Travel & Places
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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…
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Sandhill Cranes at Riverbend Park
On our first full day in Florida we went up to Rivebend Park in northern Palm Beach county to paddle on the Loxahatchee River with our friend Gator Man/Tom. At lunch time we pulled off into a large picnic areas to eat and stand up to stretch our legs. As we were sitting at one of the chickees we noticed a sandhill crane that was apparently injured. One of its legs was broken or bent backwards and it appeared to hurt pretty bad. Then we noticed a second crane off behind us on the other side of the picnic area. Soon they started communicating. It’s hard to fathom how loud…
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Return to Florida
Last week Chris and I flew to Florida just as a nasty ice storm was hitting Houston. It was perfect timing. The only problem was our direct flight from Houston to Ft. Lauderdale was cancelled, with no explanation. We scurried to figure out how to get to Florida in the hours of the morning before most gate counters were open in the airport, but Chris was able to get us on a flight to Tampa leaving 10 minutes after our original flight and then connect to Ft. Lauderdale later. We arrived over 2 hours later than we’d wanted, and then spent nearly an hour trying to figure out where our…
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Feral Cat Love
Sweet, sweet Little Callie. She lets us pet her, sometimes we can pick her up briefly. Unfortunately she and Fred are both picked on by Tom and Mr. Stripey, and apparently by Ruby on occassion. Sometimes I wish I could bring her inside and she could be a girlfriend for Samson or Leo. Fred, sweet and shy boy. We thought we were going to lose Fred last week. Two weeks ago Ruby was sick for a few days, lingering off by herself and not eating. She appeared miserable but after three or four days she began eating. Sometime in the middle of her sickness Isis disappeared. She has not returned.…
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Pineywoods Native Plant Center | Nature In The City
Over the weekend Chris and I were in Nacogdoches and spent some time around Stephen F. Austin State University and their outdoor botanical parks. The first one we stopped at was the Pineywoods Native Plant Center on the north side of the campus. The directions to get there were a little sketchy for our Garmin to figure out, but eventually we found it. There was a family event going on with kids running to different stations to learn about nature—at one station I saw something called the ‘Bird Olympics’. I wonder what that was about? After walking around the front part of the center we found out there were trails…