Ruddy Dagger, Acronicta rubricoma Knobby Knees Day Use Area Trail Map After our hike at Brierwood Day Use Area we drove south to the town of Liberty where a few more day use areas were closer to civilization and had a higher liklihood of being maintained. Or, that was the thought. This trail series begins […]
Exploring the Bottomlands at the Brierwood Dayuse Area | Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge
Last weekend we trekked to the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge to try to do some hiking. We ended up at three different refuge unit day use areas, the first one being the Brierwood Day Use Area east of the town of Cleveland. I wanted to escape a bit further from our usual haunt of […]
The Savage River Trail | Denali National Park
Continuing to flash back to last August and September, another world really. I just read a journalist’s article on flying in this pandemic and how extremely nerve-wracking it is for everyone, somewhat post apocalyptic. I’m feeling fairly certain this big trip to Alaska was our last big trip for a a good while. And my […]
Hiking a New Section of the Lone Star Trail
Two weekends ago on a warm, sunny Sunday we drove up to Sam Houston National Forest for another hike on the Lone Star Trail. We started from the Trailhead #6 parking lot on FM 1375 and found ourselves with a very full parking lot. We knew this was likely and the trail heads on FM […]
Life Lately | Early May 2020
Thinking: Basically my thoughts run from COVID-19 to regular life in almost the same thought. “OMG, we’re all going to die!”…half a second later, “Mmm, looks nice outside, I think we’ll do pool in the afternoon and I’ll crochet while Forest plays!” As someone who has been in exactly two buildings since mid-March, my own […]
Neighborhood Nature | 3
Last weekend was the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge, though iNaturalist pushed it as less of a “challenge” and more of get out and enjoy nature safely and where you can locally. That didn’t put a damper in folks getting out to explore their greater local area, though, and I did my best to capture as […]
Friday Five | Isolation Things
It’s been a bit since I’ve done a Friday Five, so here are five good things for your Friday! +The Wild Wander show on YouTube—primarily based in north Florida, the episodes are only a few minutes long, though this last one was about 15 minutes. All of them share some kind of interesting natural history […]
Hibiscus Sawfly, Atomacera decepta | Wildlife Wednesday
A couple weeks ago I noticed something chowing down on our Turk’s cap hibiscus and took a few photos thinking they were caterpillars. I wasn’t having any luck with iNaturalist so I grabbed the caterpillar book and started flipping through. A few Families gave me some ideas but then I continued to hit a dead […]
The Green Milkweed Patch
A cute little jumping spider… Large milkweed bugs, Oncopeltus fasciatus The green milkweed patch around the corner from our house has been the highlight of these weeks in isolation. Someone mowed the empty lot this year which was good. I had been contemplating doing it myself because grass and shrubs were encroaching on the milkweed […]
Northbound to Denali
Proud of his Spider Man birthday shoes! Let’s pretend they aren’t threadbare now! Skipping over more glacier photos to jump to Denali for a bit… The morning of Forest’s fifth birthday we woke up very early at our hotel in Eagle River, north of Anchorage. Coincidentally our friend Eliana had been staying at a friend’s […]
