• Thoughts

    Harvey Update

    1000+ yr old Big Tree at Goose Island State Park near #RockportTx survived #Harvey2017. Some younger trees down pic.twitter.com/qqQAopQ2N2 — Texas State Parks (@TPWDparks) August 27, 2017 One glimmer of good news in this mess that is Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey—the Goose Island Oak survived! I have not been able to find any information on the Zachary Taylor oak but based on the footage I’ve seen around Rockport, I’m betting that tree is on the ground. I know Houston has kind of taken over the news with the flooding but Rockport and the immediate vicnity was hit very hard. It’s rather upsetting for me because, like many other Texans, it has…

  • Gardening,  Thoughts

    A Little of This, A Little of That

    We’re sitting here wrapping up our second day of storm watch. At least today, overnight and earlier this morning, there was something to talk about regarding the storm. Yesterday was spent in complete wait and see mode. No, the hurricane wasn’t making landfall anywhere near us but the outer bands were sending everyone into a tizzy in regards to flooding. The continued forecasts of the storm meandering around the coast and central Texas for the next week has amplified flooding concerns and so most people are all hibernating in their house. Last night we got out to run to the grocery store. We didn’t necessarily need anything on our list…

  • Outdoors,  Thoughts

    Stay Safe Goose Island Oak

    Hurricane Harvey is poised to slam into Rockport and the surrounding vicinity pretty heavily so I send good thoughts to The Big Tree at Goose Island State Park this weekend. Chris reminded me that the hurricane in its 1000+ years has seen plenty of hurricanes but still, it could use some good thoughts. Probably more in need of good thoughts is the Zachary Taylor Oak in Rockport. It was looking a bit worse for the wear when we visited in 2015. Here in NW Houston we’ve prepared for what we can. While we may have some tropical storm winds at first the big problem will of course, be flooding. The…

  • Gardening

    Early-Mid August in the Edible Garden

    We’re in a phase where I’m ready for the lull in the garden to end a bit, to have more of a haul every few days. Sure, we’re still picking peppers, and a bit of beans and okra here and there, but the abundance of late spring and early summer is gone. A few more weeks and we can think about sowing fall and winter crops. I have been gloriously excited about the Seminole pumpkin bed. Finally, we have fruit! There are at least five small pumpkins out there and one morning as I went out to try to help some pollination along by hand I noticed that the bumblebees…

  • Gardening

    Raising Monarchs

    One humid morning of July 22nd I had a few hours to myself as Chris took Forest to get a haircut and do a few errands. With a plethora of ways I could spend that time I opted to start working on weeding the flower garden path. I worked, head down, for the better part of an hour and a half and was making good progress. Taking a break to rest my neck from the strain of looking down, I happened to look up right at the moment a female monarch was visiting one of the milkweed patches. I watched her and sure enough her ovipositor was dotting the milkweed…

  • Gardening

    Soaking in the Summer in the Flower Garden

    I kept thinking that at some point this summer I would be all “caught up” in the flower garden, enough to sit around for about three days to enjoy the look into a non-existent state of garden homeostasis and relish the garden for a few moments. But, I never got around to that for a variety of factors. The weeds stayed in the path–though the path got weeded in parts–but it never made it to fully being weeded; the deer continually barged through, digging around for roots or whatnot, ripping plants to pieces or pulling them out of the ground in the meantime; and while I managed to keep one…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Evening Ramble at Kleb Woods

    One thing that was been hard for me to adjust to over the last three years since Forest was born was not being out and about in the evenings. Where our house is located, it makes driving anywhere a bit of a chore, about 20 minutes into town and then further for just about anything else, and having a newborn, then older baby, and then toddler, made going out after dinner or doing anything else not worth it. Before Forest was born Chris and I had a standing dinner night out during the week, and we attempted to keep that up during my maternity leave but it became clear evenings…