Hiking

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Definite tussock moth caterpillar, Orgyia definita

    With Spring knocking on the door, I’m looking forward to caterpillar season once again. I’ve seen a few inchworms lately, dangling from their silks in the middle of the trails at Kleb Woods, but no gregarious species are out yet that I’ve noticed. Soon, though. Until then, let’s enjoy this lovely tussock moth caterpillar that I found among the leaf litter at the Big Thicket last October. The bright yellow knobs are called verrucae and while I can’t find that this is a venomous species (all those hairs!), I am reading that they can cause skin irritation, which is why I generally approach any of these fluffy caterpillar types with…

  • Hiking,  Oklahoma,  Outdoors,  Travel & Places

    Charon’s Garden Wilderness | Wichita Mountains NWR

    Getting up to DFW for Christmas break was one of those is it going to happen? ordeals since Omicron broke out. Skipping out on a trip up there last December meant that I really wanted to get up there this year. Plus, my nephew was going to be my parent’s house for a week while his sister and parents went to New Mexico for a scouting ski trip. Which meant a lot of uninterrupted cousin play time for Forest and Grayson and in turn meant that Chris and I could likely slip away for a couple of days and let the grandparents wrangle the two boys for a few days.…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    First Day Hike – 2022

    Chris and I got out on Saturday morning to get a First Day hike in at Tandy Hills. Every year the Friends of Tandy Hills hosts a First Day hike over the perimeter trail, which is usually done in a group. This year they continued last year’s option of going solo and emailing them and getting a certificate for completing it solo. I haven’t gotten around to submitting for a certificate but I will say it was a lovely 2.5 mile hike. Plus, we got to see sections of the new Broadcast Hill purchase that has expanded this little prairie remnant just east of downtown Fort Worth. As it was…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Snapshots from Goose Island State Park

    Our trip to Goose Island State Park in early October was lovely, though the mosquitoes and the heat were still ramped up onto “high”. But we made do and enjoyed what we could. The Goose Island Oak still stands tall, though quite weathered and who knows how many more decades (or centuries) it still has left in it. Wineflower, Boerhavia diffusa As is my usual these days, I am always on the prowl for plants and interesting fauna to add to my iNaturalist sightings. This interesting little plant I only took a few quick pictures of because I thought it was nothing of particular interest but if it is what…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    October Wanderings at Lake Creek Preserve

    A few weeks ago we escaped the constant weekend work that has been pouring concrete raised beds and went for an early morning hike at Lake Creek Preserve. Chris and I had visited by ourselves in July while Forest was visiting grandparents and the mosquitoes were terrible then. I guess I didn’t end up writing about it here but you can read a post from Dec 2020 to see this park in a different season. Autumn has brought out the fungi once again and I got a kick out of this fungi upon fungi situation with the mold growing on the mushroom. There used to be a sign marking this…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    First Fall Hike of the Season

    Contrast it with this next one—> First family Hike North Wilderness Loop from February 2015. The weekend before Tropical Storm/Hurricane Nicholas came ashore, the three of us headed for Sam Houston National Forest to start off the fall hiking season. It had been several months since we’d done any significant hiking and the day was perfect. It was warmer than it is currently but the light had changed and you could just tell the seasons were changing. We opted for the North Wilderness Loop, a loop we’ve done before as I’ve linked above, but it has been quite a while since we hiked it. I enjoy revisiting hikes and loops…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Thoughts,  Travel & Places

    Grabbing Hold of The Feeling

    We had stayed up beyond midnight the night before, talking and catching up despite that it was well passed our middle aged bedtimes. Bleary-eyed I woke up on Saturday morning as the sun broke through the curtain in the loft upstairs. I rolled over a couple of times, got on my phone to distract myself, and then finally convinced myself that I should get out of bed and do the thing I wanted to do, which was explore the pastures on the property of the AirBnB we were staying at. Downstairs, Michelle and Stephanie were already awake. Steph had made coffee and the two of them were talking quietly while…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Wet and Soggy on the Lone Star Trail (Phelps Segment)

    Earlier this year my friend Keely had inquired if I wanted to attempt to go backpacking with her and another friend. This was before vaccines were prevalent and at that point I hadn’t had mine, so I declined. Well, a few weeks ago she emailed again and asked if I had my vaccine yet and if I wanted to go backpacking. Of course I did! We pinned down a date and of course as the time got closer the rain chances went up. In fact, it’s been rainy for the last week! First it was thunderstorms coming from the west and then an unnamed tropical system came up from the…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Back to the Pitcher Plant Trail

    Let’s pretend this isn’t a dusty post languishing in my drafts folder since last summer! I wanted to post it a few months ago but lacked the interest in getting it out. And seeing as I took these photos in June 2020 and a new June is rapidly approaching I figured I might as well get this one up. And I am itching to get back to the Big Thicket soon, too. I am leaning towards this being a Carolina satyr Hermeuptychia sosybius however Intricate Satyrs are very similar and this one has that look like it is just slightly different and could be an Intricate. Going through my iNaturalist…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Guadalupe River Shoreline Explorations | Guadalupe River State Park

    Hi there. It’s been a few weeks. I haven’t felt much like writing here and to be honest, I’ve got a huge back log of things to share from not only Thanksgiving but I still have Alaska items to share, and now I have posts from Arkansas and a camping trip we took over Easter—and it’s a lot. I have enough photos processed to write a few weeks worth of posts but the last thing I feel like doing is sitting down and writing. I feel stuck in my writing here. I basically feel like I just do trip reports and while I enjoy that I need to figure out…