I thought I had enough photos for at least two more posts from our trip to San Bernard NWR but it looks like I only have a smattering of photos that don’t really congeal into a write-up about a specific trail. The rest of our time at SBNWR was spent popping in and out of an assortment of trails near the wildlife drive. These Swamp Rose Mallows, Hibiscus moscheutos were seen on the main road into the refuge as we crossed Cocklebur Slough. Climbing hempvine, Mikania scandens We ducked into the Bobcat Woods Trail as we waited for another family to leave the Wolfweed Wetlands area. A swampy view of…

Rhynchosia sp. The Sundew Trail was our last stop during our East Texas adventures back over Memorial Day weekend. It seems like it was last weekend and also about three months ago. I don’t recall having hiked the entire Sundew Trail in previous visits but I will say that I think I enjoyed it more than the Pitcher Plant Trail! Swamp Darner, Epiaeschna hero Dragonflies and damselflies are two insects that I am slowly (very) trying to learn a bit better. They aren’t nearly as showy as butterflies but they are just as curious and interesting to watch. Forest started going along the boardwalk section of the trails and calling…

Posts from 2011: Part I, Part II, and Part III—I’ve noticed a few mis-identifications on those old posts and need to go back and fix them. Small-Flower Pawpaw, Asimina parviflora We arrived to Watson Preserve mid-morning before the heat started setting in. And honestly, as I’m writing this two weeks later, it is much hotter and more humid now than it was then. Someone pulled in not long after we arrived, an older couple, who asked if we’d visited before. They didn’t stay long and I don’t even know that they saw the back part of the preserve with the bog! We started off on the boardwalk that eventually winds…

Things are quite heavy in the US at the moment. I have thoughts, of course, but I’m going to sit on them a few more days and hopefully incorporate them into my usual monthly Life Lately posts later this weekend. For now we will re-wind back to two weeks ago when we visited the Pitcher Plant Bog in the Big Thicket. I have a lot of posts coming in the next week because I edited a bunch of photos, so hold tight! Southern Leopard Frog, Lithobates sphenocephalus I hadn’t been out to the Pitcher Plant Bog since December of 2013. It was right before I got pregnant with Forest and…

Last Friday Forest and I ventured out for our first drive-thru food since this pandemic started. Chris had a field job south of town and took the opportunity of being so close to Galveston to get some fishing in after the field work was done. That meant he was not going to be home for dinner. When this typically happens, Forest and I will go and get food, maybe do a Target or craft store run after, and then head home. Or sub the Target/craft store for a trip to the playground. Since our usual habits are very much altered these days we waited in the drive-thru and took our…

Our last stop on this Trinity River NWR tour was only a few miles away from the Knobby Knees Trail. If you look at the map you can see how the two trails get very near each other far back towards the river. Green Anole, Anolis carolinensis A whirlpool caused by the water rushing through the culvert under the levee we were walking on. Forest was enamored by this when I pointed it out to him because he had just begun creating his own little whirlpools in the paddling pool we have in the backyard. This trail started off promising, despite being surrounded by deep water on both sides of…

Ruddy Dagger, Acronicta rubricoma Knobby Knees Day Use Area Trail Map After our hike at Brierwood Day Use Area we drove south to the town of Liberty where a few more day use areas were closer to civilization and had a higher liklihood of being maintained. Or, that was the thought. This trail series begins at the back of Liberty Municipal Park. Forest looked sadly at the flagged off playground and wished he could play. I would have loved letting him run around for 30-45 minutes! A few people were out walking, a father and son were having batting practice on the ball field, and otherwise it was fairly quiet.…

Last weekend we trekked to the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge to try to do some hiking. We ended up at three different refuge unit day use areas, the first one being the Brierwood Day Use Area east of the town of Cleveland. I wanted to escape a bit further from our usual haunt of Sam Houston National Forest, or at least the west side of the forest, and also get into some different habitats. The Brierwood unit looked like it would be perfect for social distancing, and it was! Trail map here —- I had to dig to find this, by the way. It isn’t easily found on the…

On Good Friday we made our escape—we hit the Lone Star Trail in Sam Houston National Forest. I was going stir crazy and as much as I love being at home and can make things work, I wanted to see “outside”—outside itself but outside as in an area greater than our neighborhood. Plus, I was missing wildflower season and I wanted to attempt to see more flowers before the heat of summer settled in. Very local and in-town locations I knew would be busier and we wanted to avoid those places. After seeing some other folks in other areas of the state and country go hiking and often at empty…