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Texas Wildflowers: Castilleja indivisa, Texas/Indian paintbrush
The first in a series on Texas wildflowers. The commonly known Indian Paintbrush is almost as famous as it’s wildflower friend the Texas Bluebonnet. The bright red of the paintbrush is usually in a field alongside of its more popular friend. The red and blue are a symbol that spring has definitely arrived in Texas! This native annual can be grown from seed in your own yard if you so wanted. The red of the plant is actually not the flower but bracts surrounding the smaller, less conspicuous flower. In the field we photographed we found a magenta variety in the mix… *later edit*: I actually think this might be…
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Corallorhiza wisteriana, spring coralroot orchid
After finding the flowering plant of spring coralroot orchid at Texoma a week ago Chris and I wanted to find more to get better photos. I asked the folks at Tandy Hills if they’d seen any there but they answered with a negative. My next step was to ask the Fort Worth Nature Center and I got a positive answer. We weren’t quite sure where we might find them other than near the river area and in shaded leaf litter so we set off for the Riverbottom trail. We walked for twenty minutes or so and then Chris spotted some that already had seed pods. *drat*. We kept walking and…
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Swamp Work
Chris and I have made it to our job site down here in S.E. Texas. I spent a little bit of time in Sabine Pass back in college when I was capturing and tagging Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. Luckily I am in a bigger area and not so near all of the petroleum refineries this time around. We’re working in the Big Thicket doing a wetland inventory for a bigger project that will be handled later. Much of the project area is similar to where Chris and I hiked in south Florida, similar to regions of Big Cypress and the Everglades and Water Conservation Areas. But, there are different plants…
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Silent Sunday
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Trail Tales 4: U.S. 192 to Lake Mary
Once we hit U.S. 192 we planned to do another 12 miles, or walk until about 4:30 and see where that got us. We stayed on the grass shoulder on 192 for the most part until we turned onto C.R. 419. Luckily 419 is a quiet two-lane country road that is frequented by mostly locals. Steve told us he’d drive up the road a bit and then walk towards us and then walk back to his car with us. Originally we planned to stealth camp near one of the creeks that was listed as a water source in the book and when we passed by it we realized it might…
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Pull up a seat—link love
These chairs used to be at my grandfather’s house and now sit at my parent’s house. Last summer they worked on getting him to a retirement complex and kept some key items from around the house and yard. They used to sit on an old concrete pad that my brother and I would play on growing up. ~*~Avgolemono Soup recipe…looks delicious! ~*~Spinach risotto recipe…made this one a week or so ago. Loved it! I’d only made risotto one other time and it took much longer than this one did. ~*~Patrice and her husband have made it official, they’ll be hiking southbound on the AT in June! It’s been awesome getting…
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Plot Happenings
Not our onion, someone else’s but it was too pretty to pass up. Several seedlings are getting their second leaves: The carrots… the dill… and the cilantro! Thinning out the okra… and the unlucky ones plucked out. A few of the plants that will give us the beautiful fruit that we’ll make into gumbo or be fried up…mmmm!
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Nature in the City: Spring Creek Forest Preserve
I’ve been digging around to find natural areas in the DFW Metroplex in order to explore some of these areas a bit more. Several months ago I’d bookmarked Spring Creek Forest Preserve in north Garland as an option to see. Finally on Tuesday we made our way out there. Turns out it is very close to my in-laws house and close to a Freebirds, so it was perfect! There are two entrances on each side of Holford Rd, a two lane country road that you would have seen in this area even 5 years ago, but now most of them are spreading out to four lane and being colonized with…
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Consumption and Conservation
Chris’ mom and step-dad have Netflix via their Wii and we’ve been watching a few movies from that lately. My brother also only has Netflix for his tv now, something Chris and I will probably be doing when we settle down again. We never paid for cable other than the very basic stations in conjunction with our internet. However, I enjoy watching movies and there are some tv shows on cable stations I enjoy so it will be nice to have Netflix in this aspect. We’ve been watching a few documentaries, two of which were AT related, Southbounders, though more docu-movie since it has actors, and the Nat Geo Wildspaces…
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Nature in the City: Bob Jones Nature Center
I found out about the Bob Jones Nature Center in Southlake, TX from my friend Amanda. It’s among the many nature areas that line Grapevine Lake. On Monday evening I felt the need to take some photos and get out in nature some so Chris and I drove up to the preserve. It was deserted except for what appeared to be a staff or volunteer car next to the education building. We set off down the trails to the east and behind the education building not sure where we would end up. I initially didn’t take too many photos when I remembered that I could do a Nature in the…