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Trespassers: James Prosek and the Texas Prairie at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art
I came across James Prosek’s work last fall when someone I was following on Instagram posted that he had an exhibit, Trespassers: James Prosek and the Texas Prairie at the Amon Carter in Fort Worth. I hadn’t been to the Amon Carter in probably two decades but put it on my list to wrangle some people to go with me during the Christmas holidays when we were in Fort Worth visiting family. My mom had taken Forest and his cousins there last summer, an activity to beat the searing Texas heat, and they had all loved it. So, we wrangled up the kids again and my mom, Chris, and I…
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A Pre-Freeze Hike on the Lone Star Trail
This bright red-orange sapling tree was stunning but I’m not totally sure what it is. First thoughts were black gum, Nyssa sylvatica, but closer looks at the leaves suggest maybe a Prunus or Pyrus. ID is welcome! Machine clearing in lieu of fire along one section of the trail. You know the terrain is getting good when you find the dwarf palmettos and the river cane! Lots of Sparse-lobed Grapefern, Sceptridium biternatum, along the trail right now. The floodplain section begins… Caney Creek A new find for us in Sam Houston and the westernmost plant on iNaturalist, Georgia holly, Ilex longipes. Hiker crew! Keely crossing a small creek. Ahhhh, the…
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Meeting Nabalus barbatus, barbed rattlesnake root | Wildflower Wednesday
We went camping at Martin Dies Jr State Park in October, and while I had some usual suspects to check out on the trails there, I had a plant in mind I wanted to attempt to scout out in Jasper County—between Jasper and Kirbyville. Nabalus barbatus, aka barbed rattlesnake root, came on my radar a few years ago. It is relatively scattered and uncommon in east Texas as you can see in the map from iNaturalist above. Being uncommon and also trying to make sure I’m in the area at the right time for a bloom, well, it hadn’t worked out for a while to visit. I asked Chris to…
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Frost Flower Morning
No snow and thankfully no power outages (crossing fingers) with this Polar Vortex, but we did have some sleet yesterday morning and a smidge of ice. Other than that, it is just very cold (though I think my friend Patrice would say it is downright balmy compared to Healy, AK!). School was cancelled for today so I’m working from home and I ventured outside to check out the frost flowers on the frostweed this morning. I think these are probably the most interesting frost flowers I’ve seen so far in our yard! I hope everyone is staying warm out there!
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Exploring the Big Woods Nature Trail
In December, after the three of us went to a volunteer workday at Watson, we stopped by the Big Woods Trail in Woodville at Heritage Village. I only found out this trail existed back in October when I did a different volunteer event at the Village with a couple of other Watson folks but at the time I didn’t have time to explore the trails. This time I had an agenda (hopefully more on that soon!) and I was also just curious about the trails, too. Here’s what we saw: There are less than a mile of trails but all of the little side trails make it feel as if…
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Two-striped Mermiria, Mermiria bivittata & Orchelimum sp. | Wildlife Wednesday
Mostly sharing these two because they have been sitting in my drafts for eons! I took their photos back in July 2021 in Dripping Springs when we went there for my birthday and unfortunately I’m just now getting around to sharing their pretty portraits!
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Late Summer Evening Walk
Back in September I took an early evening walk around the neighborhood to scope out a few things I saw blooming. Seeing these photos once again has me seriously ready for spring and summer to come. I spent some time in the garden today (drafting this on Sunday evening) and it was so great to be doing gardening things, and looking at these photos just has me looking forward to warmth again. Soon…soon. Ascelpias linearis in our garden. Some oleander aphids photobombing as well. Kuschelina thoracica, a flea beetle. Zephyranthes carinata in our right-of-way, an introduced species we planted. Hyptis alata, musky mint, down by the pond shoreline. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher,…
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Early Winter at Watson | Silent Sunday
December 10, 2023 view of Geraldine Watson’s cabin at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve I grew up in the, as I say, these beautiful woodlands and everything. And on Sunday afternoons my mother would take us walking in the woods flower-picking. And we would pick Birdfoot Violets and Winecups and all those things. And mother would point plants to us that her mother had made medicines from and dyes from. And she would tell us stories all about how they made their own cloth and all that. And, then I learned the trees from my father who worked for a lumber company. And, the mill there at Doucette was a…
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Best Books of 2023
In 2023 I set the goal to read 40 books in my Goodreads challenge. I hit 42 and spent December thinking I would read two more but just never did. And that’s fine. I lowered my goal to 30 this year because I want to read a giant stack of magazines I have piled up in addition to some thicker books I’ve been putting off for a while. Audiobooks will still fill in many gaps and I suspect I’ll surpass 30 books easily but I prefer to ease up on myself on this end a bit. I looked over the books I read in 2023 on Goodreads and realized it…
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First Day Hike at Lake Arrowhead State Park
It was January 2022 the last time we did a First Day Hike, that time we tromped around Tandy Hills and the newly opened Broadcast Hill trail system. Last year my parents were at our house for New Year’s so we didn’t get out for a hike. This year we spent the week after Christmas in DFW before Chris and I drove to Wichita Falls on New Years Eve to stay at our favorite B&B, the Harrison House in Wichita Falls. We first stayed there in late 2021 after our Charon’s Garden Wilderness Hike in the Wichita mountains and stayed there again on our drive back from New Mexico in…
