Thoughts
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Le Sigh
We finally made it to DFW today around 5pm. The perfect time for traffic. We had smooth sailing the entire trip until we hit Dallas rush hour and then a few key places near my parents house in Tarrant county. I have to be honest, it was hard to leave Florida. When we passed Pensacola and into Alabama I felt very sad. Through Alabama and Mississippi, where we stayed last night, I felt lost. It subsided a little once we entered the western part of Louisiana and then, finally, east Texas. But, it feels weird being back home. It’s home, but not home. A limbo state. And there is snow…
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The Last Trip to Fakahatchee Strand
This week will be full of ‘last’ trips. Every time I go somewhere or drive somewhere I wonder if it will be the last time I’ll drive by it. When we left Fakahatchee yesterday I was reading a magazine and when I looked up and realized it’d be the last time for awhile I said goodbye while watching the evening sun glisten across the fields. I wanted to go for one last trip there but my idea was to go see some variegated Guzmania monostachia. Instead Chris and his hiking friend Rich wanted to go to a very distant population of Cranichis muscosa, the moss loving orchid. It was lost…
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The Last Ghost Orchid Trip
It was bittersweet taking our last ghost orchid trip to Little Slough. When Chris found our slough in 2007 (you’ll have to scroll down to May because I didn’t link titles back then) we’d been searching for ghost orchids for several years. We’d tromped all around Fakahatchee Strand looking for various plants and just exploring, not really knowing any different orchids. When we found this orchid, Campylocentrum pachyrrhizum after a geocaching camping event, we were super excited because we thought it was a ghost orchid. Only, it wasn’t. Close—but no cigar. Sadly, this orchid isn’t even there anymore, it was taken by someone right off the tree. Bummer. We looked…
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Mushroom-y Thoughts
One area I’d like to improve upon is my identification of mushrooms. Right now it is nil. Nada. Nothing. They are such intricate creatures, fungi. These are beautiful; the white and brown are such a beautiful combination. Find a good piece of rotting material, wood, animal, excrement, whatever—and up grows a mushroom. Sometimes over night. I’ve been struggling lately with the idea of leaving Florida. I do have a Florida post brewing in my head, but my problem is mostly because it was here in Florida that I really learned to see nature around me. I learned the ecosystems and started learning to identify plants and animals and took a…
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Nearly Wordless Wednesday—with music
Mostly because I’m obsessed with this song at the moment. M. Ward—To Go Home. Realized I loved it via my friend Sara and her wonderful playlist on her blog.
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Packing, Packing, Packing
Ok, so there isn’t a ton of packing going on this week, especially since Chris got back on Friday and we are just kinda getting back into the swing of things. Saturday we spent the day in the yard, cleaning it up and getting it ready for the plant sale. It was a big pain but it made the yard look so much better. A big pile formed at the end of the driveway for the trash man (and women if there are any). Sunday we held the plant sale, cloudy as it was. We had our first sale back in November and managed to sell a lot of the…
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Monday Garden Musings
It is fairly quiet in the garden these days. After the cold snap, everything took a hit. I like this time of year because it isn’t so overwhelming. The grass doesn’t grow 10′ in a day and the vines aren’t trying to suffocate each other. It’s more relaxing. A little bit more reverse lens technique for some closeups: A fly buzzing the loquat flowers Plantain flowers Hibiscus grandideri about to bloom A less mature H. grandidieri blossom Chalice vine Variegated vanilla A little fern, a little recruit… I’ve been enjoying these garden blogs lately: Chiot’s Run The Inadvertent Farmer Fennel and Fern: they have a blog but it appears their…
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Blogging is my Scrapbook
Going through my old scrapbooks the other day I realized that blogging has become my scrapbook. I abandoned the hardcore scrapbooking phase I went through a few years ago and it seems that it has been reflected here on my blog instead. It has changed for me over time, blogging. I remember the days of blogger and live journal and it was quite a different era. There weren’t any pro-bloggers, people who made money writing. These days it seems there are people making money at writing on their site, giving their opinions, and while all of that sounds great, I’m glad to just be here writing for myself. I think…
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Washed Up
I’m a little lonely today. It’s cloudy outside, the sun hasn’t peaked out and said hello, the cats are curled up, and everyone is out somewhere, doing something and I’m not. Reviewing the rest of the Cayo Costa photos make me a little depressed. Call it two weekends of not getting outside, that’s probably my problem. So, I’m savoring the washed up fauna that found its way onto the shore… Oystercatchers…the first time I’ve seen these birds. A gannett…not sure if it was injured or feigning injury, but it was nice to see the bird up close. An ancient animal, horseshoe crab… Even the man-made objects get washed up…
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Tomatoes Make Me Happy
I’m going through some older photos from the past years. No tomatoes this year. But, they make me happy. They are the perfect plant, I think. They smell divine, their fruit is delicious and they are just so pretty. We still have tomato sauce from last year. Not a jar of spaghetti sauce bought in this house all year! My mind is wound up these days. I follow Chris Guillebeau in my email and have been for awhile. He said something in a recent blog post that stuck with me: “The road not taken. The destination not explored. The adventure not pursued. The life unlived. If we’re going to lose…