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Nopales Ridge Trail | Lake Brownwood State Park
Ah, let’s flash back to Thanksgiving of 2017 once more to wrap up our hiking adventures there, shall we? We haven’t ventured out much so far this year, though I do have some photos to process for one night of camping a couple of weekends ago. I’m hoping that in a few short weeks the weather will warm up enough that we will want to be venturing out much more often! Actually, it isn’t that the weather hasn’t warmed up (finally!), just that it seems to be that we have inclement weather on the weekends lately, which doesn’t make for a large desire to be outside. Onward to the hike!…
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January 2018 Book Report
It’s been a fairly productive month of reading around here—much to my surprise. Ok, so one of of them is actually from the tail-end of last year but I had already written my book write-up for the year. Eh, no big deal, right? Completed +Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon: I subscribe to Kleon’s weekly newsletter and occasionally read his blog, and have heard about his work for quite awhile now but never actually read a book. Annnnnnd….can’t say it was worth the experience. It feels like a repackaged set of blog posts to sell as a kitsch book item. This…
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Fun with a Slackline!
I’ve wanted a slackline for several years now and at Christmas we decided to gift my brother’s family one for when they go camping and Chris bought one for us at the same time. Last weekend we set it up at our campsite at Lake Livingston State Park and had some fun! Let’s just say I have even more respect for Philippe Petit of Man on Wire fame. Woo boy, is this hard but fun! Chris did end up stretching out another rope up top and I did get better with balancing. I tried with shoes on too but I like the feeling of going without shoes as you are…
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Life Lately | Mid-January 2018
+In My Head Well, 2018 has started with a bang! Almost two weeks ago (tomorrow) Forest came down with a fever one evening and was feeling rather awful with runny nose, coughing, etc. Considering the flu has been horrible around here this year I was worried we were heading that direction. After all was said and done I’m not sure if we had the flu or a very bad cold, but either way I came down with it the following Monday evening and subsequently took 4 days of PTO. I was going to take three but that Friday Forest was cranky again and we both stayed home because we were…
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That One Time Everything Iced
Ugh. This winter y’all. This winter is becoming unbearable. I don’t even know what zone I’m in anymore. Is this really gardening zone 9a? Sure hasn’t looked or felt like it. I’ve read a couple of articles about how the jet stream has been situated the last several winters to create harsher winters in the east and mild winters in the west and how it may be tied to global warming but no one is quite sure yet. Despite all of that, I think after the last several winters we may need to re-evaluate replanting certain plants like citrus. And only time will tell if the other tropical plants in…
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Post-Freeze Damage Assessment in the Garden
We left for DFW the day after Christmas and in advance Chris moved a lot of the tropical plants like the bromeliads and orchids into the man-cave to spend some time under the grow lights while we were gone. It wasn’t supposed to get terribly cold while we were gone but after our mishap last year of leaving town and not taking care of moving and covering some plants because we weren’t expecting that cold of weather, this time we learned our lesson and did some advanced planning. We knew that just as we were planning to return home that we were expecting a deep freeze so doing some work…
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The Council Bluff and Texas Oak Trails | Lake Brownwood State Park
It was brisk when we set off on the Council Bluff Trail the day after Thanksgiving. Forest was on foot, something becoming more common these days, but Chris wore the toddler carrying pack just in case. Sometimes Forest is more adventurous and can finish an entire hike but other times he starts slowing day and dilly-dallying and soon enough he asks to get in the carrier. The trail was gorgeous to start, with prickly pears finding ways to adorn themselves to rocks and crannies wherever they could deem suitable. It wasn’t a big climb up to the top of the Council Bluffs trail, just enough to feel the burn in…
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One Little Word | 2017 Recap and Plans for 2018
*cue record scratching sound* I had about a paragraph typed up in here from a draft over the New Year’s weekend but never got around to finishing the post up. Back to the drawing writing board I go! Honestly, it wasn’t until about a week ago that I really focused on what 2018’s word would be. And I hadn’t given a ton of reflection onto what 2017’s word was until I went back through my archives and remembered what it was. To really get my feet firmly planted in the direction I want to go for 2018, I downloaded the Year Compass to close out 2017 and start brainstorming on…