• Thoughts

    Letting Go and Going with the Flow

    I’ve reached a point in where I could easily just set this space aside and let it float through internet space for the summer. It’s been years—a decade? More??—since I’ve taken any considerable time off, more than a week or two, from writing online. I think we were living in Miami at the time, our little apartment on the edge of Kendall and the Everglades, and for whatever reason I went months without writing. Then I came back, of course, kept going through thru-hikes, field work, and having a baby. But I feel like I’m teetering on a ledge, ready to kick the blog into the atmosphere to fly off…

  • Bees,  Gardening

    New Bees!

    (Airplanes > bees !) Four years ago we brought our first package of bees home to the hive and they thrived for three years, more or less, until last year’s rainy mess of a spring and a hive beetle infestation took over the hive. Since then the hive sat unused, other than for the odd roach and other insect, in the flower garden. While the hive was an interesting aspect to the flower garden, after tending to the bees there for so long I really began to re-think where the hive should be located. It was frustrating for me not to be able to enjoy the garden to its fullest…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Pineywoods Nature Trail | Lake Livingston State Park

    Thicket of blackberries Prunella vulgaris Salvia lyrata Yaupon flowers Prairie plantain, Arnoglossum plantagineum Looking at a lizard. Five lined skink A Vaccinium in bloom. Wild onion flowers The Pineywoods Nature Trail turned out to be a fascinating trail for us to hike and one that was perfectly suited for Forest to explore on foot. We went through the loop twice over the weekend we were camping and each time saw new things. Forest really enjoyed being able to explore on his own and funnily enough he remembered some key points about where we’d visited on the first round, such as where exactly we had found a green anole on the…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Trinity Trace Trail | Lake Livingston State Park

    The Trinity Trace Trail meanders from the Pin Oak camping loop on the north end of the park down to the south end of the park, beyond the Hercules Club camping loop. We hiked only on the portion that began between the Piney Shores and Yaupon loops, heading south. I had been on this section before with Keely but I couldn’t remember everything about the loop. In particular, I’d forgotten about the bridge being out and the inability to complete the loop on the southern end. On our way out, behind the Hercules Club camping loop we passed a group of scouts heading north, appearing to go pick up trash.…

  • Gardening

    The Edible Garden in Early Spring

    We’ve been gorging outselves on strawberries the last two months. The season is slowing, coming to an end and it will be back to cartons of grocery store strawberries soon. I had hoped to make some jam with our strawberries but they haven’t lasted long enough to get that far—someone eats them before they can make it to jam! I will likely end up making some jam from store bought berries eventually. It just sounds good! The addition of the arches at the back of the garden has really helped the garden structurally—it looks a little more formal and enticing to enter. The arches were necessary for beans and other…

  • Creative

    Creative Priorities

    With the recent time change we made some adjustments to our evening routine, the main one being that Forest’s bedtime was pushed back to 8pm-ish. Sometimes it is a little earlier, sometimes it is a little later, and of course being a toddler, some days he has his own intention for his bedtime. I’ve been loving that we get 1-1.5 hours outside after dinner in the evenings to play in the yard and to garden, or to take walks, though we haven’t done much walking the last few weeks. We’ve mostly played outside or bounced between the vegetable and flower gardens. It is pretty glorious to be spending these hours…

  • Family

    Whitlock Weekend | April 2017

    It’s been awhile since my brother’s clan spent some time at our house but last weekend they all arrived for a wonderful, fun-filled weekend. Oh, we’re getting to a good intersection in this cousin relationship between the three kids, particularly between Grayson and Forest. Those two had a ball playing together, though sometimes I think the love went more one direction with Forest being enamored with Grayson. Poor Forest is just a little too small for real rough housing and playing hard so he had a hard time keeping up with Grayson. And I think we’re going to really have to dig into getting swimming lessons accomplished this summer so…