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Beachin’: New Smyrna and Canaveral National Seashore
We had an early flight out of IAH into MCO on June 5th, so we were all rather bleary eyed when we landed in Florida. No one slept on the plane despite my thinking Forest might conk out mid-flight. No such luck. I think the flying was too exciting! I was excited, too! It had been four years since I had flown and there was a good stretch of time when I flew several times a year. I love to fly and to travel and not getting to do so now is definitely a bummer but maybe in a few years that will change again? That said, we were surprised…
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10 Days in Florida
Annnnndd…we’re back! The three of us jetted off to Florida the early morning of June 5th, flying into Orlando, and returned on the 15th. Last year Chris’ mom announced she was planning a big family trip to Disney World and so I had a year to mentally prepare. For starters it would mean traveling with a 3.5 year old on a plane and what was that going to be like?, and the second…Disney World. I know some people go gangbusters for that place but it wasn’t high up on my ranking of places I was looking forward to revisit. Chris and I spent maybe 2 days there with his mom…
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A Taste of Summer
We’ve reached the time of year where any time you step outside for less than 5 minutes sweat will bead and roll down your body. For me, it’s simultaneously too much and glorious. I’ve always been a heat loving person but there are definitely times when the heat gets me down and a headache comes on from the oppression of it all. But if I spend most of the day out there I will typically acclimate and be set for the day and plan to just stink to high heaven by the end of it all. I walked around the garden a few days ago and took a bunch of…
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Life Lately | May 2018
+In My Head We just had a great long weekend with all of my family down to visit. It’s been a long time since we’ve had both my parents and then Curtis, Stephanie, Zoe, and Grayson all over at the same time. Having a three day weekend made it worthwhile to have everyone down. Often if we try to cram everything into a typical weekend it feels too rushed and there’s not enough time to enjoy everyone. This weekend we had plenty of time to go to the splash pad, the plant nursery, plenty of time playing in the kid pool, running around the yard, and loads of other things!…
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Flood Number One Billion and Five
(Ahh, sweet rain! What a relief—right???) One would think that after a month or so of no rain that a few hours of rain would be a needed respite. And it was when it all started. At this point in the nearly six years (at the end of June) that we’ve been here the number of times we’ve had flooding issues has continued to grow. Frankly, sometimes I dream of a drought—yes, tempting to wish for a drought but that also has its own terrible consequences. How about some balance, Mother Nature? Or maybe we’re just screwed because we’ve effed the climate so much this is our new weather pattern?…
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Feral Bees Found Our Hive
A little over a week ago Forest and I were out on the front porch to send off Chris as he left for field work. It was right after dinner, nearing 6pm and the sun comes over the driveway rather harshly at that time during this season. In the glow of that hour, we noticed a huge ball of insects flying, backlit by the sun. We paused to look at them for a second and Chris started to say something about them, literally made it three or four words in an attempt to say one thing before switching, and then getting really excited to say that they were bees! We…
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Spring Monarch Season
When we finally got the flower garden beds designed and planted five years ago we added in a plant or two of tropical milkweed in hopes of attracting monarch butterflies and caterpillars. For some reason those plants would last the year and then fade out—I’m not really sure what happened because our weather and situation is no different now than it was then, and we’ve even had colder winters since then and the tropical milkweed had returned. In Florida, we had a a couple of plants in containers and some in our front flower bed at the rental house where we would see monarch caterpillars every now and then. South…
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April Days in the Edible Garden
Nearly mid-May and I’m finally here to write-up what happened around the garden and yard in April. Oh boy. I think it’s time to return to taking photos in small batches and processing them accordingly. There was a time when I was really good at that but these days I take photos and the camera languishes on my desk until I find time to process photos and then I end up with a back log of things to write about. Right now I’m only finding time to process photos on weekends or during Forest’s bath time and other than that I’m mostly finding time to do and be rather than…
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Life Lately | April 2018
+In My Head Stopping to just look at the garden, to see where the light falls. Enjoying the funny and interesting things that Forest says. The ERA is Back: That would be really damn awesome! There have been other people writing about this thought I’m about to say—-as much as I’m still bitter we didn’t end up with a female president in 2016 I think some of the fall out from that (as sucky as it has been) has triggered some things into our general conscience and awakened a new revolution of pushing forward some issues with equality I think we all got complacent with. And if we can *crossing…
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Along Onion Creek
Onion Creek is a significant waterway coursing through southeast Austin and is prone to flooding issues. Some of the results of those flooding issues were seen along the sides of the creek with piles of debris and trash towering far over our heads. The area along the creek within McKinney Falls State Park is somewhat reminiscent of the slabs of rock along the Pedernales River at Pedernales Falls State Park. However, the falls are much smaller and quietly stated than what you see at the river. Being so close to the city, this park sees the influx of crowds on weekends and being that it was a holiday weekend made…