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Thanksgiving at Lake Brownwood State Park
The lake was very low, still feeling the effects of the drought. Don’t cut hearts into the prickly pears, y’all. We made Thanksgiving camping reservations a little later this year and paired with only having the four days off instead of taking the entire week, we needed to go somewhere mid-range, not making the trek to South Llano River SP or the Davis Mountains as per what we’ve done frequently in the last several years. Plus, we’d already hit the Davis Mtns back during Spring Break in 2023, though I could easily go there twice a year or more if time was available. Lake Brownwood is “out there” in that…
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Cracking Open A New Sketchbook | The Sketchbook Diaries
After taking so much of last year off from doing any kind of art, I am back at it. I have started two new watercolor sketchbooks and am planning to get back into my perpetual nature journal, too. In fact, I finally completed an entry from last March recently and need to work my way through more of them to catch up. I wanted to start a sketchbook for some hikes we’ve been doing and will continue to be doing in the coming year for the Big Thicket. I’m working from photos because: time, but at some point it would be nice if a few of these were en plein…
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Thoughts on Time
People on the internet like to joke that 2016 was actually 2016-2020 and that 2020 was actually 2020-2023 (and maybe even 2024) and I would agree with that sentiment. There’s also those jokes about how 1998 is the same distance away from now as it was from 1988 to 1968, the time period the Wonder Years took place and aired. Nah, can’t be….and yet it is. I’m increasingly feeling like time is an amorphous thing, something ill-defined and increasingly circular. I remember on our Appalachian Trail hike that days would feel like months and months would feel like days. We might have been in the White Mountains but surely it…
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Large-flowered False Foxglove, Aureolaria grandiflora | Wildflower Wednesday
Bumblebee on large-flowered false foxglove BONAP range iNat Observations Aureolaria grandiflora and it’s Aureolaria cousins have been on my to-see list for quite a while now. Imagine my surprise when Chris found them growing at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve last July. I wasn’t expecting them to be there but I should have checked iNaturalist and paid more attention. The bumblebee video is from July at Watson. The other photos are from stumbling across the plant alongside the road in the Turkey Creek Unit of the Big Thicket last September. We’d just come off the Turkey Creek Trail and were walking back to the truck when Chris saw them growing…
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Early Summer Blooms (May 2023)
Standing cypress, Ipomopsis rubra Sweet pea Black-eyed susan vine, Thunbergia alata I did not share a lot of gardening posts last year. It was a very hard summer, with a drought and extensive heat. I wrote a few times over the summer but for the most part I was not very in tune with what was going on. This year will change all of that–hopefully. I missed gardening and garden writing. And digging through my Flickr archives to catch up on posts I was really glad to see some of these photos. Again, how much I missed getting my camera out to take photos instead of always reaching for my…
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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…
