Outdoors
-
Quick Thanksgiving Re-cap
Husband flew home from Pennsylvania after a flight delay on Tuesday night. Delayed our intention of leaving for far west Texas until the wee hours of Wednesday morning. As in 2 a.m. wee hours of the morning. Arrived in Mountain Standard Time at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and was thus happy to receive an extra hour of hiking. Our friends Deal and Steadee who we know via the Appalachian Trail met us out there and we then climbed up the tallest mountain in Texas. Got my ass kicked by said mountain. Had salad for lunch…I wonder why mountain kicked my ass? Hrm, let’s see here…. Saw a beautiful sunrise from…
-
Saguaro Tree
I really think this tree is trying hard to be a saguaro cactus. Sometimes snag trees will have character, but this tree was very much alive and a character of its own. No evidence of a break in the crease so I’m not sure how this tree ended up like this! Want to see it? Hike the Old Loggers Path.
-
Forest Magic
Right now the forest here in PA seems magical. It is in the autumn transition of losing leaves and going dormant. Recent rains have everything glistening and dewy. Perhaps I could venture to say soggy! I know my boots are soggy each day I get done. So many different colors and every day it seems less and less leaves are on the trees. The wind sends so many tumbling down to the ground. Beautiful sphagnum moss A ridge top pond we found. These are more common than I expected. I learned that a lot of these trees on top of the ridges are cherries. They were quizzical little meadows that…
-
Animal Encounters
Last Friday was a good animal encounter day. My coworker Ann and I had just set off down a dirt road towards the area we were supposed to cover for the day when around the bend of the road I spotted something brown. It took about half a second for me to recognize that it was a bear. I said “Bear” to Ann who quickly looked up and we stopped. The bear looked at us for a few seconds, hesitating, and then turned to take off from us. Having seen 20 bears on the A.T. I was not afraid, definitely cautious and was planning on the whole waving hands and…
-
Funky Forest Fungi
It’s been so moist up here that there is a plethora of strange fungi growing. Some are brightly colored, others are just plain large. They definitely add some texture to the forest environment. The top one reminds me of a coral!
-
The Red Eft
My first encounter with these little newts were on the Appalachian Trail. In the spring they were littering the trail and we’d have to be careful not to step on them. Sometimes you can walk absently and not notice that you were inching too close to the little creatures. These newts are in their juvenile terrestrial stage and that can last about two years. Once they reach the adult stage they will move to ponds and wet areas and live their life out there. I have only seen a few out here in PA but they are nice reminders of the AT and the fun wonders of the eastern woods!…
-
A Central Texas Autumn
Last weekend we went to Pedernales Falls State Park for our first camping trip of the season. It was beautiful and while the Pedernales River was not running much (hey, Texas is in a major, major drought!) it was still wonderful. It is only about three hours from our house so even though we set up the tent in the dark it still wasn’t a terrible drive from the Houston area to west of Austin. I’m always upset with people who gloss over autumn in areas that may not have major leaf shows like the northeast. Fall happens in different ways in the south and the drought is making it…
-
16 Miles Through Sam Houston
Mentally I was prepared for a 10-12 mile hike. Because our maps were conflicting and not quite accurate we ended up on a 16 mile hike and I could feel it at the end. Hiking as much as we have hiked in the last year and a half it is easy to gauge how far we travel. Sometimes I think that since we are going on a day hike that I don’t need to prepare as if I’m thru-hiking. That’s a mistake! I learned when we hiked to the giant sycamore and wore cotton socks. This time I didn’t wear my hiking underwear…bad idea. Chafing! I wore the right socks…
-
Texas Wildflowers | Vernonia missurica, Missouri ironweed
While we were doing our field work in the Big Thicket this late spring and early summer we kept coming across this plant in its pre-blooming stage. No one could figure it out until finally it was identified by Ron Lance. And not much later the plant started blooming and it was beautiful! The tell-tale white stripe in the leaves helped us identify it later on without blooms. This particular plant was photographed at Tandy Hills. I was relieved to see a plant I knew among the many unknown prairie plants that abound the preserve. There were a couple of bugs we tried to photograph that were hanging out on…
-
Texas Wildflowers | Eustoma exaltatum ssp. russellianum, Texas bluebells
This annual Texas native is not very common, though we did see the ones shown above at Tandy Hills. The subtle blue-purple flower deserves more respect than it gets, being out shown by other grand Texas natives like the bluebonnet. You may know this genus as also Lisianthus, which can be found at garden centers. Wildflower.org suggests their rarity is due to their beautiful stature and having been picked too much that they cannot reseed. In the gardening world there are many varieties and cultivars, so you’ll be able to find some variety. More information: +A really good write up on the Eustoma genus and the differences regarding the species.…