July at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve

At the end of July, Chris and I went over to Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve to do some archival document scanning for the weekend. Forest was in DFW with grandparents and it provided the opportunity to do this work without the angst of an almost 9 year old wondering when mom and dad were going to be done with their boring volunteer work!

I actually didn’t get to walk around the Preserve that much because I was mostly stuck inside the gallery scanning—plus it was hot—but I did get out and see things a few times to take a breather.

The area that was prescribed burned earlier this year is coming back really well.

Can you feel the heat here??? And it was so dry. I know there has been some rain over there recently but I’m not sure how much it has done to rectify the drought conditions.

A sweet bumble bee on large-flowered false foxglove, Aureolaria grandiflora, a plant I’ve wanted to see for several years now. I had no idea it was at the Preserve until Chris came back from walking around one morning and told me!

There were many interesting documents with legendary Texas/southern botanists and naturalists, including this inscription from Marshall Johnston and Scooter Cheatham!

Another bumble enjoying the potato vine, Ipomoea pandurata.

We tried mothing Saturday night and boy, it was bad. If May was pretty good, then this was abysmal. The heat and dry conditions were not favorable for much of the moths it seems. This was the coolest moth I saw, a smaller parasa moth, Parasa chloris.

It was perfect timing, however, for Chapman’s orchid, Platanthera chapmanii, which I had never seen blooming before! They were gorgeous and hopefully I’ll get the photos on my camera edited soon.

I did spend some time in Geraldine’s cabin as we tried to look for any documents or photos that would need to be scanned. I had never been inside before and it was such a time capsule. What a wonderful get-away it must have been for her, too.

I haven’t had a chance to start organizing the digital files and hope to do that this fall as the daylight hours shrink. More time inside means I can settle in with an audiobook while I name and organize the files. I’m hoping there may be folks out there who might have documents pertaining to her and the Preserve that they would be interested in scanning and sending to me or giving to me to scan. It would be a good preservation of the history of her life and the Preserve. I know we don’t have nearly everything that I was hoping for—I was hoping for more documents about her work creating the Big Thicket—but maybe those will surface at some point in the future.