Outdoors
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Late Spring Wildflowers
Here in Texas most of the major wildflowers that are seen earlier in the spring, bluebonnnets and paintbrushes, have faded for the most part. In their place a plethora of other wildflower have taken over, such as these prickly poppies. Their white tops dot the landscape of many fields around the area and the flower is quickly becoming one of my favorite wildflowers. Over the weekend Chris and I went to Lake Somerville State Park in the Nails Creek Unit for a camping trip. You may remember that we went hiking on the Somerville Trailway there last November with our AT friend Red Hat. Chris and I didn’t hike 9…
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Swampin’ in Fakahatchee | Part I
Lots of photos in this post! Our first day in Fakahatchee for the yearly Central Slough Survey, we joined park biologist Mike Owen and several other botany and plant enthusiasts for a slow slog down Mink Slough. The best thing about walking through this slough was the generally it was fairly easy walking with little bushwhacking. The Central Slough Survey is conducted by Mike and some other trusted folks who are on the lookout for rare plants. Some plants on the radar are those that are thought to be extirpated from the park. Back in the 40s and 50s the swamp was logged and throughout the swamp logging trams were…
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Poison Ivy on Steroids
I first noticed this vine last year, which grows on a pine tree just on the other side of our fence on the neighbor’s property, and had identified it as poison ivy. Chris just noticed it this year and wants to cut the vine, which is within reach of our snippers. It’s a pretty magnificent vine despite its itchiness status! Either way, you’ve got to appreciate the tenacity of poison ivy!
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The Magic of Little Slough | Part II
More swamp and ghost orchid magic…. Nurse logs are one of my favorite parts of the swamp! How could you not fall in love with this place??? I mean, really???
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Finding Texas’ Famous Trees | Trees 135 & 153
The last time Chris and I went to Westcave Preserve I was browsing through their small library of local and natural history books. I picked out one called Famous Trees of Texas. Even though it was published in the early 70s, the book looked pretty cool and I told Chris we should try to find it. Lo and behold a few weeks later one arrived in the mail that he had bought off of Ebay. It had been sitting on our coffee table for the last few months when I decided last minute over the weekend to bring it with us to Nacogdoches when we went to theSFA plant sale.…
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The Magic of Little Slough | Part I
It had been four years since I had been to Little Slough. (More background on what the slough is on that link.) Chris had been in the summer of 2011, but otherwise we weren’t sure what we would find when we returned to our ghost orchid oasis. Because the water levels had not dropped as they normally do during this time of year, we were in for a lot more water than we were expecting. Navigating in was a bit hairy too, the usual pathway in quickly disappeared once we began. That’s a good sign that the area does not receive a lot of traffic, something we’ve tried to protect…
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A Bear Story
I took this photo of Chris when we were in Florida three weeks ago. It is at the location where he was chased out of the swamp by a Florida black bear. Yes…you read that right! Back when we lived in Florida, Chris was out exploring an area in the swamps in search of ghost orchids and also to see what might be out in that area. Many of these sections in the wildlands of Florida are very little explored, particulary the wet cypress domes and sloughs. As he was approaching what he now calls ‘Bear Slough’, walking through dense vegetation and only seeing tall ferns and brush up ahead…
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A Really Quick Jaunt to Jonathan Dickinson SP
After we left our paddling adventure we drove towards the Atlantic ocean and Jonathan Dickinson State Park, home of many camping and hiking adventures over the years. (see photos here). Our first stop was the parking lot up front by the park office and a short walk down what used to be part of the Ocean to Lake segment of the Florida Trail. Lupinus diffusus Sand pine Orange blazes turned to bright green blazes??? We were thoroughly confused until we got back to the trailhead and I looked at the paper maps stowed in the map box. Apparently this section of the OTL had been turned into a loop and…
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Four C Trail Ramblings: Davy Crockett NF | Part II
Sapsuckers have been working on this tree In case you missed part I: go here. Looking back at these photos taken a month ago I realize that spring has really come, despite it still feeling a bit delayed. The flora has woken up and and begun its new growth for the year, at least some of it. Also while looking at these photos I remember the feeling of quiet and remoteness I felt while walking in the woods off the trail. I wondered how often anyone came this way, much less went off trail as we did, even if we only went just a little ways. It reminded me of…
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Paddling at Riverbend Park
When Chris and I were planning out our Florida trip we knew we wanted to go paddling somewhere. It was a tie between the Loxahatchee River, one of Florida’s two National Wild and Scenic Rivers, or Fisheating Creek. Fisheating Creek was at the top of our list but the shuttle service to complete one of the runs came with stipulations that the water levels had to be at a certain height for them to drop us off. Unfortunately when Chris called the water was lower than needed for us to do that run, and while we could have paddled downstream or even upstream a certain length and got out and…