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Orchid Recovery Program Video
Chris was contacted by the Illinois Orchid Society in conjunction with the Orchid Recovery Program to utilize the video he put together of the sphinx moth pollinating the ghost orchid. You can see their video below with Chris’ video spliced in at around 3:43. We’re hoping that maybe this summer we can get to Florida in order to get some better photos of the sphinx moth pollinating the ghost orchids. Chris has something he’s trying to rig up. Of course that all depends on our job situation! But, don’t worry, you haven’t seen the last of ghost orchids from us!
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Wordless Wednesday
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Florida Trail Tales 3: SR 60 to US 192
As we left River Ranch I noticed the sky had clouded over a bit. We had a road walk to connect to another road walk, this time we were headed for S.R. 60, listed in the book as being incredibly full of traffic and quite dangerous to walk on because of a narrow shoulder and sloped grass sides. Our go to find-somewhere-at-20-miles-and-stealth wasn’t going to work here. So, we’d looked on the map and decided that we’d go to where it said “information” on the map at one of the lock’s at the Kissimmee River and S.R. 60 and hope it was good enough to pitch our tent. On our…
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Awaiting Spring at Tandy Hills
Chris and I ventured to Tandy Hills on Friday to check on the trout lilies for the season. While we did find a lot of the plants up and growing, we didn’t find a single bloom. We couldn’t decide if we were too late or a bit early, even though last year we saw blooms at about two weeks prior to this time. So, who knows? It has been dry this year so perhaps a rain event would trigger some blooms? If not, I guess I will have to wait until next year. I didn’t leave empty handed photograph wise, though. We did find a few flowers poking out and…
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Spring Link Roundup
Things are starting to flush out in green here and a few things are blooming. However, it is very dry here and we need some rain to get more spring wildflowers growing here in Texas. Flower photos to come! First up, I added a widget that allows you to bookmark a blog posting in a social networking site or to email it. It will be at the very end of a post. Yes, I know I am decades behind in this trend, but I thought it would be very useful for the posts that are most interesting (I’m hoping there are some!). So, there ya go! And a few links…
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365 Photos: Days 2,3,4
For the record, I’ve been horrible are remembering to take photos every day, so these aren’t consecutive days. I’ll try harder. African penguin, Fort Worth Zoo Tech specs: ISO 1600, f/8, 1/20sec, 55mm Miniature rose Tech specs: ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/250sec, 55mm Leaves in the pond Tech: ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/100sec, 100mm
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A Year Ago on Springer
A year ago: -We signed our first log book. -We saw our first white blaze. -We froze our butts off in the freezing rain. -We started a crazy, awesome adventure that I won’t forget. Some day I will stop writing about it—maybe—we’ll see about that—but it’s still fresh in my head even if it was a year ago we started.
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Florida Trail Tales 2: Lake Okeechobee to River Ranch
This entry will be less heavy on photos as this is where our SD card went on the fritz. Instead I will try to paint a majestic picture with my words. Or not. I’ll let you decide. After leaving our stealth site at John Stretch Park we ascended the Lake Okeechobee dike. We’d originally planned to go around the east side of the lake even though it is a few miles longer, mostly because it had an extra city or two for food. Yeah, we plan for food. But when Shamrock Steve told us about the dike being closed on that side we altered our plans and went west. This…
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Florida Trail Tales 1: Loop Road to John Stretch Park
So, the Florida Trail….before we started we spent four days in crowded civilization called South Florida. Having exited the state of Florida a year ago to hike the AT it was going to be fun to see some old sights and see friends. Our first stop was to Bass Pro Shop to purchase backpacker meals, fuel and some other essentials as well as to eat at the really yummy Islamorada Fish House for lunch. After lunch we drove an hour south to see our friend Christine who was leisurely working that afternoon. We chatted for a good while about all sorts of things from hiking to local geocaching gossip before…
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The Best Bread Ever.
Before we left on the Florida Trail I found this recipe for no knead bread on Alicia Paulson’s blog. I tried it for the first time the other night and wow, it is awesome! Want bread for dinner? Totally possible. Oh, this stuff is so good! Here’s my take on it tonight: Check the bread at 35 minutes and see if it is still sticky in the middle. If it is, add another 10 minutes. According to Zoe, “This is good bread!”. If a two year old likes it, you’ll like it!