze Damage in the Garden
Attention Houston: This is your once-a-decade reminder that you don't quite live in the deep tropics. — Eric Berger (@SpaceCityWX) January 7, 2017 Oh man. We left town Friday evening prepared for the weekend deep freeze with what we thought was going to be mid to high 20s and instead woke up Saturday morning in Dallas with Chris checking the temperature for our town to find out the low was 20*. There’s a good chance it was a little lower than that, too, but either way, the damage was done. Saturday night was more of the same, a double whammy. Chris has prepared by putting up all of the orchids,…
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Being a Trail Advocate from Afar | Florida Trail
A few days ago I received the fall issue of Footprint, the magazine of the Florida Trail Association. It was a big issue, at least to me, one where the call to protect to the trail and be a trail advocate was once again in the spotlight. The trail recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with a celebration at the first blaze in Ocala National Forest and the placement of a plaque to commemorate the historic blaze that began the Florida National Scenic Trail. In addition last year, a new monument at the northern terminus at Fort Pickens was erected. Two very exciting events! This post is being published today on…
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Early Winter Garden Videos
Edible Garden Tour Flower Garden Tour A conversation with my brother kind of lit a fire under me to make more videos of the garden this year. Actually, I’ve been really lax in making videos of any kind over the last year, even with Forest, and I kind of regret it. I think I did so much that first year of Forest’s life that I really wanted to pull back a little there for awhile. I do miss being able to watch videos so I’m planning to be more proactive this year. Expect more!
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Hello 2017!
The last week has been quite the lazy one around here. Chris and I were off work and the first half of the holiday week was warm and pleasant and we spent a lot of time outside playing. However, by Wednesday Forest’s cough that had started developing last Monday grew worse and we had a camping trip planned for New Years weekend and I didn’t want to go without getting him checked out. So, off to the pediatrician we went. She prescribed some cough medicine—so nice that we’re finally getting into the ages where more medicine can be prescribed for him!—and thought it was RSV or some similar virus and…