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Question Mark on Chickasaw Plum
Coming out of the stupor of winter has been cathartic. February was a mess but even in February I felt a shift in life. Getting my first vaccine shot amplified that shift but the return to blooming plants and insects flying about has really set in motion this feeling of life switching again. Being able to witness the evolution of spring in the yard has been delightful this year for so many reasons. It is always something I enjoy but I think February just wore me down that everything in nature is a marvel. I was heading out to the edible garden on a walkabout with Forest last weekend when…
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Front Porch Moths | 1
Finally we are entering into front porch moth season once again, that time of year when I leave the house in the morning there may be a couple of moths to be found resting on the side of the house. We’ve had a few friends visit over the last week and so I thought I would start a new series here on the blog, Front Porch Moths! Hübner’s Pero Moth, Pero ancetaria The first and more unique looking species is the Hubner’s Pero, which is relatively uncommon in this part of the US and is much more widespread in the mid-Atlantic region. Host plants include Alnus sp., Shepherdia canadensis, Prunus…
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Early Spring Lepidopterans at Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary
These days I almost always just keep the 75-300mm lens on my camera when out for a hike. Any time I use a normal lens I’m always sad because I can’t get a good photo of a butterfly or an insect and I would prefer the ability to get a good wildlife shot than a landscape shot for now. So, of course, that was the lens I had on me during our hike two weekends at the Sandyland Sanctuary. While it wasn’t quite a lepidopteran extravaganza it was fairly eventful and exciting outing! The first find was this moth which I believe to be a Ruined Chocolate, Argyrostrotis deleta. My…
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Checking in on an Old Friend at Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary
February 2016 February 2021 Yesterday we drove over to the Beaumont area, Lumbertson and Silsbee to be more precise, because I found a COVID-19 vaccine appointment over there earlier this week. Among our state’s list for current requirements in 1A and 1B is a BMI of more than 30. I had known this for a few weeks but vaccine distribution was far harder to find in January and February but some of the lists I had signed us up for in January were finally starting to have some movement but most didn’t have appointments by the time I saw emails or were still in the stage of, ok you are…
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The Painted Bunting Trail at Guadalupe River State Park
Looking back at these photos from November feels like a lifetime ago. For one, it feels like nature was still abundant even if it was fall. There were butterflies and moths we saw during that Thanksgiving week we were camping—flowers blooming, nature was nature-ing. And now that we’re in this post-freeze haze and hurtling towards spring, I know growth is around the corner. But seeing these photos makes me happy. We’re going to go through the cycle once again. The Painted Bunting Trail is 2.8 miles and divided by the park road which allows you to park at one of two parking lots and allows you to make the complete…
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Living Through the Snow
This is mostly a photographic post and a write-up at the end. These photos start Sunday afternoon February 14th and end February 19th. All of the snow was basically gone by Saturday and a few chunks of ice that had fallen off the roof and into the flower beds were gone on Sunday. The two photos above were taken about 3:30 am when I got up to see if it was snowing. The glowing in the background of the second photo is a heat lamp on our lemon tree. We had a similar set up on the three citrus in the backyard. What a whirlwind last week was. I think…
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The Edible Garden During and Post-Deep Freeze
I have a bazillion phone photos and eventually, when I edit them, photos taken with my camera. In the spirit of actually posting in some kind of real time perspective instead of months later, I’m just going to share the phone photos now. I’ll break up the flower garden and general snow photos into other posts this week. This was the edible garden on the morning of February 15th when I finally bundled up enough to venture outside. It was already very cold inside and the temperature was dropping rapidly there. It looked rather peaceful out in the garden and certainly better than having 2-3′ of water topping it as…
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A Flock of Cedar Waxwings
One bright spot this week was seeing all of the little birds floofed up in their winter plumage. Some would pop into our porch to take a break from the wind, giving us a closer look at how fluffy they looked! And being that it was so cold, they weren’t intent on flying away so quickly, which meant even if we encountered them in the yard they hung around a lot longer than they usually would. Many were looking for food and unfortunately couldn’t find a whole lot. Though, the cedar waxwings managed to find our one Carolina cherry laurel that had fruit on it. I noticed the cedar waxwings…
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Making the Best of It
(this is a video, should load, give it a minute, if not click the photo and it will go to Flickr where you can watch) I’m hoping to have the mental space (and electricity) this weekend to write-up more about this week. Until then a few bullet point items. Currently at 11:58 am on Wednesday 2/17, we have electricity. It came back on last night at 3:45pm and lasted until 8:45pm when it started doing rolling blackouts through the night. It stayed off from around 6am until 9:45 this morning and we settled in expecting to have it off the rest of the day. Still might. *who knows* Last night…
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Snowpocalypse 2021
The full story will have to come later this week (hopefully) but Snowpocalypse 2021 is well underway. Or rather, Power Grid Armageddon is well under way here in Texas. After knowing this storm was coming for the last week, we finally got about 3″ of snow last night in the wee hours of the morning. It looks gorgeous! The downside, about 4:30 am we joined the millions of others across the state and lost power. It has not come back on. My parents are without power and my brother and SIL and their family were without until this afternoon and got it for a few hours before it went out…