• Thoughts

    Spring Favorites

    Oh, the air is delightful and despite the lack of daylight in the mornings, I’m loving that the evenings are longer now. I’m loving the dill in the garden right now, tall and fluffy, the mature plants working on flowering. The tiny, airy seeds will be saved to sowing throughout the year. We’ve been drying dill in the oven on the lowest heat it can go, then crackling the leaves into baggies to save for later. I’m trying oregano, too. I’ve been starring items in my feed reader and bookmarking things over the last few weeks and I thought I’d share them with you. +Honey Harvest by Kinfolk Magazine +Creamy…

  • Appalachian Trail 2010

    The Two

    These people do not know what they are getting themselves into! But they are going to make it to Maine! This trail—-is so flat! I did not think it at the time! Only miles will tell you that. Two years. Two years ago since we went to Georgia and started our Appalachian Trail thru-hike. I’ve always wanted to use the blog title ‘The Two’. Why? Because I am a huge Alias fan and the first episode of Season 3 is titled The Two. It is about Sydney’s return to the CIA after two years, two years she has lost and her life is completely different. I haven’t lost two years,…

  • Outdoors,  Wildflowers,  Wildscape Photo

    Trout Lilies | In Macro

    Remember back in February how I photographed trout lilies at Tandy Hills? Well, I finally finished processing my macro shots taken with our 65mm macro. And let me tell you, I think this lens is the sweetest thing ever! The photos were awesome and now that we bought the flash to go with it I’ll be able to do more with lower light conditions, which happen easily when using the higher ‘X’ magnifications. Here they are…enjoy! Today I’m also over at Sprout Dispatch, so come by and say hi!

  • Gardening,  Wildflowers

    Lovely Lupinus texensis

    We have one plot in our garden that has radishes growing but otherwise we have filled it with bluebonnets we bought at a garden center and bluebonnets we seeded, along with a few other non-edible flowering plants. I like having a small section dedicated to flowers, especially since we aren’t focusing on collecting plants right now. I’d been checking on the bluebonnets but hadn’t had any inkling that they were ready to bloom. Then one day last week I walked right up and the blue-purple flower stood out and stunned me with its brilliance. Finally, the bluebonnets were out!

  • Thoughts

    An Evening

    +Two mile run after work. Loving running again, slow as I may be. I like to be on my own pace, getting it done, slowly but surely. I’m also happier with warmer weather. Thinking I might try running in my Vibram Five-Fingers tomorrow. +The Runty, Leo, is feeling better and acting more like himself after whatever stunt he pulled almost two weeks ago. Tail is working better, he’s happier and running around. The cats love it when I open the doors when I get home so they can get some sunlight. +This water oak has been putting on flowers as are all the other oaks in the area. I’ve been…

  • Gardening

    The Garden at the Turn of the Month

    It seems like nature has switched ‘on’ and the plants are ready for spring. Overnight, blooms are coming out of seemingly nowhere. Sugar daddy snap pea bud Sugar daddy snap pea blossom The Brussels sprouts have not done that great. Unfortunately we have a row of beds that gets a lot of shade in the winter. The shade comes from a rodeo shelter that blocks a lot of sunlight from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, thus some of the plants in this section are stunted. I think the sprouts would have matured more had they had access to more light. I’ve been eyeing their leaves to add into my morning green smoothies,…

  • Florida Trail

    Florida Trail ‘Summit’ | One Year Ago

    Sunrise at Gulf Islands National Seashore, March 3, 2011….18 miles left until we finished. Finished! We walked through Florida! On top of Fort Pickens How was this a year ago? It seems like closer than that. While the Appalachian Trail seems light years away now, I think the Florida Trail seems closer because of our closer relationship with Florida itself. While I am glad to be in Texas again, I sometimes wish I had done more exploring and had gotten to know Florida more intimately, exploring its other locales. Despite the road walks, I do recommend hiking this trail. It’s a ‘quick’ trail, it’s flat and it offers up habitats…

  • Hiking,  Texas

    Rainy Weekend at Huntsville State Park

    Early in the year Chris had scheduled out several camping trips throughout the spring. I had warned that he could potentially be in the field all spring—things hadn’t started up yet and he not received word about work. Even so, he made reservations to many state parks in anticipation of spring wildflower season. So far we’ve had to cancel most of them, but we rescheduled this trip to Huntsville State Park to a weekend sooner then planned since he was going to be off that weekend. Unfortunately a cool front with rain came through causing us to postpone leaving to the campground until early afternoon, when the rains had passed.…

  • Thoughts

    Prolific | February Wrap-Up

    So. February. Was a bit better than January but still proved to be hectic. Writing went well, mostly because I also busted out about 4,000 words over the weekend. Honestly, if I just devoted an hour to it at least a few times a week with a larger spurt in the weekend things would be done faster. But I often find so many other things to do, which shouldn’t be the case. Alas, I’m happy with getting that much written. Running. Well, 9 isn’t good either. I have made myself a schedule for the next month though and hopefully that number goes up as does the yoga. I ran 3…